The Makings of the First Crusade (1)

It seems to be taking me a while to get around to talking about the First Crusade itself. That's because it was rooted in such complex historical processes, that were happening in the Muslim world, the Byzantine Empire, and in western Europe. All these processes inter-related, but it is perhaps to the Christian West more than anywhere else that we must look to understand what made so many people travel 1000 miles to fight for Jerusalem, a city virtually none of them had ever visited.

As it was the church - and, in particular, the Pope, Urban II - who called the crusade in 1095, let's look first at its role in creating the new idea of a Christian Holy War. Christianity has a strong pacifist streak to it; however in the fourth century AD, it became the state church of the Roman Empire, and Roman Emperors and their generals were not known for turning the other cheek and loving their neighbour. They also faced powerful enemies such as the Persians, who in 260 AD had captured the Emperor Valerian. The Persian king used him as a footstool, until Valerian died, after which the king had him stuffed so that he could continue in the same role. Clearly, if the Roman emperors did not wish to get stuffed in future, the pacifist religion had to be reconciled with the needs of warfare.

In the fifth century St Augustine, one of the great theologians of the early church, formulated the doctrine of Just War. This stated that it was OK for Christians to kill people if they did so in self-defence, with good intentions, and on legitimate authority. In the early middle ages this doctrine was used to justify war against pagan enemies such as Vikings and Magyars, and Muslim Saracens in Spain and Italy. Pope Urban was therefore able to employ this idea for his new venture, the crusade. To us, the crusades seem like a hostile invasion of Muslim lands, but to the church the Holy Land was the birthright of Christendom and indeed, of Christ himself, so regaining it was a just and defensive war.

The popes had also begun to use their moral and spiritual authority in other spheres. The new reforming papacy was flexing its political muscles as it tried to free itself from the control of the German emperors, and to promote church reform. However, churchmen were not supposed to fight, so the popes needed to persuade others to do their fighting for them. For example, William of Normandy's conquest of England in 1066 was carried out with papal approval, as William promised to reform the English church. In the 1070s, the forces of Matilda of Tuscany, a key ally of Pope Gregory VII in Italy, were dubbed the militia Sancti Petri ('soldiers of St Peter'). Gregory even considered an armed expedition to fight the Muslims in Asia, a sort-of proto-crusade, but nothing came of this.

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