claude+cahen +an+introduction+to+the+first+crusade

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The Past and Present Society

An Introduction to the First CrusadeAuthor(s): Claude CahenSource: Past & Present, No. 6 (Nov., 1954), pp. 6-30Published by: Oxford University Press on behalf of The Past and Present Society

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An Introduction to the First CrusadeTHE SUBJECTOF THE CRUSADES S ONE THAT HAS FASCINATEDVERYmany writers in the past, and still continues to attract apologistsof all persuasions, not only religious, but political, and social.Nevertheless the more that is written, the less there seems to be ofvalue to the scientific historian. It cannot be denied that some ofthe literature is very erudite, and that many of the authors havetried to look at things from a new point of view. In spite of thisthe popular textbooks continue to serve up the same traditionalerrors, while learned works, besides suffering from weaknesses dueto the contemporary outlook on history, suffer also from certaininherent difficulties. The Crusades belong to the history of bothWest and East, and it is difficult for a historian to be an expert inboth. This short article does not pretend to provide even a planfor a comprehensive study of the whole subject. All that I shallattempt will be to examine the particular question of the FirstCrusade, giving an outline of the progress recently made in research,and suggesting desirable lines of further study.For nine and a half centuries, the textbooks have repeated, almostword for word, with mechanical regularity, that the cause, or atleast the immediate cause, of the Crusades was the Turkish conquestof the Near East, which they say constituted a very real threat toChristendom, that had to be countered by military action. Lookingat the Turks in the light of the later history of the Ottoman Empire,historians have supposed them to have been always an intolerantrace. As a first step this traditional view must be considerablymodified.

In IO095 many Christian peoples and the Holy Land itself hadalready been subject to the Moslems for four and a half centuries,and yet there had been no Crusade. Islam, in its attitude towardsunbelievers had from the first been faithful to two distinct principles,on the one hand that the believer was bound by his faith to the dutyof the jihad, the Holy War, whose aim was to bring the unbelieverinto political subjection to Islam, on the other hand that such sub-jection involved no forced conversion, and the unbeliever, oncerelegated to his inferior and subordinate position, enjoyed theprotection of the Moslem Law. Naturally there had been occasionaloutbursts of fury. The only serious one had been El-Hakim's

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AN INTRODUCTIONTO THE FIRST CRUSADEpersecution at the beginning of the XIth century, in Egypt andSyria. This had made a deep impression in the West, because ofthe destruction of the Holy Sepulchre. News of this outrage wascarried home by returning pilgrims. But El-Hakim was mad,and the persecution was never resumed after his death. In spiteof this there continued to be numerous conversions to Islam: thematerial and moral advantages of conforming to the religion of theruling power were obvious enough to account for them withoutthe need of any other pressure. Nevertheless in Palestine andSyria it is probable that Christians remained at the end of the XIthcentury as numerous as Moslems, and in some places, like theLebanon, much more numerous; their life was no different after theTurkish conquerors came from what it had been ever since theArab conquest in the VIIth century.As for the jihad, long before the Turkish conquest it had lostthe character of a great offensive and a serious bid for conquestthat it had had in the first generations after the death of Mohammed.Since the VIIIth century it had only existed as a series of almostroutine forays, becoming more and more infrequent, which werelaunched against the frontier territories of the enemy for the sake ofbooty, with no idea of conquest. Even in this form the Holy Warbecame fainter and fainter; it had real interest only for the soldierson the frontiers, and was a matter of complete indifference to theMoslem population in the heart of Islam. Indeed the frontiersmen,both on the Moslem and on the Infidel side, were often militarycolonists only loosely attached to their central governments, andbetween raids they fraternised with each other in complete indifferenceto frontiers and religious differences. Armenia and Spain providedremarkable examples of such co-existence.

It is true that in the middle of the Xth century there was a revivalin the East of the idea of the Holy War. The initiative wasByzantine. Taking advantage of a temporary political break-downin the Moslem world, the Byzantine emperors had taken theoffensive to recover those parts of eastern Asia Minor and northernSyria which had been lost to the Moslems three centuries earlier.The Hamdanid dynasty of Aleppo, characteristically deserted by theother Moslem states, was left to face the attack alone. The founderof that dynasty, Saif ad-Daula, was supported by the Bedouins,professional marauders, and by the poets, who, imbued with theherioc spirit of ancient Arab poetry, were the creators or the voiceof public opinion. He had stubbornly resisted the invaders andsometimes counter-attacked, thereby restoring the tradition of the

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PAST AND PRESENTjihad to a place of honour. But this had been but a briefconflagration. People had become used to Byzantine victories,andnever wastheremoreintrigueor fraternisationbetween Christiansand Moslems againstother Christiansand other Moslems than in theXIth century.In only two areas did the spirit of the jihad survive, and there itwas directed against pagans, and not Christians: in the Sahara,amongst the groups of wild and fanaticalwarriorssheltered by theribat, Murabitun the Almoravides);and in centralAsia, in the regionof the Syr-Daria,the ghdzis, those volunteerchampionsof the Faith,a sort of militant religious order who renewed against the Turksbeyond the frontiers the immemorialtraditionof the conflict of thesedentary Iranians with the nomadic " Turanians." It was nochance co-incidence of time which was to give these men, of theWest and East alike, a new importancein this history of the Moslemworld.In the XIth centurythe Moslem Westpresentedapictureof politicalanarchy,and, in the eyes of the teachers of the Law, the theologiansand the jurists, one of depravityand decay. They found it easy towin over the wild fanatics to a programme of making a " cleansweep" of this corruption: they appealed to the Almoravideswhoconquered a large part of north Africa. In Spain they could nothave succeeded so easily had not circumstances been favourable,for Spanishsociety was morecultivated,andopposedto " barbarian"intervention. The favourable conditions were provided, involun-tarily, by the Christians. The war between the Christians in theNorth and the Moslems in the South of the Peninsula had beengoing on with alternating periods of vigour and relaxationfor threehundred years, but now, owing to the internal divisions in theircountryit was, as far as the Moslems were concerned,almostextinct.But among the Christians, because of the breakdownof Moslemunity, it had again resumed its aggressive character. Moreover,and this is note-worthy, for reasons which will be given later, thewarwas no longer wagedmerely by the Christiansof Spain, who hadformed the habit of combining war with the needs of " peacefulco-existence," but also by ultramontane warriors, by Frenchmenwho were strangersto such needs, and who thought only of fightingand pillaging under cover of religious duty. It was to save them-selves from this danger that the Spanish Moslems admitted theAlmoravides. Thus by the end of the XIth century Moslem Spainhad recovered its political unity at the price of submitting to theleadershipof a peopleanimatedby the spiritof warand intolerance.

