Early European History

by Hutton Webster

169. CAUSES OF THE CRUSADES

PLACE OF THE CRUSADES IN HISTORY

The series of military expeditions, undertaken by the Christians of Europe for the purpose of recovering the Holy Land from the Moslems, have received the name of crusades. In their widest aspect the crusades may be regarded as a renewal of the age-long contest between East and West, in which the struggle of Greeks and Persians and of Romans and Carthaginians formed the earlier episodes. The contest assumed a new character when Europe had become Christian and Asia Mohammedan. It was not only two contrasting types of civilization but also two rival world religions which in the eighth century faced each other under the walls of Constantinople and on the battlefield of Tours. Now, during the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, they were to meet again.

NUMBER OF THE CRUSADES

Seven or eight chief crusades are usually enumerated. To number them, however, obscures the fact that for nearly two hundred years Europe and Asia were engaged in almost constant warfare. Throughout this period there was a continuous movement of crusaders to and from the Moslem possessions in Asia Minor, Syria, and Egypt.

PILGRIMAGES TO THE HOLY LAND

The crusades were first and foremost a spiritual enterprise. They sprang from the pilgrimages which Christians had long been accustomed to make to the scenes of Christ's life on earth. Men considered it a wonderful privilege to see the cave in which He was born, to kiss the spot where He died, and to kneel in prayer at His tomb. The eleventh century saw an increased zeal for pilgrimages, and from this time travelers to the Holy Land were very numerous. For greater security they often joined themselves in companies and marched under arms. It needed little to transform such pilgrims into crusaders.

[Illustration: COMBAT BETWEEN CRUSADERS AND MOSLEMS
A picture in an eleventh-century window, formerly in the church of St.
Denis, near Paris.]

ABUSE OF PILGRIMS BY THE TURKS

The Arab conquest of the Holy Land had not interrupted the stream of pilgrims, for the early caliphs were more tolerant of unbelievers than Christian emperors of heretics. But after the coming of the Seljuk Turks into the East, pilgrimages became more difficult and dangerous. The Turks were a ruder people than the Arabs whom they displaced, and in their fanatic zeal for Islam were not inclined to treat the Christians with consideration. Many tales floated back to Europe of the outrages committed on the pilgrims and on the sacred shrines venerated by all Christendom. Such stories, which lost nothing in the telling, aroused a storm of indignation throughout Europe and awakened the desire to rescue the Holy Land from the grasp of the "infidel."

THE CRUSADES AND THE UPPER CLASSES

But the crusades were not simply an expression of the simple faith of the Middle Ages. Something more than religious enthusiasm sent an unending procession of crusaders along the highways of Europe and over the trackless wastes of Asia Minor to Jerusalem. The crusades, in fact, appealed strongly to the warlike instincts of the feudal nobles. They saw in an expedition against the East an unequaled opportunity for acquiring fame, riches, lands, and power. The Normans were especially stirred by the prospect of adventure and plunder which the crusading movement opened up. By the end of the eleventh century they had established themselves in southern Italy and Sicily, from which they now looked across the Mediterranean for further lands to conquer. [2] Norman knights formed a very large element in several of the crusaders' armies.

THE LOWER CLASSES AND THE CRUSADES

The crusades also attracted the lower classes. So great was the misery of the common people in medieval Europe that for them it seemed not a hardship, but rather a relief, to leave their homes in order to better themselves abroad. Famine and pestilence, poverty and oppression, drove them to emigrate hopefully to the golden East.

PRIVILEGES OF CRUSADERS

The Church, in order to foster the crusades, promised both religious and secular benefits to those who took part in them. A warrior of the Cross was to enjoy forgiveness of all his past sins. If he died fighting for the faith, he was assured of an immediate entrance to the joys of Paradise. The Church also freed him from paying interest on his debts and threatened with excommunication anyone who molested his wife, his children, or his property.