No More Learning

440. Abu 'l-maḥāsin gives both
A. H. 435 and A. H. 443, preferring the latter.


## p. 259 (#305) ############################################

Emergence of the Turks
259
Mesopotamia were disposed to favour recognition of the Fāțimite Caliphs
in those districts and cities where they triumphed. In 1059 Baghdad
was occupied by a Turkish emir, Arslān al-Basāsīrī, who, being an enemy
of the sultan, acted in the manner just des ped. The occasion was
hailed in Egypt as an extraordinary triumph, and in fact probably
marked the highest point of superiority to the Abbasids ever reached
by the Fāțimite Caliphs.
When Mustanşir came of age he shewed such feebleness and in-
capacity that he was treated by all parties as a cypher in the government.
The ministry of Hasan al-yāzūrī (1050-1058) was still, on the whole,
prosperous and considerate of the general welfare. But after his death
there recommenced a bitter struggle for power between the leaders of the
Turkish and those of the negro troops. The country was devastated and
impoverished by civil war, and finally lay at the mercy of the unscrupulous
and cruel Turkish leader Nāsir-ad-Daulah ibn Hamdān (1062-1073). Pro-
longed drought and famine increased the miseries of the unhappy people.
The influence of Egypt upon foreign affairs fell to its lowest ebb. It was
in no way able to share in the defence of Syria against the Seljūq Turks.
The rule of Mu'izz-ad-Daulah Thumāl in Aleppo was mild and
generous, and therefore popular. His greatest troubles were caused by
the unruly Arabs of the district, the Bani Kilāb, and latterly by the
Seljūq Turks, already planted at Raḥabah on the Euphrates. In January
1058, feeling no longer equal to the tasks of his position, he abdicated
and left an Egyptian governor and garrison once more in power. These
were soon expelled by the citizens assisted by the Bani Kilāb (September
1060), and shortly afterwards Mu'izz-ad-Daulah was persuaded to return
to his former post (April 1061). During his second brief emirate the
Greeks provoked hostilities by repairing some border castles, and Artāḥ
was taken from them. Peace with them was renewed during the civil
war that followed Mu'izz-ad-Daulah's death (November 1062). Artāḥ
appears to have returned to its former owners.
Thumāl's brother, Asad-ad-Daulah “Atīyah ibn Şāliḥ, was his suc-
cessor. His title to succeed was challenged by a nephew, Maḥmūd ibn
Naşr, and the brief period of his emirate was one of civil war (1062–1065).
It was at this date, just before the Norman conquest of England, that
the Seljūq Turks entered Syria.
From the ninth century onwards, Turkish governors and Turkish
generals and Turkish mercenaries play an important part in the history
of Syria and especially of Egypt. The Tūlūnites were a Turkish family
and were served by Turkish officers and soldiers. So also were the Ikh-
shīds. In Mesopotamia, from which these viceroys came, Turkish slaves
held the highest place, subject only to the nominal authority of the
Caliphs. In Egypt the Fāțimite dynasty retained and added to the
Turkish household troops of their predecessors. Turkish, Berber, and
Negro factions struggled for supremacy, and the Fāțimite governors of
CH. 1.
17-2


## p. 260 (#306) ############################################

260
Turkish conquest of Syria
Syrian towns in the tenth and eleventh centuries were often Turkish
Mamlūks.
Before the middle of the eleventh century, a new wave of Turkish
migration, under the great Sultan Țughril Beg (1037–1063), swept into
Lower Mesopotamia from the north and threatened Armenia and Upper
Mesopotamia. It was the precursor of the conquest of Syria by the
Seljūq Turks. The manner of their conquest is representative of many
other periods in Syrian history. Bands of horsemen, a few hundred
strong-seldom as many as a thousand—rode under adventurous leaders
who sought their fortune and lived by their swords. They took service
with any ruler for money or for lands, and gained their chief advantage
where local feuds were being waged. Some novelty in their arms or in
their way of fighting might give them an advantage in battle. In any
case they were always on the war-path, and so could finally wear down
the resistance of cities which depended upon the cultivation of the land
or upon peaceful industry. The inland towns of Syria -- Aleppo, Hims,
Baalbek, Damascus, Jerusalem-yielded first and most completely to
the Turks. Once established, the way of the conquerors was smoothed by
their being Muslims. Their introduction of the nominal authority of the
Caliphs of Baghdad was almost a matter of indifference to their subjects.
The rule of Turkish emirs was already familiar in Syria. The invaders
were backed by the prestige of the Seljūq sultans, but only to a slight
extent occasionally by their armies.
A conquest of the character just described implies, of course, that
Syria was in its normal state of political disintegration. It was, in fact,
even less united than it had been for some time past. Aleppo was an
independent territory and was rent by civil war. The Arabs hung loosely
on the borders. The hillmen of the Jabal Anşarīyah took no interest in
the fate of the neighbouring plains. Antioch and its dependencies were
under the rule of foreigners. Damascus and the coast towns from Tripolis
southwards had cut themselves adrift from Egypt, which was in the
throes of revolution. They were governed by independent emirs, anta-
gonistic to one another. Only the south-west of Palestine was still closely
attached to Egypt. After the great defeat of the Greeks at Manzikert
(1071), Antioch was almost left to its own resources. Even the Arme-
nians, who had long given soldiers to the Greeks on the eastern borders
of the Empire and in Syria, now preferred to make terms with the
Turks.
Hārūn ibn Khān was the first of the Seljūq Turks to gain a footing
in Syria. About the end of 1064 he and his thousand followers turned
the scale in favour of 'Ațīyah ibn Şāliḥ against his rival Maḥmūd. When,
however, ‘Ațīyah and the citizens of Aleppo rose against their deliverer
and massacred his followers, he made off with the survivors to Maḥmūd
and helped him to victory at the battle of Dābiq (16 June 1065). After
the surrender of Aleppo to Maḥmūd (13 August 1065), Hārūn was given