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AN INTRODUCTIONTO THE FIRST CRUSADEA similar development had taken place in the East. There toothe state of the Moslem world, divided politically, socially andreligiously, seemed a scandal to the leaders of orthodoxy. Theytherefore looked for an instrument which would restore order totheir own advantage. They found it in the Turks. By that timethe Turks had been effectively converted to Islam. Being recentconverts, zealous and strait-laced,they were easily persuadedof thenecessity for energetic action. Their chiefs, often skilled militaryleaders, found here just what they wanted. The ghdzis no longeropposed the Turks, who were now Moslems. On the contrarytheTurks now became the best recruits of the ghdzzs. Having beenconvertedto Islam as it was on the frontiers of centralAsia, they hadadoptedthe Islam of the ghazis which so well suited their way of lifeand their customary liking for raids. They now had only to divertthese raids against their kinsfolkto the North who were still pagan.In the outcome almost all Moslem Asia was conqueredby the Turksto the benefit of the ruling Seljukid family. Moreover the Turkswho carried out this conquestwere nomads, Turcomans as they werecalled, inspired with the zeal of the ghadzsand impatient to transfertheir activities to all the new frontiers where they had been installed

by the creation of the Seljukempire.From the point of view of the relations between Moslems andChristians, with which we are here concerned, the effect of thiswas two-fold. The fate of the Christians who lived inside theSeljuk empire was unaffected. The Seljukids, heirs of orthodoxMoslem tradition, applied to their non-Moslem subjects the legalprotection affordedby Islam. The Christiansoutside the Moslemworld were subjectedto a renewal of the Holy War of early Islamichistory. The result was a new surge of Moslem expansionwhichtook advantageof the dissensionsamong the Byzantines,and robbedthem of almostall Asia Minor- virtuallyhalf of their empire. Thisconquest was made almost againstthe will of the Seljukidswho weremuch more concerned with the struggle against the heresies withinthe Moslem world than with the subjection of infidels outside it.They had simply given their head to the Turcomans who wouldotherwise have been a source of trouble and disquiet. Used to awandering life, impatient of all the restrictions of the centralgovernmentand of the rightsof privateproperty,still half savageandaccustomedto pillage and blood-shed, the Turcomanswere difficultsubjects for any master to control. To incorporatethem in AsiaMinor as part of the Seljukempire would have been a difficulttask,for there was no established Seljuk administrationthere and the

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PAST AND PRESENTTurks were as yet incapableof instituting one; to do so would havemeant a definitive breachwith the Byzantineempire, which to someextent the Seljukidspreferredto have availablein order at need touse its good offices against Turcomansthemselves. They thereforeleft the Turks to do as they liked in Asia Minor and Byzantiumwasimpotent to hold them. There ensureda periodof cruelty,sufferinganddestruction. The vital dateis the Byzantinedisasterat Manzikert(IO7I), where the emperorwas takenprisoner.Undoubtedly for the Byzantine empire this was territoriallydisastrous and the occasion of terrible suffering for the Christiansof Asia Minor. Only two reservations must be made: first, theravages of the Turcomans had been almost as devastating n all theMoslem countries which had resisted them; secondly, while thestate of war long continued on the whole periphery of westernAsia MLinor, lsewhere, once the wave of devastation had passed,life was reorganised and we are presented with quite a differentpicture.

* * *

It must be rememberedthat in the Near East there was not onebut several Christian communities. Within the Byzantine Empirethe officialChurch comprisedthe vast majorityof believers, subjectto the patriarchateof Constantinople; there were also Christiansof the Greek rite, but for the most part Arab speaking, in Egypt,Syriaand Armenia,who were subjectto the patriarchatesof Antioch,Jerusalem and Alexandria. But there were other Churches, longseparated from Constantinople and Rome: the Maronites of theLebanon, separatedmore defacto than dejure, the Jacobite Mono-physites in Syria, Mesopotamia, and the upper Euphrates, theCoptic Monophysites in Egypt, the Nestorians in Mesopotamia,Persia and central Asia, and finally the Armenians, who had theirown national Church. All these were Churches of communitieswhich for centuries had been in opposition to the Greek Church,less by reason of doctrinal differences, however important suchdifferenceswere for the theologians, than by reason of the mutualjealousies between their independent hierarchies, their establishedpropertyrights, and above all of their racialdifferences. They hadearlier welcomed the Arab conquest as a deliverance from thedomineeringand mischief-makingGreek Church. The non-GreekChristians of eastern Asia Minor ha.d found almost insupportablethe restorationof Byzantine authority. The Greek Church in the

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Xth and XIth centuries had not learnt by experience to be moretolerant than it had been before the Arab conquest. Thereforewhatever they had suffered from the Turcoman invaders the localchurches were convinced that what the Greeks suffered was welldeserved, and there were even some exceptional cases of nativeChristianswho lent a hand to the Turcomansagainstthe Greeks.More generally, there is no doubt that in the period immediatelyfollowing the Turkish occupation the native non-Greek Christianshad recovered at the expense of the Greeks the equivalent of whatthe momentarydevastation of the Turcomans had cost them. Notonly werethey free of the religiousandfiscaloppressionof Byzantium,but also, becausethe Turcomans had no idea of administration, heywere left alone to run their own. internal affairs. It is also probablethat, on a more purely ecclesiastical level, they inherited churcheswhich eitherthey hadtaken from the Greeks or which the Greeks hadabandoned, as we know happened at Antioch. The Armeniansbenefited less than the Monophysites, for among the Armeniansthere remained a party allied to the Greeks, and even among theenemies of the Greeksthere were some warrior ords who endeavouredto carve out for themselves principalitiesbeneath the heights of theTaurus. But for the Monophysites, who had long lost all politicalambition and all attachment to any foreign power whatever thebenefit was unqualified.For the Greeks the Turkish conquests were clearlya catastrophe.Yet its magnitudemust not be exaggerated. It is true that the Greekprelates were suspect in the eyes of the Turks of complicity withByzantium. Nevertheless there was no systematic opposition totheir continued residencein the country. Sulaimanibn Kutlumush(Qutalmish), the conqueror of Asia Minor and Antioch, allowedthe Greek patriarchto continue to reside in that city and did noteven stop him from making visits to Constantinople. Sula'iman,Moslem as he was, affectedto considerhimself the lieutenant of theBasileus. Many Greek bishops, like many of their flocks, fled fromAsia Minor, but more often because of the material difficulties ofexistence or the diminution in the number of believers than inconsequenceof any proscription. Some prelates stayed, and in anycase, on the lower level, the monks and the priests remained, andthe Greek communion, shrunken it is true, did not disappear.Graduallythe Moslem. state in Asia Minor organiseditself and thesituation of Christiansof all rites was much as it was in other Moslemlands.In order thoroughly to understandthe situation in Palestine it is

