Ancient history

The First Crusade and the First Crusader Settlements in the Holy Land

First Crusade

The First Crusade is a crusade that took place from 1095 to 1099 following, among other things, the refusal of the Arabs to allow Christian pilgrims free passage to Jerusalem.

Firstfruits

In 1078, the Seljuk Turks dislodged the Abbasid Arabs from Jerusalem who had been living there since 637. A period of free access to Jerusalem by Christian pilgrims then ended. At the same time, defeated at the Battle of Manzikert in 1071, the Byzantines saw the Turks settle in Nicaea in 1078 and found a kingdom there in 1081.

At the end of the 11th century, Emperor Alexius I Comnenus, who saw his Christian Empire threatened by the Turks, repeatedly asked for help from Rome against the Seljuks. In 1095, Pope Urban II took note during a stay in France of the fury of the knights to whom the Turks were now blocking the road to Jerusalem (which the Arabs had always left free) and responded to the request of Alexis I.

Thus, he launched an appeal to Clermont on November 27, 1095 where he preached relief to the Byzantine emperor and the liberation of the Church of God in Jerusalem by promising the knights, in exchange for their participation in the Crusade, the forgiveness for their sins. It is a question of going to the aid of the Christians of the East.

He appoints Adhémar de Monteil, bishop of Le Puy, to lead this crusade.

People's Crusade

The common people reacted in large numbers, in particular to the call of Peter the Hermit who preached it in Berry, in Orléanais, in Poissy where Gautier Sans-Avoir joined him, in Champagne and Lorraine. On April 12, 1096, Peter the Hermit and Gautier Sans-Avoir arrived in Cologne with some 15,000 pilgrims.

Gautier, taking a majority of French, leaves the first Cologne and goes to Hungary where King Coloman grants him free passage. At Semlin, the last Hungarian place before Byzantine territory, incidents with the Hungarians resulted in the stripping of 16 stragglers. Arriving in Nish on August 18, Gautier continued his journey via Sofia, Philippopoli and Adrianople to Constantinople, which he reached on July 20 under Byzantine escort.

The troops of Peter the Hermit reached Semlin in turn, stormed the town and massacred 4,000 Hungarians there.

According to Albert d'Aix, they acted in this way after seeing the weapons and clothing of members of Gautier's band hanging from the ramparts.

For good measure they then invest and plunder Belgrade, deserted of its inhabitants in Byzantine territory on the other bank of the Sava. Attempting to renew their exploits in Nish, they are brought to heel by Governor Niketas, who only allows them to continue their journey on the express condition of not stopping for more than 3 days in front of a town.

This troop finally presented itself before Constantinople on August 1, 1096.

Emperor Alexis I initially advised these pilgrims to wait for the barons, but faced with their excesses, he made them cross the Bosphorus on August 6 and assigned them the stronghold of Kibotos (Civitot).

In September they raid the surroundings of Nicaea and a band, led by an Italian nobleman named Renaud, seizes the castle of Xerigordon. On September 29, a contingent sent by Kilij Arslan retook the stronghold.

On October 21, tired of waiting, they set off again towards Nicaea. They are exterminated en route, Gautier-sans-Avoir, the Count of Tubingue and Gautier de Teck losing their lives in this fight. Out of 25,000 men, only 3,000 manage to regain the Byzantine Empire. They amalgamate with the crusade of the barons, giving the terrible tafurs.

The “German” Crusades

Parallel to the crusade of Peter the Hermit, other bands are illustrated by even greater disorders. These are the bands of Volkmar/Folkmar, Gottschalk and Emich from Leisingen (Leinßingen).

* Folkmar with about 12,000 men passes through Saxony and Bohemia, massacring Jews in Regensburg and Prague before being dispersed in Hungary.
* The German priest Gottschalk gathers a band of 15 000 men and went to Hungary where his crusaders committed various misdeeds before being massacred or captured by the Hungarians.
* Emich de Leisingen, finally, Knight-Brigand of the Rhine, engaged in veritable pogroms in the towns he passed through during the month of May:Metz, Speyer, Trier, Worms, Mainz and Cologne. In Mainz, where there is a center for Talmudic study, 90% of the community was massacred, which deeply affected the Talmudist Rashi. Far from being disorganized, the troop of Emich de Leisingen, which included many lords (Guillaume Charpentier, Viscount of Melun and Gâtinais, Clarembaud de Vendeuil, Thomas de Marle, Drogon de Nesles) carried out their misdeeds out of pure anti-Semitism. Having been refused entry into Hungary, the horde began the siege of Wieselburg where they were crushed by the Hungarians. Emich manages to escape and return to his country while Thomas, Clarembaud and Guillaume le Charpentier join Hugues de Vermandois.