## p. 261 (#307) ############################################

Recognition of the Abbasid Caliphs
261
the little township of Ma'arrat-an-Nuʻmān in fief, and settled there
with a mixed following of Turks, Kurds, and Dailemites.
In the summer of 1067 another Turkish leader, ‘Afshin by name,
raided the territory of Antioch and carried off great booty. His prisoners
were so many that “a girl was sold for two dinars and a boy for a set of
horseshoes. ” In the following year ‘Afshin besieged Antioch and was
bought off by the payment of a large sum of money (1068). At the
same time there was war between Aleppo and Antioch, and Artāḥ was
captured by Hārūn ibn Khān after a five months' siege (1068). In the
following year a Greek army, under the Emperor himself (Romanus
Diogenes), recovered Artāḥ and captured Mambij. Before the close of
the year the Armenian governor of Antioch (Kachatur) made peace with
Mahmud on terms that were favourable to the latter.
In 1070 a Turkish leader, known as Zandiq, entered Syria at the
head of large forces and ravaged the territories of Aleppo, Hamāh, Hims,
and Rafanīyah. This was the first devastation of Muslim Syria by the
Turks. It decided Maḥmūd to seek the protection of the Sultan Alp
Arslān (1063-1072), and at the same time, in consequence, to transfer his
allegiance from the Fāțimite to the Abbasid Caliph. Prayers were said
in the mosques of Aleppo for the new Caliph and for the sultan on Friday
30 July 10702
Alp Arslān now demanded that Mahmūd should engage in war with
Antioch and with the Fāțimite emirs. Maḥmūd having at first refused,
the sultan invaded Syria (spring of 1071). Two months were spent in
negotiations, and during another month Aleppo was blockaded. Then
Mahmud submitted and became the sultan's vassal. The historian of these
events comments especially upon the discipline of Alp Arslān's army.
The persons and the property of the country people were respected. Even
the forage that the soldiers used was often paid for. Aleppo was neither
ruined nor pillaged. Fasdiq, where Alp Arslān pitched his tent during
the expedition, was henceforth known as the Sultan's Hill (Tell-as-sulțān).
Maḥmūd does not seem to have shewn much zeal in the fulfilment of his
pledge to the sultan during the remainder of his emirate (ob. 10 January
1074). His sons Nașr (1074-1076) and Sābiq (1076-1080) were the last
of the Mirdāsites to rule Aleppo. Fresh bands of Turks were pouring into
Syria. Rafanīyah was occupied by Jawāli ibn Abaq (1075), who raided
the territory of Aleppo until he was severely defeated by Aḥmad Shāh,
another Turkish leader, in the service of Nasr ibn Maḥmūd and after-
wards of his brother Sābiq. The assassination of Nașr and the acces-
sion of Sābiq illustrate the influence now exercised by the Turks over
the internal affairs of Aleppo. Sābiq was opposed by two of his brothers
and by the Bani Kilāb, but defeated his enemies with the help of Aḥmad
1 Fifteen dinars may have been a normal price.
? The same change was made in Mecca in this same year. But the acknowledg-
ment of the Fățimites was resumed there again in 1074 or 1075.
CH. VI.