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PAST AND PRESENTnecessaryto bearin mind some factsand dateswhich even the expertshave not always appreciated. First it must be remembered thatlong before the arrivalof the Turks the Bedouins had kept Palestinein a state of semi-anarchyand insecurity which the Fatimid govern-ment had been unable to bring to an end. With the Fatimids, whorepresented in the Moslem world the Ismailian heresy which theSeljukswere pledged to extirpate,the Byzantine Empire maintaineddiplomatic relations, and thus they had been able to help theChristians,particularlythose of the Greek rite, to rebuild the ruinsleft by El-Hakim's persecution. In I071 Palestine was conqueredby a Turcomanchief namedAtsiz, who wasactingon his own accountand not for the Seljukids. In 1079 it was incorporated n the Seljukdominions, forming together with central Syria the appanage ofPrince Tutush; he in his turn in io86 grantedit as a fief to anotherTurcoman chief, Artuk, who had been long in the Seljukidservice;finally, in 1098, the Fatimids recovered Palestine from Artuk'sheirsafter his death.It is probablethat the wiping out of Byzantineinfluence benefitedthe non-Greek Christians at Jerusalemas elsewhere. Atsiz had tonominate a Christian,a Jacobite, as governor of the Holy City, forany Moslem he might have appointed would have been suspect ofFatimid sympathies. In 1076 the Turcoman ruler put down arevolt of the Moslems in the City with much bloodshed, whilethe Christians,who since the repair of the rampartsin the middleof the XIth century had been segregatedin a special quarter, wereunharmed. Even the Greek Patriarch,Symeon, was allowed to livein the City. The anonymous author of the History of the (Coptic)Patriarchsof AlexandriapraisesAtsiz, which is the more remarkablebecause some years later the same author was to complain of theintolerance of the Crusaders. It was true (he admits) that theTurcomans denied the miracle of the Sacred Fire which at Easterevery year came down to light a candle in the Church of the HolySepulchre, but then in the year when the Franks came, the miraclenever took place at all. Artuk (perhaps)shocked the Christianstothe soul by shooting an arrow into the roof of the Holy Sepulchre,but that was merely the traditional Turkish way of signifying thatthey had taken possession, and not a gesture of religious intolerance.In all the lands incorporatedin the Seljukid Empire, including,after the fall of Atsiz, Palestine, the situation of the Christianswasperfectlynormal. There wasperhapsa greaterreluctance han underprevious regimes to employ non-Moslems as high officials,but thatdid not affect the ordinarypeople and there was nothing systematicabout it. Everybody, Moslems included, complainedof the ravages

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of the Turcomans. The new Empire was quickly organised. Achorus of praise for the great Seljukid sultan Malik Shah (IO73-92)was voiced alike by Moslems and by Christians who had no axes togrind. His reign symbolised the return of order, securityand equaljustice for all. It may be that the Armenian literary style of aMatthew of Edessa, a Sarcavagor a Stephen Orppelian is inflatedby rhetoric; but the same impressionis given by the more measuredprose of the Chronicles of the Jacobite Michael the Syrian and theNestorian Amr bar Sliba. It is true that the death (in 1092) ofMalik Shah markedthe beginningof a periodof dissensions,but theyinjured the people no more than the similar quarrels which hadfilled earlier Moslem history, and in any case they were not anti-Christian n character. It is well known that the Turks imprisonedthe patriarchJohn of Antioch in 1097, but the Christians,reinforcedby the Byzantines,were then under the walls of the city. Similarly,when the Crusaderswere approachingJerusalem he Egyptiansdroveseveral Christian dignitaries into exile, among them Symeon, whowent to Cyprus:but in neithercase can this be regardedas morethana measure of elementary prudence.It is an established fact that the non-Greek Christians sent noappealto the West, not even to the Papacy. The exchangeof lettersbetween Gregory VII and an Armenian Catholicus (patriarch)reveals nothing of that sort. Even though the Orientals had met aconsiderablenumberof Normanmercenaries, t was difficultfor themto envisagethe dispatchto the East of a real westernarmy,even hadthey wished for it. There is nothing to indicate that they had beencomplainingof their fate any more than usual or had expressed anybut the traditionaldesire for deliverance. It is true that the Westhad seen Palestinianmonks asking alms on behalf of their Church,seekingto arousethe pity of the faithful, but that was nothing new;it had long been a practice, more common immediately after thedestructionof the Holy Sepulchre. There are no goundsforthinkingthat the Turkish conquest had increased the number of suchmendicantsor accentuated the pathetic force of their appeal. It isnoteworthy that when later oriental writers tried to explain thegenesis of the Crusades they never spoke of any sufferings of theEastern Christians. Ibn al-Athir cites the aggressivepolicy of theNormans of Italy; another Moslem al-Azimi, and a Christian,Michael the Syrian, who was particularlysensitive to the concept ofChristian raternity,only adducethe stories of westernpilgrimswhichobviouslyderivefrom Westernersalreadyestablished n the East.

* * *

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But what truth is there in these stories of the molestationof pilgrims? The pilgrims had the choice of two routes from theWest to Palestine; some crossed the European continent, theByzantineempireand Asia Minor; certainlyfor these the persistenceof Turcoman disorder in Asia Minor was as good as a denial ofpassage. But that did not mean a denial of the possibility ofpilgrimage altogether; it was possible to travel by sea, either fromConstantinopleor from Italy. This second route was the one whichItalian merchants had been following for generations. It wasunaffectedby the Turkish conquest, which had not reachedall theSyrian ports. Even those which were affected, like Antioch, werestill as much visited by the Venetians and others as before, andthe Venetianswere luke-warmsupportersof the Crusade. Nothingthen prevented the pilgrims going to Palestine by sea. It may bethat for two or three years the Turcoman disorders had interferedwith Palestinealso; but we also know that two pilgrimageshad beendisturbed by the Bedouins in 1055 and 1064, that is before thecoming of the Turks; and by about oo80 here was certainly greatersecurity than there had been for a long time. The disappearanceof the semi-protectorate of Byzantium over Jerusalem may haveactuallyworkedin favourof the Latin clergy: at least that is what apassagein Nicon of the BlackMountainimplies, if its datingis to bereliedon. The Amalfitanshad two hospicesin Jerusalem,whichmayindeed be older than the Turkish conquest, but which certainlycontinued to function after it. The truth is that pilgrimagescon-tinued as before. It is true that there were none as importantas thatof o1064;t was learnt by experiencethat a troop of that size excitedthe covetousness of the Bedouins. But we know of many cases ofpilgrims reaching Turkish Jerusalem as their fathers had reachedArab Jerusalem.They had grievances,it is true, but it must be repeatedthat mostof them areknownto us only fromwritingssubsequentto the Crusade,and that such grievancesare adduced as a justificationafter the fact.Even if we accept them as true, they must be admittedto be merelylaughable. Often they come down to mere acts of petty spite, suchas arealways provokedby the close proximityof two hostile religiouscommunities (Moslems relieving themselves in churches, and soforth); sometimes they merely reveal that the pilgrims had no con-ception of the problems of a developed administration. It wasnaturalthat they should have found it hard,aftera costly journey,tohave to pay a fee to enter the Holy City, but they had had to pay forthe right to cross Byzantineterritory;and it is very difficultto regard

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this as a mark of intolerance. Even the most galling experienceknown to us, that of the pilgrimswho for lack of money were unableto enter the Holy Places, belongs to the period of the pilgrimageofFulk Nerra, Count of Anjou, some sixty yearsbefore the appearanceof the Turks in this area.To sum up: The Turkish invasion of Asia Minor was a disasterfor ByzantineChristendom,with some compensationsfor non-GreekChristians;to the Christiansof the Moslem countries and of Palestinein particular t broughttemporarysufferingswhich they sharedwiththeir Moslem neighbours: as these territories became incorporatedin the Seljukempire, the Christian nhabitantsfound themselves in asituation very like that which they had always known under Islam.The pilgrimshad been annoyedat havingto abandonone traditionalroute, but had not been prevented from using anotherinstead, andwere no less welcome in Jerusalemthan before.This then is the problem: why was it that when the real dangerwas to Byzantium,that the Crusadecame to be directedto the rescueof the Holy Sepulchre which was not in danager? It is clearly acase of the substitution of motive. The danger which the Crusadesought to avertwas not the realdanger.Naturally in the mind of the average Crusader there was notsubstitution but confusion. Monophysites and Greeks, Asia Minorand Palestine, el-Hakim and Malik Shah, all that for him mergedinto a vague picture of the East confusedby the dazzlinglight of theCross. He envisaged churches laid waste and pilgrims molested,ashe was told by the propagandists. Much moreoften it was a matterof abstract Christian feeling and of the humiliation he felt at thedominationof Islam in the places where the Saviour had lived. Buteven if this confusion madethe substitutionof motives pqssible,it is

not of itself sufficient to explain how that substitution came about.So there is a second problem: the western world revised everythingit had ever known about Islam; that which before had merelynourished a passive sense of grievancenow became the motive foraction;that which hitherto had been bornewith equanimity was nowfelt to be intolerable. The explanationof this phenomenoncan besought in two directions:in Byzantine propagandaor in the situationin the West.* * *

There was at least one mediaeval author who saw the problemof substitution. P. Charanis has recently drawn attention to apassagein a Byzantinechronicler of the early XIIIth centurywhich

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seems to indicate that it was Alexius Comnenus himselfwho, knowingthat it was vain to seek reinforcementsfrom the West merely to saveByzantium, made the central theme of his propagandathe rescueof the Holy Places. Indeed this theme had already on occasionbeen sufficientlyuseful to Byzantiumitself for there to be no needfor its invention now; it had been used when John Tzimisces in975 led an expeditionup to the verywalls of the Holy City. But thathad been an exceptional episode. Byzantinepolicy had been muchmore directed to the stabilisation of the frontiersof Asia Minor thanto an eccentric thrust towardsJerusalem,neither is there any reasonto think that the Patriarchateof Constantinople, having alreadyseenthe reincorporationof the Patriarchateof Antioch in the Empire,was insistent on the acquisition of that of Jerusalem also. TheByzantine emperorshad concernedthemselves, without undue haste,in the rebuilding of the Holy Sepulchre, but it cannot be said thatJerusalemoccupied in the mind of eastern Christendom, Greek ornon-Greek, the same place as in that of the West in the XIIthcentury; the Greeksdid makepilgrimagesbut, except for those fromthe neighbouring provinces, not in any great numbers. In any caseas far as the present problem is concerned it does not seem that theevidence of the Byzantine chronicler should be given much weight.It is more than a century later than the events with which it dealsand is chieflyinterestingas indicatingawarenessof the problemin themind of an author known to be otherwise concerned to discover abasis for France-Byzantine collaboration; but in the last analysisthe Crusade was organised by the Pope, and who will believe thatthe Pope confounded Jerusalem and the Byzantine Empire? Ifhe did in fact connect them, whether it was suggested to him or not,it was because it seemed good to him to do so, and the reason for itcanonly be soughtin his own policy and in the situation n the West.Even so it does not of course follow that there are any groundsforunder-estimating the effect of the appeals of Byzantium for help.There is no doubt that such appealswere made. But to understandthem there is something else to bearin mind. Since 1054 there hadbeen an open schism between the Churches of ConstantinopleandRome, a fact which clearly compromised their relations on thepolitical level also. Recent research however has made possiblea less radicalinterpretationof the Schism than that which was longaccepted. On the one hand what happenedin 1054 was much morethe declarationof a separationwhich had long existed in fact than anew phenomenon: at the most it was a reactionagainstthe tentativerapprochementwhich had been provokedby the danger which the

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AN INTRODUCTIONTO THE FIRST CRUSADENorman expansion in southern Italy in the middle of the XIthcentury presentedto Constantinopleand Rome alike. On the otherhand, this Schism, which we to-day know has widened and endured,was not felt except by some extremists to be irremediable; it wasnot the first, and it did not, like heresy proper,destroythe feeling ofbelongingto the universalChurch, which though torn by dissensions,and with rival hierarchies,yet remained one and the same. Finallyeven if the will to schism may have been strong in the Patriarchateof Constantinople, it was weaker at Antioch, which stood to gainmuch less than Constantinople,and it was even weaker at Jerusalem,where the Patriarch,beyond the Byzantinefrontier,had daily to rubshoulders with Christians of all rites, Latins included. In suchcircumstancesthe negotiationsfor militaryaid to ByzantiumthroughPapal mediation took the form on both sides of a spiritual-temporalbargain: in Byzantium the Emperors, anxious to obtain politicalhelp had to take into considerationthe Pope's opinion, and allowedthe hope to be aroused that re-union would follow military aid;Rome may have been inclined to makethe willingnessof the Greeksto accept religiousunion the price of persuadingthe western princesto come to the aid of Byzantium.

In Byzantiumfor fifteen years the Turks had been regardedonlyas pillagers, insufferableit is true, but not a serious danger to thepolitical integrity of the empire. For reasons of internal politicsthe recruitingof the indigenous populationhad been in partreplacedby the enrolment of foreign mercenaries,especially Normans. Butit had not seemed necessary to make any further effort before thetime of RomanusIV Diogenes (IO68-107I). He alone, and in vain,had tried to make peace with the Normans in Italy in order to befree to act against the Turks. After the disaster of Manzikerthissuccessor, Michael VII, at the price of the total renunciation ofItaly, securednot only peacebut an alliance(IO74). In the meantimehe had also tried a rapprochementwith the Pope, but the effort waswrecked on the religious obstacle, and, it seems, was only activelypursuedin Byzantium n so faras the Emperordespairedof obtainingan alliance with the Normans, which would have been far moreimmediately useful. Gregory VII, however, who had just becomePope,had, aswe shallsee, takenthe questionof rescuingthe ByzantineEmpirevery much to heart, and had alreadytakensteps in the Westwith that end in view.There was another question which occupied the first place in theattention of the Church. Though for more than a century it hadmaintaineda sort of mnodusivendi with the western Empire, now,