## p. 262 (#308) ############################################

262
The Turks in Palestine
Shāh and other Turks (July 1076). Nașr and Sābiq both waged war inter-
mittently with the Greeks. In 1075 Mambij was recovered by the former.
The principal Seljūq emirs of the north of Syria were ‘Afshin, Zandiq,
and Muḥammad ibn Dimlaj. In the summer of 1077 they were ordered
by Alp Arslān's successor, Malik Shāh (1072-1092), to unite under the
command of his brother Tāj-ad-Daulah Tutush. In the spring of 1078
Tutush attacked Aleppo at the head of a large force, which included the
Bani Kilāb and the soldiers of Sharaf-ad-Daulah Muslim of Mosul (1061-
1085). The siege lasted four months and its failure was attributed to the
action of Sharaf-ad-Daulah, an old ally of the Turks, who was now
turning against them. Next year (1079) Tutush resumed his operations
in Syria, with some success. Mambij, Buzā‘ah, and other places sur-
rendered or were captured. Then an invitation from the Turkish Emir
of Damascus, At-siz ibn Abaq, drew his attention southwards.
The first mention of the presence of Seljūq Turks in Palestine be-
longs to the year 1070". The authority of Nāșir-ad-Daulah, governor
of Egypt, did not extend at that time beyond the south of Palestine.
Acre and Sidon were governed by an Armenian, Badr-al-jamālī, who
had played a prominent part in Syrian affairs since 1063. Damascus,
Tyre, and Tripolis were in the hands of other independent emirs. The
Arab tribes on the southern and eastern borders were their own masters.
After the assassination of Nāșir-ad-Daulah (10 May 1073), Mustanşir
appealed to Badr-al-jamāli to end the régime of the Turkish slaves in
Egypt. At the head of his Syrian troops he occupied Cairo (February
1074), and in a few years restored unwonted peace and order to the
country. He was the all-powerful ruler of Egypt for twenty years
(1074–1094).
Several Turkish leaders shared in the conquest of southern Syria, but
they all, in a measure, seem to have obeyed At-siz ibn Abaq? His
first acquisition was ‘Ammān, an Arab stronghold in the Balqā (1071? )*.
From there he became master of the south of Palestine, including Jeru-
salem and Ramlah. Jerusalem capitulated on terms, and suffered nothing
from its change of rulers. For several years At-sīz, having marked Da-
mascus as his prey, ravaged its territory, especially at harvest time, and
levied contributions from the coast-towns as the price of their immunity.
In 1075 he captured Rafanīyah and gave it over into the charge of
his brother Jawālī. In the summer of 1076 Damascus at last sur-
rendered to him. After this he ventured to invade Egypt and was
severely defeated in the neighbourhood of Cairo (January 1077). His
1
A. H. 462 (Ibn al-athir, x, 40; Kamāl-ad-Din, p. 77).
? His name first appears in the year 1071 (A. H. 463). Qarlū is the only leader
mentioned by name in the previous year (A. A. 462).
3 Quatremère, p. 413 f.
4 The date is from Sibt ibn al-Jauzi. The general sequence of events suggests a
year later. Cf. infra, p. 263, n. 1.


## p. 263 (#309) ############################################

Turkish dissensions
263
bold challenge prompted Badr-al-jamāli to seek the recovery of Palestine
and Damascus. At-siz, fearing the issue of the conflict he had provoked,
invited Tāj-ad-Daulah Tutush to his aid. The result might have been
expected. Tutush took possession of Damascus and put At-sīz to death
(September 1079)". Badr-al-jamālī withdrew his forces from Palestine.
The emirs of the coast-towns, for the most part, paid tribute to Tutush
rather than submit to their ancient rival, the governor of Egypt.
Finding himself secure in Damascus, Tutush at once sent most of his
army back into northern Syria. “Afshīn, his general, laid waste the
country from Baalbek to Aleppo and ravaged the territory of Antioch.
In consequence of this attack Sabiq and the citizens of Aleppo surrendered
the town to Sharaf-ad-Daulah Muslim of Mosul (June 1080). Sābiq re-
tired to Raḥabah, and Muslim and Tutush stood opposed as well-matched
antagonists.
As matters turned out, there was little actual fighting between the
rivals. For two or three years Muslim strengthened his position in
northern Syria and Upper Mesopotamia, held communications with Badr-
al-jamālī, and sought to divert the tribute of Antioch from the sultan to
himself. During part of this time Tutush was absent from Syria, engaged
in war with his brother Malik Shāh. After his return he captured Țarațūs
and some neighbouring castles from the Greeks (1083). Muslim's one
attempt on Damascus (1083) was broken off because Badr-al-jamālī failed
to co-operate as he had promised, and a revolt in Harrān called for
attention. Next year was occupied by war in Mesopotamia with Malik
Shāh. Towards the end of that year Sulaimān ibn Qutulmish, a Turkish
emir who ruled a large part of Asia Minor, intervened in Syrian affairs.
Antioch was surrendered to him by traitors (December 1084)', and Muslim
fell fighting against him in the following year (21 June 1085). These
events altered the whole situation. Badr-al-jamāli again retired from
Syria, which he had invaded. Sulaimān and Tutush became rivals for the
possession of Aleppo. The former was defeated and slain in June 1086.
Soon afterwards Malik Shāh intervened to settle the division of the Syrian
conquests. Tutush was left in possession of Damascus and southern Syria.
1 The date is fixed by a consideration of Tutush's movements in northern Syria.
Abu Yaʻlà gives Rabi' i, 471 (instead of Rabi' i, 472).
2 Except that there was delay in the surrender of the castle, Antioch was yielded
by its inhabitants almost without resistance, and with little loss of life. Philaretus
(Philard or Firdaus), the governor, was an Armenian by birth, with possessions in
Euphratesia which belonged to him before he was called to administer Antioch and
its territory. He maintained friendly relations with the Turks and was unpopular
with many of his Christian subjects. Sulaiman was hurriedly invited to seize
Antioch on an occasion when Philaretus was absent from the city. Muslim disliked
the change of government, particularly because Sulaimān would not continue to
pay the annual tribute that had been received from Philaretus. Antioch had paid
tribute to Muslim for 2 or 3 years, and previous to that to Malik Shāh. The sources
consulted by the present writer do not shew when the payment of this tribute began.
Both the last two governors of Antioch appear to have been Armeniaus.
CH, VÍ.