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as a result of the movement for reform, the Church was emanci-pating itself from the Empire, and was rapidly entering into openconflict with it. In order to be able eventually to resist an attackby the Emperorthe Papacyhad since 1059 had to envisagea reversalof alliances. It had opened negotiations with the Normans, wholike their northernkin, were inclined to seek the collaborationof theclergy in political matters.These negotiations had resulted in an alliance. As the conflictwith the Empire was more or less fended off during the minorityof the emperor Henry IV and as the Normans found it irksome togive up their predatory habits, this alliance became somewhattenuous under Alexander II. But from 1076 there was a completerupture and soon bitter war between the Papacy and the Empire.Robert Guiscard,the principalleader of the Normans, had become apowerfulprince. The alliance was confirmedand GregoryVII washardly n apositionto argueaboutterms. In ByzantiumMichaelVIIhad been overthrown (IO78), and Robert, as usual, was eager toget possession of the Greek shores of the Straits of Otranto. Warbroke out between him and Byzantium and Robert obtained thepapalblessing for his expeditionas the price of his helping the Popeagainst Henry IV. This meant the renunciationof any policy ofChristianfraternitywith the East.But in 1085 both Guiscard and Gregory died, and Gregory'ssuccessor Victor III soon after. Among the divided Normans itwas Guiscard'sbrotherRoger, who had alreadywon Sicily from theMoslems, who became supreme. He had no interest in the waragainst Byzantium which might cost him the valuable help of thenumerous Greeks of Sicily and Calabriain his struggle with theMoslems. In ConstantinopleAlexius I Comnenus, who had oustedMichael VII's successor [Nicephorus III Botaniates, IO078-81],wasabove all concernedwith the needs of the struggleagainstthe Turksof Asia Minor and against their kindred the Pechenegs, who weremenacing Bulgaria. Finally, the new pope, Urban II, was adiplomatistwho had no desire to see Byzantiumhelping Henry IVor the antipope whom Henry had set up, or to risk such an allianceof the two Emperorsbecomingthe preludeto a union of the Churchesagainst the Papacy. The negotiations, protracted throughout theyear 1089, had no definiteresult. But it is clear that they did createa new climate of opinion and that in the course of the ensuing yearsthe quarrel was allowed to die down, that anything which mightrevive it was carefully avoided, and it was doubtless hoped thatprogressivecollaborationon other levels would lead graduallyto the

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revival of Union. The Pope raised for Alexius a small reinforce-ment against the Pechenegs, while perhaps the detente also helpedthe Byzantine Emperor to recruit others, particularlyfrom Robertcountof Flanderswhom Alexius hadknown since Robert'spilgrimageto Jerusalem. It is certain that when the Crusade began theCrusaders,in the first stages, did not treat the Greeks as religiousenemies.Did Alexius ask for the Crusade? No, if it is meant that Alexiusasked for the organisationof the expedition in the form which itactually assumed. But that at Piacenza, where at the beginning of1095 the Pope held a Council, the Byzantineambassadorsaskedforhelp for their masterand that the Pope spoke to the assemblyin thatsense cannot to-day be doubted, much as the matter has beencontested.Yet that is not the essentialquestion, for the Crusadewas properlyspeaking something quite other than the recruitment of soldiersfor Byzantiumby Papal mediation. And therefore it is in the Westthat we must end our search.

* * *

We must deal firstwith the Pope, because it was to him and not tothe Emperorthat the appeal was made. I will not dwell upon thefact whichhas been so well broughtout of lateby differentmediaeval-ists that the Church, having for centuriesleft the temporalsword tothe Empire, and been content to confine itself to encouragingthosewarswhich were fought for the defenceor expansionof Christendom,had come eventually to believe that when the temporal power wasdeficient, even more when it was hostile, it was the right or even theduty of the Church to conduct such wars itself. Nor do I wish todwell on the birth of the associated dea, already explicit in the mindof Gregory VII and natural to clerics recruited largely from theseigneurial class, that service in arms might also be service to theChurch, and that the pernicious warlikeactivity in which so manyfeudal lords engagedand which the Truce and the Peace of God hadtried to restrainevenif they couldnot endit, mightat leastbe divertedto war for the Faith. All this was alien to Byzantine mentality.Because the Byzantines had often been at war with their Moslemneighboursand because the Cross and the prelateshad taken part inthose campaigns, they have been regarded as pre-Crusades. Wemust bewareof confused thinking. That the Byzantinepeople hadregardedsome of these wars as holy wars is true, but the Byzantine

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Church had always refused to consider that participationin suchwars could be of itself a Christianvirtue which could win for soldiersa diminution of their penalties before the tribunal of divine judge-ment. The western Church was now proclaimingthat with certainreservationsthe war for the Faith could earn partial or completeabsolution from sin. It was therefore only in the West that theconcept of the Holy Warfully developed.Both the idea and the practice of the Holy War developed underthe aegis of the Papacy. Though the facts are well known I believethat it may be opportuneto sketch some of the outlines a little morepreciselythan has usuallybeen done. For, amongother things, it isimportant to emphasise that the initiative in the Holy War againstthe Moslems was taken before Manzikert and a fortiori before theadvent of the Almoravides. In earlier centuries it was the Moslemoffensive which had forced the Christiansin Spain or the PapacyinItaly to takeup arms,and had thus led the Papacyto deviate from itsoriginal doctrine. But it is to be noted that just at this moment, inthe XIth century, the Moslem danger,far from having increased,hadvanished. In Spain, North Africa and Sicily the Moslem states werebreaking up. Their perpetual internal quarrels led to theirrenouncing all external aggression. In Spain in particular, para-doxical as it may seem to day, there was a temper of collaborationbetweenrival faithssuch as the Middle Agesrarelywitnessed. Neverhad Christiansin the western Moslem lands had so little cause forcomplaint. In one place only had the situation deteriorated. TheMoslems of North Africa, ruined by the invasion of the HillaliArabs, and driven back into the seaports, were no longer able todevote themselves to the commerce which had been the source oftheir wealth. They had therefore embarked on that " Barbary"piracy which was to continue off and on until the beginning of theXIXth century. But it does not seem as if it was against theseparticularMoslems that Rome wished to take action. It may bethat the expeditions which the Pisans and Genoese made in Io88against Al-Mahdya, the principal port of Tunis, had the blessingof Pope Victor III (but it is only his officialbiographerwho says so);they certainlyhad no more substantialhelp from him. GregoryVIIconducted a correspondencewith a prince of Bougie, into whichthere may have entered the idea of an understandingwhich wouldact as a counter-poise to the hostility of his rival of Tunis, but thecorrespondencewas chieflyconcernedwith the local Christiansunderthe protection of the Moslem prince, and, doubtless more covertly,with the affairs of the Roman merchants who lent their financial

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backingto the Holy See. The firstgreat effort of the Papacy againstthe Moslems was not in this direction, and here too the Normansmay have been the cause. Roger of Sicily, having defeated thereinforcements sent to the Moslems of Sicily by the prince of theTunisian dynastyof BanuTamim, madepeacewith him, and ensuredthat he would not give furthersupportto his co-religionists. Rogerhad no intention of breaking that peace, and refused the Pisans'offer to hand over El-Mahdya to him; a little later, when he hadcompleted the conquest of Sicily, he seized Malta, but the island,it appears,was not then part of the dominions of the Banu Tamim.Thereafter Moslem soldiers served in Roger's armies, and madepossible his success againstthe rivalChristianpowers in Italy.It was, however, on the Sicilian front that the Holy See made itsfirst official intervention, and in significant circumstances. In1059, during the period of the Papal- Norman entente, the Normanleaders did homage to the Pope, and among the territories whichthey then obtainedthe rightto conquer,besidesthose they had takenfrom Byzantium, was Moslem Sicily; later Roger was to receivethe extraordinaryprivilege of being legate of the Pope in the island,a function normally reserved for clerics. But in the first instancetwo essential features of the new papal policy appeared. On theone hand the Papacy was approving,even waging(in a strictly legalsense, for the Normans had become its vassals), an offensive waragainstIslam (or, if you like, a counteroffensive to arrestthe Moslemoffensive);on the otherhand the Papacybeganto set up in oppositionto the Empire from which it was emancipating itself, a series oftemporal suzerainties, which, vague though they may have been instrict feudal law, signified none the less an attempt to dispose ofresources which had hitherto been at the disposal of the Empire.Moreover the Norman conquest of Sicily and Southern Italy meantthe restoration of the Latin church in lands where it had beenweakened not only by the Moslems but by the Byzantines. It istrue that the Pope and the Normans together pursued a tolerantpolicy towardsthe Greekhierarchyof southernItaly, for they did notlook upon them as accomplicesof the Patriarchateof Constantinople;their aim, which was partly achieved, was to bring them into directobedience to Rome by grantingthem a measure of disciplinaryandliturgicalautonomy.

In Spain one can see these different trends at work. In thebeginning the intervention of the lords of the northern Pyreneeswas not the work of the Papacy. The princes of northern Spainwere anxious to take advantageof the weakeningof Spanish Islam

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by expansionat its expense, and welcomed the neighbouring Frenchlords as useful militaryallies. On the other handthe task of restoringChristianity in Spain was in large measure conducted under theinfluence of Cluny. It can hardly be doubted that it was due toCluny that the chief part in the French participation n the Spanishwars was played by the Burgundians,who had no natural intereststhere. What has wrongly been called the BarbastroCrusade(to63)was solely due to this situation.But if the intervention of Alexander II, to whom traditionalhistoriographyhas been wont to ascribethe Barbastroexpedition, isto be more probablyconnected with certain new projectshe made atthe very end of his pontificate, yet there is no longer any doubt aboutthat intervention, and the slight advancementof its date does notalter its essential character any more than that of Gregory VII'spolicy which was its continuation. The influence of Cluny on thepopesit producedgoes withoutsaying. The men whomthe Holy Seeencouragedto go to Spain were to some extent connected with theNormans of Italy. But that does not seem to be the essence of thematter. At the beginning of this article I pointed out that theFrench brought to the Spanish war a spirit of ignorant brutalitywhich was alien to the Spaniards. At the same time the Holy Seewas pursuing in Spain, as in Southern Italy, a policy of religiousre-integration. It claimed that Rome had a special right to temporalsuzeraintyover lands reconqueredfrom the infidel. The ChurchinSpain had derived from its historical isolation a nearautonomyand arite of its own, which seemed dangerousfrom the point of view ofreformitself, as much as from the Roman point of view that reformshould be directed by the Pope. There developed a policy, at firstCluniac, but afterwardsgoing beyond the plans of Cluny, whereSpain was regarded as a private preserve. The Roman Pontiffwas to take into his own hands the Church of Spain, and to useFrench military interventionto strike a bargainin the same way aswas done with the Greeks. Another reason for his taking this linewas that non-Spanish influence would obviously be strongerin fiefsheld by French lords, as it was in those held by the Normans inItaly.Among the Spanishprinces themselves there were two tendencies:Aragon, which, owing to its geographicalposition was more open tounifying influences, entered, like the Normans, into vassalageto theHoly See. In Castile on the contrarythe Roman claims were theoccasionof a conflict which may have begun by causing AlexanderIIto abandon his military project. Whatever the reason, this was

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not carried out. It is not clear whether official Roman support wasgiven to the French contingents which took part in the ensuingexpeditions, both before and after the Almoravid invasion, andespecially the great coalition of 1187 which followed that invasion.In any case the hero who is most honoured in Spanish nationaltradition was neither French nor Roman, but the Cid, and hedistinguished himself not only in conflict with the Moslems but alsoon occasion with Christians in Valencia, which he conquered; he wasjust as popular with his Moslem subjects as with his fellow believers.But the French both at Barbastro and at Tudela (1087) had brokentheir word and had slaughtered all the male Moslems before takingpossession of their women. It was Urban Ii, a better diplomatthan Gregory VII, who was ultimately able to secure the reconciliationof the Spanish Church by means of certain disciplinary concessions.And, whatever was the exact role he played in these expeditions, it iscertain that at the least he encouraged them as soon as they had begun.But he looked for support not to the Burgundians, but to theMediterranean powers. Rome had indeed never neglected toestablish its influence whenever the opportunity occurred over themost distant monarchies, such as that of the Norman William theConqueror in England. But it seems that the Papacy was above allconcerned to surround itself with a ring of vassal Mediterraneanstates, or allies, capable of helping it alike against the GermanEmperor, Islam and even Byzantium if Byzantiurr should everreverse its policy. In these plans the Abbey of St. Victor ofMarseilles appears as the rival of Cluny. The count of Provence(Oi81), the viscount of Melgeuil-Montpellier (1085), the count ofBarcelona during the pontificate of Urban II, all became papalvassals, like Mathilda Countess of Tuscany who bequeathed herestates to the I-Ioly See; Gregory gave the royal crown to Zvonimirprince of the Croats. The Papacy maintained excellent relationswith Raymond of St. Gilles, who added successively the counties ofToulouse (Io88) and Provence (1094) to his Languedoc inheritance(io66). Raymond was in 1087 one of the chiefs of the anti-Moslemcoalition against Spain and several of his vassals were to take partin the operations of the following years, those which Urban IIencouraged after his accession. What is remarkable is that theseoperations were directed not against the Almoravides but againstthe still independent Moslems of northern Spain, who were perhapsconsidered to be their allies, but the attacks certainly induced thenorthern Moslems to submit to the Almoravides. The result wasthat Spain at the beginning of the XIIth century had nothing but

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Holy Waragainst Holy Warwith the result that in the middle of thecentury the new dynasty of the Almohades embarked on a policyof intolerance towards the non-Moslems of their dominions quitecontraryto the traditions of their predecessors.* * *