## p. 264 (#310) ############################################

264
Eve of the First Crusade
Qasim-ad-Daulah Āq-sonqor, father of the famous atābeg ‘Imād-ad-Din
Zangi, received Aleppo. Antioch was given to Yaghi Bassān! Khalaf ibn
Mulāʻib of Hims and 'Ali ibn 'Ammār of Tripolis remained attached to
the Egyptian alliance which Muslim had formed. In 1089 (A. H. 482)
Acre, Tyre, Sidon, and Jubail (Byblus) submitted to Badr-al-jamāli for
the sake of protection against the Turks. In the following year Khalaf
was overpowered by a combination of the Turkish emirs. Thus all
northern Syria, as far as Tripolis, was now securely in the hands of the
Seljūq Turks.
The assassination of Nizām-al-mulk (October 1092), Malik Shāh's
great vizier, followed soon by the sultan's own death (November 1092),
opened a period of civil war and political decay in the history of the
Seljūq dominions. The rival claims of the sultan's children served as a
welcome shelter to the ambitions of the powerful emirs who supported
them. Tutush of Damascus was a candidate for the sultanate. He
defeated, captured, and put to death Aq-sonqor of Aleppo (summer of
1094). Then he marched into Mesopotamia, where he met his own fate
(February 1095). After this Aleppo was ruled by Fakhr-al-muluk Ridwān,
son of Tutush, and Damascus nominally by another son, Shams-al-mulūk
Duqāq, under the guardianship of the emir Țughtigin. Antioch remained
in possession of Yaghi Bassān. In the summer of 1097 Hims again
became independent, under Janāḥ-ad-Daulah Husain. The coast-towns
from Tripolis southwards were still dependencies of Egypt. The scene
was now set for the entrance of the crusaders into Syria (autumn of
1097).
In December 1094 the long reign of the Caliph Mustanşir (1036-
1094), one of the longest reigns in Muslim history, came to an end. He was
succeeded by his son, Abu 'l-qāsim Aḥmad al-Mustaʻlī (1094-1101), the
ninth Fāțimite Caliph. Earlier in the same year Shāh-an-shāh al-Afdal,
son of Badr-al-jamālī, succeeded his father as 'amir al-juyūsh, and so as
the actual ruler of Egypt (1094-1121). In the summer of 1098 he seized
Jerusalem from its Turkish governor and regained the whole of the south
of Palestine from the Turks.
Thus two groups of foreigners governed
Syria just before the advent of the First Crusade - Turkish emirs whose
power lay mostly in the north and the east, and Egyptian garrisons who
occupied the central and southern coast-towns and a part of Palestine.
Neither of these groups could depend upon the loyalty of the Syrian
people, and neither of them was disposed to unite with the other in joint
opposition to the invaders from the west.
i This name appears in Arabic MSS. as Yaghi Siyān and Baghi Siyān. Van
Berchem (Zeitschrift für Assyriologie), gives reasons for preferring the form Yaghi
Bassān.