Though it has long been realised that Urban II's easternprojectswere linked with his western projects in that they were both anti-Moslem wars,and in that the same men who had gainedexperience nSpain were those whom he was to send to Palestine, less attentionhas perhapsbeen paid to the fact that the Spanishpolicy of the HolySee may providean explanationof its easternpolicy in respectof theCrusade. It can be taken as establishedby recent research that thePope dispatchedthe Crusade with a mission to collaboratesincerelywith Alexius Comnenus; the Legate Adhemar of Monteil andRaymond of Toulouse, whom Urban intended to lead the Crusade,loyally aitemptedto carryout theirmissionin contrast o the deviationsof the other Crusaders. But this thesis has been presented in tooone-sided a manner. It can hardly be denied that what Alexiusoriginally hoped for was an energeticreinforcementof the same sortas that which had long been providedby the mercenary roops whomByzantium had hired to serve exclusively Byzantine purposes.It is also undeniablethat he ought to have foreseen, as the shape ofthe enterprise became visible, that the Pope's scheme of aid wasgoing to be more independent: it is true that he both wanted toimpose and succeeded in imposing on the majorityof the Crusadingleaders an oath of homage which bound them to keep for themselvesno territorywhich they might conquer which had once been part ofthe ancient territories of Byzantium, but there was no question ofpreventingthem from making conquests in Syriaor Palestine,whereperhapshe thought of accompanyingthem. It was obvious that inso far as the Crusadewas the Pope's affairthere could be no questionof demandinghomagefromthe Pope or his legate, andin view of this,even though none of the chroniclers of the Crusades understoodthe point, it is perfectly understandablethat Raymond of Toulouseshould have refused to do homage,if in facthe was ever askedto do so.If then it can be readilyadmittedthat Urban wanted to succour theByzantine Empire without any mental reservations, t is neverthelesstrue that he had also a programmeof his own. This programmecanonly be known by inference for no text which expounds it has beenpreservedand there is no reason for thinking that such a text ever

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existed. It can however hardly be denied that the programmeincluded the establishmentin Syria of a Latin or semi-Latin power,about whose form we cannot be precise. Such a state would ofcourse be dependent upon the Holy See in certainrespects, and evenif there remained Greek clerics in Syria, as in Southern Italy, or asthere remained Spanish clerics in Spain, there would be a new pre-dominanceof the Holy See. This would be done with the goodwillof restored Byzantium, if the campaign should have been broughtto a successful conclusion, but it would underline the fact that for aweakened Byzantium was being substituted in whole or in part astrengthened Holy See. That would inevitably run counter to thethe influence of Constantinopleover the eastern Christians, thoseof the Greek rite and others, who would be brought to form a newsphere of Latin influence; in place of the semi-solidarityof the foureastern patriarchates there would follow the isolation of thepatriarchateof Constantinople,much reducedin prestige. The planenvisaged extending to Palestine what had been begun in Sicilyand Spain and raising the prestige of the Papacyby completing thechain of its advancedposts. That the programmewas neverrealisedin fact is no argument against the hypothesis that such had beenthe Pope's intention.This then was his conceptionof the Crusadewhen Urban preachedat Clermont. As in Italy and as in Spain, it was no longer a timeof great Moslem aggression. The Turkish danger,recent as it was,had much decreased since the death of Malik Shah in 1092. Hisheirs were quarrelling. In Asia Minor, Alexius's intrigues werewell able to keep the remaining independent Turcoman chiefs atloggerheads. There was good hope that their territoriesmight bere-absorbed n the Empire,as had happened so often before. Whenat Piacenza Alexius askedfor succourit was not an appealof urgencyor despair. It was rathera plea bornof hope for help in a reconquestwhich had become possible. There is no reasonto think that Urbandid not knowit, or that such an appealwas not for him an encourage-ment to action. That action he entrustedto his old and faithfulallyRaymond of Toulouse, enriched by his experiencein Spain, and tohis Legate Adh6mar,Raymond'sfriend. Doubtless he did not seemuchfurtherahead.

* * *

It was at this point that there occurred the intervention of thethird party which metamorphosed the Crusade, making it totally

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unlike what it had been hitherto and giving to it that character whichit has ever since had for posterity, a " mass " movement. True,Urban II had foreseen that Raymond's forces would be joined byreinforcements from neighbouring lands; the Pope had himselfpreached the Crusade in west-central France and had caused it tobe preached elsewhere. Events outran him. We have hardly any-thing which he wrote about the Crusade; but his letter to Bolognaindicates that in 1096 he was already seeking to dam a flood which,if it were left unchecked would be prejudicial to order and thenecessary control of the Crusade by the clergy. Forces which hehad not foreseen had been let loose and were to make of the Crusadesomething very different from what he had wished.What were these forces ? Gallons of ink have been poured outin discussing whether the Crusade at this stage was more or lessreligious or self seeking. According to their own preconceptionsmen have seen in it clear evidence either of pure religious faith or ofoutright seigneurial or mercantile greed. Such a presentation of theproblem is absolutely false, because it was not the joining of theCrusade by groups or individuals who saw in it an opportunityfor seeking their own advantage that made it different from what itoriginally was. Spiritual enthusiasm and material greed were notopposed to each other within the consciences of the Crusaders (norin those of the revolutionaries of I789), and the real problem is notto weigh the one against the other, but to try to understand how farone was supported by the other, and how far each explains the other.Naturally their relationship was not everywhere the same, and cantherefore lead us to no general conclusion.Much has been said about mercantile greed, for the profits whichthe Italian merchants made out of the Crusade are well known.But what the merchants at once realised when the expedition wassuggested was its risks, including the risk of losing the commrnercialpositions they had won in Moslem lands before the Crusade. It istrue that Amalfi, which was perhaps the best established of all in theeastern trade, being in a state of revolt against the Normans was in ahelpless position, but the other Italian maritime cities were verycareful to have nothing to do with the enterprise until its success waspractically assured, and then they tried to secure their share in theprofits. As for Venice, what was essential to her was the Byzantinemarket, and for her there was no question of taking part in anyexpedition except in alliance with the Byzantine fleet until thecrusaders had passed beyond the boundaries claimed by Byzantium.For Pisa the main concern was not to distract forces more usefully

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AN INTRODUCTIONTO THE FIRST CRUSADEoccupied in the struggle with the Moslem pirates in the west. Onlythe Genoese came immediately to the help of the crusaders in theEast, but, it will be noticed, only as individuals; Genoa itself inter-vened no earlier than the other cities. Altogether, apart from thespecial case of the Norman Bohemond in South Italy, there was nowidespread recruitment of crusaders in Italy before IIoo and theAfter-Crusade. Nor was the Pope, preoccupied as he was with thestruggle with the Empire, likely to have encouraged it. TheCrusade was created pre-eminently in lands where the idea of com-mercial profit could not have arisen. The profit motive thereforedoes not come into consideration.

The Crusade was born on French soil, and when its first phaseof the papal initiative had passed, its adherents came rather from thenorth than from the south, where, until the After-Crusade, Raymondstood alone. But even in France what strikes one immediately is thedivision of the Crusaders into two groups. It has always been realisedthat the Barons' Crusade was preceded by the People's Crusade,but the social implications of this fact have not always been sufficientlystressed. Already in Spain in 1087 men of the people had foughtside by side with the barons and in any case a feudal lord was alwaysattended by a train of men-at-arms. What was new in 1093, andwhat was never repeated in later Crusades, was that the People'sCrusade was distinct from the Barons' Crusade. In other words ittook place as if the feudal class structure of French society in theXIth century did not exist. If it was not a revolt, it was at least asplit. This was the age of the peace movements, and of nascenturban autonomy, both consciously anti-seigneurial phenomena.To a certain extent there was yet another split, for lords andcommons found themselves on the same side in opposition to theprelates. It is true that the Crusade had its priests, men of thepeople, and no one has ever denied the great credit due to the Pope andhis Legate. But there were no episcopal troops in this holy war.This was the age when the people supported reform of the Churchagainst the bishops, who were often temporal lords rather thanpastors; as for the great barons, it was not their way to leave theconduct of wars to others.What was the state of mind of barons and people ? What drewthem to take part in such an unheard-of enterprise? Partly theByzantine appeal. Partly because, if the situation of the pilgrimsand of the Christians in Palestine had not changed very much, therehad been in the XIth century an increase in the number of pilgrims,made possible by improved commercial relations, and by the con-version of the Hungarians, which allowed them the use of the Danube