## p. 265 (#311) ############################################

265
CHAPTER VII.
THE FIRST CRUSADE.
POPE URBAN II's speech at the Council of Clermont (27 November
1095) officially launched and defined the crusading movement. Four in-
dependent reports by auditors of the Pope's speech, Baldric of Dol,
Guibert, Fulcher, and Robert the Monk, have been preserved. They differ
much in phraseology, but they agree in substance and thus supply an
authoritative statement of the purpose and motives of the Crusade. Their
evidence is confirmed by the aims and ideals of the crusaders as these
are expressed in the literature of the following period. All Christendom,
the Pope declared, is disgraced by the triumphs and supremacy of the
Muslims in the East. The Eastern Churches have asked repeatedly for
help. The Holy Land, which is dear to all Christian hearts and right-
fully a Christian possession, is profaned and enslaved by infidel rulers.
Christian kings should therefore turn their weapons against these
enemies of God, in place of warring with one another as they do. They
ought to rescue the Holy Land and the Holy City, they ought to roll
away the reproach of Christendom and destroy for ever the power of
Muslim attack. The war to which they are called is a Holy War and
Deus volt is its fitting battle-cry. Those who lose their lives in such
an enterprise will gain Paradise and the remission of their sins.
In conception and in fact the First Crusade aimed at rescuing the
Christians of the East, and more especially the sacred cities of Palestine,
from Muslim domination. It was an enterprise for the conquest of
Syria and its permanent occupation by a Christian power. The armies
of Europe were set in motion by the head of the Church, and religious
considerations determined the goal of their enterprise. But there is a
national and racial aspect of the contest, even more fundamental than the
religious sentiment, which gives colour to the whole surface of the move-
ment. The Crusades are the second stage in a long-continued and still
unfinished military struggle between Christendom and Islām, between
Asia and Europe, which began when the hardy tribes of Arabia swept
through Syria and North Africa into Spain in the seventh and eighth
centuries. The Muslim attack on southern Europe, from the eighth
century to the eleventh, called forth that counter-stroke which is known
as the First Crusade. The main springs of the movement, therefore, are
not an enlarged conception of Christian duty nor a quickened sense of
CA. VII,


## p. 266 (#312) ############################################

266
Muslim attack on Europe
religious opportunity. The direct line of approach to the history of the
crusading movement is a survey of the Muslim attack on Western
Europe which was a sequel to the great Arabian uprising of the seventh
century.
After the Muslim conquest of North Africa, Spain (eighth century),
and Sicily (ninth century), all the southern coast of France and the
western coast of Italy, with the islands of Sardinia and Corsica, lay at
the mercy of hostile fleets and of the forces which they landed from
time to time. The territories and suburbs of Genoa, of Pisa, and of
Rome itself were raided and plundered. The Italian cities of the north
had as yet no fleets, and the Muslims held command of the sea. In the
south of Italy and in southern France Muslim colonies established
themselves and were the terror of their Christian neighbours. During
the tenth century the Byzantine Emperors made vain attempts to shield
their possessions in South Italy, and were actually compelled to pay
tribute to the emirs of Sicily. The defeat of the Emperor Otto II
near Rossano in 982 marked the failure of the imperial power of the
West in its traditional part of political defender of the faith. On the
other hand the Muslims had already occupied lands more extensive
than their numbers as yet permitted them to hold securely. They were
weakened by political divisions and by frequent dynastic changes in
North Africa, which was the chief seat of their power. The Muslim
settlers in the south of France were expelled by the year 975 and those
in South Italy, excluding Sicily, never gained more than a tem-
porary and precarious foothold. In North Italy, Genoa and Pisa
began to build ships to protect their coasts, and to further a com-
mercial policy in which Venice, on the Adriatic shore, already led the
way. In the early part of the eleventh century there was civil war
amongst the Muslims in Africa, Spain, and Sicily, and the balance of
power began significantly to alter. The occupation of Sardinia by
the Muslims from Spain, and their descent from there on Luni in the
gulf of Spezia, drove Genoa and Pisa into an alliance which was crowned
with success. Sardinia was recovered, and a first clear step was taken
in asserting the Italian mastery of the Tyrrhenian sea (1015–1017).
Italian fleets now ravaged the coast of Africa and imposed treaties in
furtherance of their growing commercial interests. Mahdīyah, the capital
of the Muslims in Tunis and the chief harbour of their fleets, was
menaced as Genoa and Pisa had been a hundred years before. In
South Italy the Byzantine generals were still unsuccessful against
Muslim raids, but their place was being taken by an ever-increasing
number of Norman knights (from A. D. 1017 onwards). The victories of
the Normans over the Greeks in this period were supplemented by
successful war against the Muslims. When Sicily was finally plunged
into a state of complete anarchy, the Normans began to make conquests
there also (1060). The capture of Palermo (1072) was a significant