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route. In consequence every incident, every report of the troublesof the Christiansin the East, which hitherto had affected few, nowreached a wider public. It is not the worseningof the situation inthe East, it is the greaterinterest of the West in the East which is tosome extent the explanationof the Crusade.But above all it is clearthat all this would have meantnothing hadnot so manypeople in the West been materiallyand morally disposedto attempt the great and wonderful adventure. There is no needhere to go over again what has been told a thousand times of theardentbut crude and militant faith and the social unrest at all levelsin France at the end of the XIth century. The common peoplewith nothing to leave behind and readyto departat once, the Lordswho, having to settle theiraffairs,were slower but no less determined;the People went in search of immediate material and spiritualprofit,hoping to return if it pleased God, the Lords to spend the rest oftheir lives in the Holy War and to establish themselves in new andmarvellous lands where they would reap the reward of their serviceto God firstin this worldand then in the next: it was only saints whobelieved that their bliss would not begin here below . . . What isimportant is not to examine this faith, evident even amongst themost worldly,who were, spasmodically,the more avid of redemptionbecausethey knew themselves to be worldly,but to discoverwhy thisfaith induced them to go crusading. Some respectable text booksin their chapter on the Crusades tell us that the Crusading spiritdeclined after the First Crusadebecause faith itself declined: but intheir chapterson art and on the monastic ife one learnsthat it was thesamefaith which in the XIIIth centuryinspiredthe Gothiccathedrals,and produced a St. Francis or an Aquinas. We have therefore toexplain not a decline of faith, but a change in its outward manifest-ation. While in the XIth century men were ready to wander farafieldin search of the chance of a better life, which for the first timethey had begun confusedlyto believe possible, in the event they cameup against too many obstacles and difficulties. In the XIIIthcenturythe same faith received as its due cathedralsraisedby towns-people who had made good their right to a good life at home.These are some brief suggestions which there is not room todevelop in this article. They indicate that one ought to study theCrusade as a social phenomenon. None of the elements of whichit was madeup waspeculiarto it. Like allgreathistoricalmovementsit bears certain family resemblancesto others, for instance to thegreat migrationsin antiquity and sometimes in modern times whichwere undertaken n responseto a divine call. Whatmakesit unique

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AN INTRODUCTIONTO THE FIRST CRUSADEis the combinationof very diverse elements, which, came together,changed, and fused into a new pattern. Such a study will bring outwhat was original in the movement, not by virtue of some chanceinherent quality, but because it was a unique combination of factorswhich together produceda result different n kind from anythingthatthey could have achieved separately.To sum up: the internal development of the Moslem worldin the XIth century provoked in the East a resumption of thereligious offensive of Islam in a new form to the detriment ofByzantine Christendom, but without affecting Christians in theold Moslem conquests or western pilgrims in Palestine. But theByzantine defeat and internal developments in the West led thewestern world to ascribe to their grievances an importance whichthey had not had before in western eyes. It was in the West thatthere was first conceived, with no new provocation from Islam,the policy of a Holy Waragainstit, in part the result of papalaction.The Papacysaw in the Crusadea means of workingfor the re-unionof Christendomunderits own leadership,one of the objectivesof theReform Movement as the Papacyconceived it, and a necessity if thePapacy was to continue to resist the Empire. The combinationof these various constituent factors explains how it was that anexpeditionwaslaunchedagainstJerusalem,wherelocal circumstancesno more justified it at that particularmoment than at any earliertime.Strasbourg. Claude Cahen.

BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTESThe questions dealt with are too general for it to be possible to give detailedreferences. These can easily be found in the classical treatises covering thevarious branches of general history. The fullest are to be found in Glotz,Histoire Generale t. II, and in Fliche and Martin, Histoire de l'Eglise, t. VIII,I944. I shall therefore only indicate here some of the more recent and rarerpublications. First, for the whole situation in the East, the bibliographicalreferences will be found in my article: " En quoi la Conquete turque appelaitelle la Croisade ?" (Bulletin de la Faculte des Lettres de l'Universite de Strasbourg,Novembre 1950) of which the first part of this article is to some extent areproduction. For the latter part of this article see:-

for Spain:M. Defourneaux, Les Franfais en Espagne auxXIe etXIIe siecles, Paris I949(with bibliography).P. David, " Gr6goire VII, Cluny et Alphonse VI," in Etudes historiquessur la Galice et le Portugal, Paris-Lisbonne, I947, PP. 341-439.R. Menendez Pidal, La Espana del Cid, fourth edition, Madrid, I947.

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PAST AND PRESENTfor Sicily:Amari, Storia dei Musulmani di Sicilia, second edition, a cura di Nallinoetc., vol. III, Catania I937.

for North Africa:Georges Marcais: La Berberie ct l'Orient au Moyeiz-Age, Paris I946.Ch. A. Julien: Histoire de l'Afrique di Nord, second edition revised andcorrected by A. Le Tourneau, Paris 1951.C. Courtois, " Gregoire VII et l'Afrique du Nord," Revue Historique 1945.R. S. Lopez, " Le Facteur 6conomique dans la Politique africaine des Papes,"ibid. 1947.for Byzantium:Stephen Runciman, A History of the Crusades, vol. I, Cambridge 1951.Jugie, Le Schisme byzantin, Paris 1945.

Every, The Byzantine Patriarchate, London 1947.Grumel, " Jerusalem entre Rome et Byzance," Echos d'Orient, 1939.Charanis, " Byzantium, the West and the origin of the First Crusade,"Byzantion 1949.A. Krey, " Urban's Crusade, success or failure?" American HistoricalReview 1946-47.E. Joranson, " The spurious letter of Alexis to the count of Flanders,"ibid. 1948-49.Hill, " Raymond of St. Gilles in the Pope's plan of Greek-Frankish Friend-ship," Speculum 1951.B. Leib, Rome, Kiev et Byzance, Paris 924.W. Holtzmann, " Studien zur Orientpolitik der Reforminpapsttum,"Historische Vierteljahrsschaft 1924.idem, "Die Unionsverhandlungen . . . ," Byzantinische Zeitschrift 1929.for Rome and the West:C. Erdmann, Die Entstehung der Kreuzzugsgedanke, Stuttgart, 1925.P. Rousset, Les Origines et les caracteresde la Iere Croisade, Neuchatel, 1945.Y. Lefebre, Pierre l'Ermite et la Croisade, Amiens 1945.Delaruelle, " Essai sur la formation de l'idee de Croisade," Bulletin deLittirature ecclisiatique 1941-45; I953-4.

This list does not claim to be exhaustive.

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