## p. 267 (#313) ############################################

Africa, Italy, and Sicily
267
token of their progress. Italian Aleets co-operated in these Norman
enterprises. When Genoa and Pisa in 1087 made a joint expedition, for
the second time, against Mahdīyah, captured the town, burned the ships
in its harbour, and imposed terms of peace on its ruler, the command
of the Western Mediterranean passed finally to the Italian republics.
The event is a landmark in the history of the medieval struggle between
Islām and Christendom. Even the final conquest of Sicily by the
Normans, which followed it very closely (1091), is not so important. In
Spain the same work of reconquest made steady progress after the
middle of the century. Here too Norman valour and Norman swords
played an efficient part. Expeditions from South France, and prob-
ably also ships from Italy (1092-1093), joined in the war. Normans,
Italians, and southern French, were thus already practically leagued in
warfare against the common foe. The First Crusade joined to these
allies other peoples, more widely separated, and bore the contest from
the Western to the Eastern Mediterranean. But the contest remained
the same, and the chief combatants on the Christian side were still
Normans, Italians, and Frenchmen.
The recovery of Italy and Sicily and a large part of Spain from
Muslim rule gave an impulse to the victors which could not fail to carry
them to further enterprises. The defeated enemy had territory in Africa
and the nearer East which invited attack. Pisa and Genoa were engaged
in an oversea traffic which beckoned them eastwards. Sicily, in Christian
hands, offered them ports of call and harbours of refuge on their way.
Amalfi already traded actively with Syria, Egypt, and North Africa;
Venice more particularly with the possessions of the Greek Empire.
Italian commerce had everything to gain from Christian settlements in
the East. An enterprise for the conquest of Syria and of Egypt was
assured of the welcome and support of the Italian republics. The
adventurous Normans too, as they spread from land to land with never-
failing audacity and success, had found the Muslim East, had seen
its treasures, and had heard its call. Their conquest of Muslim Sicily
gave them a stepping-stone to Egypt and to Syria. From Italy they
were already overleaping the narrow sea which separated them from the
Greek Empire. War with the Muslim East may well have lain within
their destiny independently of Pope Urban's summons, to which they so
willingly responded.
The relation of the Popes to the age-long Muslim war is easily
understood and simply stated. As the primates of the Church their
most sacred interests were always imperilled by Muslim victory. Inevit-
ably their authority and influence were cast into the balance against the
spoilers of the Church's patrimony. No partial triumph could extinguish
their hostility, least of all while the holy places of the faith remained.
an infidel possession. Direct political interest also for a time stimulated
their activity. But at the period of their greatest political power they
CH. VII.


## p. 268 (#314) ############################################

268
Leadership of the Pope
were influenced chiefly by the hope of realising their far-reaching vision
of a universal Church. In the ninth century and in the early part of the
tenth century, Rome was within the territory threatened by the Muslim
invaders of Italy, and local circumstances drove the Popes to concert
measures against them. Gregory IV (827-844), Leo IV (847–855),
John VIII (872–882), and John X (914–928), all took an active part in
the Muslim war. Their successors in the eleventh century were not, in
all probability, the actual instigators of the Norman and Italian enter-
prises of the period, as some of the chroniclers assert, but at least they
gave them every countenance and support. Benedict VIII (1012-1024),
an Italian count and successful soldier before his consecration, approved
and assisted the expeditions against the Muslim conquerors of Sardinia
in 1015-1016. Gregory VII (1073–1085), by his advocacy of the cause
of the Greek Empire, prepared the way for more distant enterprises.
Victor III blessed the standard of the expedition against Mahdiyah (1087)
and declared remission of sin to all who took part in it. From the middle
of the century, under the guidance of the great Hildebrand, both before!
and after he became Pope Gregory VII, the Papacy asserted and in a
measure secured its claim to be the ecclesiastical “emperor” of Christen-
dom. Granted that all secular power was subject to the control of the
Church for ecclesiastical ends, the Pope became the predestined head of
any great united enterprise against the Muslims. The part played by
Pope Urban in rousing Europe to the First Crusade was suggested from
the outside, and actually became a means of realising the papal claims.
Still, the suggestion that he should take action was made because he
actually represented the unity of Christendom and alone could issue an
appeal which would be listened to with general respect. The Pope was
an international power much more truly than the Emperor. He con-
trolled an organisation through which he could exert influence upon
every country from within. He best could maintain the “truce of God,”
which secured peace at home while the crusaders were absent on their
enterprise. It is not clear that the Pope's initiative was essential to the
starting of the First Crusade, but his intervention at some point was
inevitable and his authority was one of the great forces which maintained
the movement.
The date at which Europe became ready for a united attack on the
Muslim East cannot be put earlier than the last quarter of the eleventh
century. The enemy were then at last driven out of the home lands,
excepting Spain, and the Western Mediterranean was again a Christian
sea. As long as the struggle in the West was proceeding, schemes for the
conquest of Palestine were impracticable. These facts must be kept in
mind in any consideration of the alleged bull of Sergius JV (1009-1012),
in which he announces the recent destruction of the Holy Sepulchre in
Jerusalem (September 1009) and declares his wish to overthrow the
1 For a different view on this point see supra, Chapter 11, pp. 52–53.


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Pilgrimages to Jerusalem
269
Muslims and restore the Sepulchre. His intention is to equip a thousand
ships for the purpose of his expedition, and he says that word has
already come from the Italian coast towns to the effect that preparations
there have been begun. Assuming the genuineness of the document,
which is seriously disputed, it may be noted that the preparations
reported may not really have been carried very far, nor indeed even
commenced, and that the circumstances which suggested the expedition
were very transitory. The reported destruction of the Holy Sepulchre
was indeed an event likely to awaken the resentment of Christendom,
and it may possibly have originated the earliest formulation of the
crusading idea that has been preserved. But nothing came of Pope
Sergius' intention; the Italian cities were not yet able to fit out the
armada he proposed, and the Sepulchre, only partially injured, was soon
restored without Western intervention! Neither the alleged destruction
of the Sepulchre nor the Pope's daring thought, if it actually was his,
had any direct influence on the origin of the First Crusade. At most
they may have increased the animosity of war in the West and stirred
the Christians there to renewed exertions.
The feature of the First Crusade that most struck the imagination
and stirred the fervour of its supporters was its declared purpose of
delivering Jerusalem from the hands of the infidels. Extreme veneration
for Jerusalem and its sacred sites was fostered by the whole system of
Latin Christianity, and especially by its encouragement of pilgrimages.
Frequent pilgrimages to local and national shrines were crowned by the
necessarily less frequent pilgrimage to Palestine. In the eleventh century
pilgrimages en masse, in which hundreds journeyed together to Jerusalem,
led by some bishop or noble, were not unknown. One such notable
pilgrimage was from Normandy in 1064; another was headed by Count
Robert I of Flanders (1088-1089). Individual pilgrimages also grew
more frequent as the century advanced and the way became easier.
The Cluniac revival gave fresh life to this part also of the Church's
ancient practice. Devotion to the cradle of Christianity was nurtured
and stimulated even amongst those who never adventured on the distant
journey. The indignities which Christians suffered in Jerusalem at the
hands of the Muslims thus became familiar in Western Europe. It is
not likely that the occupation of Jerusalem by the Turks (1071) stirred
feeling in any special manner. But the capture of Antioch from the
Greeks (1085) may have done so. Some part of its former population
seems to have reached Europe, and to have roused animosity against the
Turks by a recital of its misfortunes. In this and other ways the
victories of the Turks over the Greek Empire influenced popular feeling
and at the same time the policy of those at the helm of state. It was
the situation of the Greek Empire and the advance of the Turks in
Asia Minor which finally called Europe to arms on behalf of Jerusalem
1 See supra, Chapter vi, p. 254.
CH. VII.


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270
Peril of the Eastern Empire
and the Eastern Churches. A sense of obligation to the Holy City and
to Christians in the East, long expressed in other ways, now took the
form of the First Crusade.
The long history of warfare between the Muslims and the Byzantine
Empire has been told in another volume of this work. In the crisis
which followed the fatal battle of Manzikert (26 August 1071), the
Emperor Michael VII conceived the idea of calling to his assistance his
Christian brethren of the West. His appeal was directed to Pope
Gregory VII, as the supreme representative of Western Christianity and
more truly its common head than the greatest of its secular potentates.
The Emperor's petition fell on willing ears, for Gregory saw in it an
opportunity of restoring the East to the Roman obedience, and at the
same time of practically realising his great principle that the kings of
Christendom are the liege servants of the Church. For several months
the Pope was full of the project of a mighty expedition to the East, in
which he thought of personally taking part, and for which his letters
claim that he received substantial promises of support (1074). But pre-
occupations in Italy made it impossible for him to carry out his intention.
The Greek Emperor was left to wage an unequal war with the Turkish
invaders of his dominions. They overran Asia Minor and came within
striking distance of Constantinople itself. The Emperor Alexius (1081-
1118) saved a part of his Asiatic territory by acknowledging defeat and
making what terms of peace he could. His position was weakened by
the frequent wars he had to wage with the vassals of the Empire in
Europe. When at length these wars were ended (1094) and the recovery
of lost Byzantine territory in Asia became again feasible, it is not sur-
prising that Alexius bethought himself of the powerful help which had
once been so nearly granted to his predecessor. In 1090 he had been
assisted against the Turks by Count Robert of Flanders. Such another
expedition, but on a considerably larger scale, was no doubt what he
desired and hoped for. His appeal was directed to Pope Urban II,
Gregory's successor in spirit as well as in office (1088-1099). Once more
the Byzantine proposal was favourably received, and on this occasion
nothing intervened to prevent the Pope from executing his resolve. At
his summons Western Europe eagerly prepared to make war with the
Muslim East.
The First Crusade by proceeding through Constantinople and Asia
Minor accomplished for Alexius even more than he can originally have
expected to obtain from his Western allies. Not the least achievement
of the crusading movement, considered in its ultimate results, was that
it postponed the Turkish capture of Constantinople for 300 years. But
the crusaders never regarded themselves as the mere auxiliaries of the
Greek Empire, nor was their chief purpose to aid the Emperor against
his Muslim enemies. Pope Urban's official utterance declared the general
purpose of the Crusade to be the deliverance of the Christians of the
1


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Purpose of the First Crusade
271
East. The danger of the Greek Empire is therefore one motive to
action, explicitly stated, but much more stress is laid on the situation in
Palestine. There and not in Asia Minor lay the supreme object of the
enterprise for the peoples of the West. Their conception of the Crusade
may be said to differ from that of the Emperor only in the emphasis
which they laid on one part of a complex whole. Alexius' appeal,
in general terms indeed, was also doubtless on behalf of the Christians
of the East, and possibly his ambassadors spoke of the deliverance of
Jerusalem as something to be aimed at ultimately by the allied forces.
But the mere change of emphasis exercised a transforming influence.
Very quickly it appeared that all the Latin interests, religious, com-
mercial, and political, lay in these remoter achievements in which the
Emperor had no direct concern. Thus the Crusade had one aspect for
the Latins and another for the Greeks. The two parties were engaged
in appearance in a common enterprise. Each quickly found the other
disloyal to the common cause, because their conception of that cause
was not the same. All the history of the relations between the Greeks
and the Latins, in the First Crusade and afterwards, must be read in the
light of this fundamental discrepancy.
Assuming now that a proposed expedition on behalf of the Greek
Empire and the Eastern Churches could thus become one for the de-
liverance of Jerusalem and the Holy Land, we can better estimate the
significance of Pope Gregory VII's scheme in 1074. It has been argued
that his intention was quite different from that of the crusaders of 1096,
and that if his project had been realised there would have been an
expedition to the assistance of the Greeks but no crusade. In reality
the comparison in these words does not lie between two quite discon-
nected schemes, and it seems more than probable that, if events had
progressed further in Gregory's time, they would have taken the course
they did afterwards in Urban's. It is significant that one of Gregory's
letters shews that Palestine was thought of as the goal of his enter-
prise'. It is true that this goal is not yet the chief object which he has in
view. But neither was it so at first in the time of Urban. It was only
after consideration, and when it had been decided to inaugurate a great
international enterprise (i. e. between the dates of the Councils of Piacenza
and Clermont), that Pope Urban and his councillors began to define the
issue in a specially Latin sense. It is not extravagant to suppose that
Gregory would also finally have done the same. Still, it remains to the
credit of Urban and his advisers that they saw there was a distinctive
Latin view which it was for them to enunciate, and that this was done in
the Pope's great speech at Clermont.
It must be added that the part played by Alexius in the inception
of the Crusade has been variously estimated, and that recent writers of
1 “Iam ultra quinquaginta milia. . . contra inimicos Dei volunt insurgere et usque
ad sepulcrum Domini, ipso ducente, pervenire. ” Gregorii VII Reg. 11, 31.
CH, VII.


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272
Pope Urban II's appeal
גיי
authority have denied it altogether. These writers are entirely justified
when they insist that the number of the crusaders was a cause of
surprise and of serious trouble and anxiety to the Emperor, and that he
did not propose a crusade in the sense of the actual movement, if that
be defined as “a religious war, properly so called, induced by the assurance
of spiritual privilege and undertaken for the recovery of the holy places.
Admitting this, however, it may still be asserted that letters of the
Emperor to the Pope formulated the first draft, as it were, of a scheme
for which the West had long been ripening, and which came into being
in the shape of the First Crusade. Ekkehard and Bernold of St Blaise
supply the necessary proof so far. If so, the Turkish advance and the
need of the Greek Empire must be included amongst the determining
causes of the crusading movement. The expedition of Robert of Flanders,
recorded by Anna Comnena and already referred to, then also becomes a
precursor of the First Crusade. The alleged letter of the Emperor to
Robert, asking for help, may or may not be genuine in its present form.
The supposition to which recent critics incline, that it is a modified
edition of the original letter, seems best to account for its conflicting
features. But that some such letter was written by the Emperor to
Robert is both credible and probable.
Pope Urban's first public appeal on behalf of the Christians in the
East was made at the Council of Piacenza in March 1095. The humilia-
tion of the Eastern Church and the danger of Constantinople were
described to the Pope and the Council by ambassadors from the Greek
Emperor. Urban espoused their cause so warmly that some pledged
themselves at once to go to the rescue of the imperial city. There is no
allusion to the Holy Land in the one report (that of Bernold) which we
have of these events. The decision to rouse Christendom to a united
attack on Islām must have been arrived at in the summer months which
followed the Council of Piacenza. The direction of such an enterprise,
its prospects of success, and the motives to which it might appeal for sup-
port, must all have been considered. In this interval, we may suppose,
Jerusalem became the hoped-for prize of the Muslim war and the chief
incentive to it. There are indications that even certain details had been
arranged before the Council of Clermont, e. g. the time of starting, the
declaration of a three years' truce for the security of the crusaders' homes
and property, and their solemn pledge, marked by the assumption of a
cross on the cloak or tunic. It can hardly be doubted that the Pope had
assurance of influential support before he delivered his speech at Cler-
mont. The circumstances of the adhesion of Raymond of Toulouse
imply that he was previously aware of the Pope's intention and had
been invited to join the movement.