The Barons' Crusade
Godefroy de Bouillon and the barons received by Emperor Alexis
Godefroy de Bouillon and the barons received by Emperor Alexis

If the sovereigns do not respond to the pope's call, great feudal lords do:

* Raymond de Saint-Gilles, Count of Toulouse, who in 1087 took part in the Reconquista;
* Bohémond de Tarente and his nephew Tancrède de Hauteville from the family of the Norman princes of Italy
* Hugh the Great, Count of Vermandois, brother of King Philippe I of France
* Robert Courteheuse, Duke of Normandy (Son of William the Conqueror)
* Robert, Count of Flanders
* Godefroy de Bouillon, Duke of Lower Lorraine and his brother Baudouin de Boulogne and their cousin Baudouin du Bourg
* Stephen II, Count of Blois

Four armies are formed by regional groupings:

* The Lorrainers led by Godefroy de Bouillon and Baudouin de Boulogne crossing Germany and the Balkans
* The Normans of Italy led by Bohémond de Tarente and Tancred de Hauteville, landing in Epirus
* The Southerners around Raymond de Saint-Gilles, through Northern Italy, Serbia and Macedonia
* The French including Hugues le Grand, Robert Courteheuse, Robert of Flanders

The first to leave was Hugues de Vermandois, Count of Vermandois and younger brother of King Philippe I of France. He left France around the middle of August 1096 with a respectable following and passing through Italy, he received the standard of Saint Peter in Rome. Godefroi de Bouillon, lord of Bouillon and duke of Basse-Lorraine, who financed his expedition by selling or mortgaging some of his possessions, also left in August 1096. Bohémond de Tarente decided to cross paths when the first French troops crossed Italy, and abandoning the siege of Amalfi which he was about to undertake, he raised a Norman army and set out for Constantinople, with his nephew Tancred. The Count of Toulouse, Raymond de Saint-Gilles, for his part, gathered together with the legate of the Pope Adhémar de Monteil, the largest of the armies of the Crusaders, who crossed Dalmatia, not without difficulty, during the winter and succeeded in Thessalonica at the beginning of April 1097 and Constantinople on the 21st of the same month.

Arrival in Constantinople

One of the first to answer the call of Urban II, in 1095, Godefroy de Bouillon also became one of the main leaders of the first crusade. Leaving Vézelay with a large following, he passed through Regensburg, Vienna, Belgrade and Sofia, arrived in Constantinople on December 23, 1096, and immediately clashed with Alexis I Comnenus. The Southerners presented themselves before Constantinople in April 1097. Incidents arose with the arrival of larger troops, between Raymond of Toulouse and the Pecheneg mercenaries, between Bohemond and the inhabitants of Castoria who refused him supplies.

Alexis I misunderstands the intentions of the Crusaders, whom he believes have come to offer their services to his empire to recover his lands - like these Scandinavian troops, who for several centuries had been at his service. He therefore demanded an oath of loyalty and a promise to return to the Byzantine Empire the lands that had belonged to it before the Turkish conquest and to hold all other conquered lands as fiefs of the emperor.

Hugues de Vermandois, the first to arrive in Constantinople after being shipwrecked while crossing the Adriatic, easily took the oath to Alexis. Considering himself a loyal subject and man liege of the only Germanic emperor, Godefroy de Bouillon refuses first of all to take the oath of allegiance required by the basileus of all the Crusader leaders. You have to cut him off to make him give in. He finally sacrifices his principles to the spirit of crusade and reluctantly takes the required oath. He thus undertakes to return to the basileus all the territories that belonged to the Byzantine Empire that he could remove from Islam. Triumphant and magnanimous, Alexis Comnène testifies to his satisfaction by showering him with sumptuous gifts:prize horses and parade clothes, precious fabrics and boxes filled with gold bezants. Raymond de Saint-Gilles, claiming that he could serve no other suzerain than Christ, limited himself to swearing to respect the life and honor of the emperor. Bohemond of Taranto would willingly take the oath, if appointed grand servant of the Orient, a charge which would give him command of the imperial forces in Asia Minor, and consequently command of the expedition.

Crossing Anatolia

After the reunion of the four armies, the Crusaders with Byzantine troops moved towards Nicaea which was besieged from May 1097. However, when the city was about to be taken, on June 16, the Turks made the choice to surrender to the Byzantines and the Crusaders are surprised, if not disappointed, to suddenly see the Byzantine flag flying over the city they were about to attack.

The Crusaders resume their journey to the Holy Land. For his part, Qilij Arslan I defeats the recall of the Seljuk Turks and attacks the Crusaders by surprise at the Battle of Dorylée, on July 1, 1097. The victory of the Crusaders opens the way to Anatolia for them.

The army progresses with difficulty, enduring hunger and thirst, losing its horses in large numbers and making the Greek guides responsible for its ills. Winners of the Danishmendites and the Emir of Cappadocia in Heraclea, the Crusaders crossed the Taurus and were welcomed in Cilicia by the Armenians who had settled there since the middle of the 11th century.

The Siege and Capture of Antioch

On October 20, the crusaders arrived in front of Antioch. Bohémond's nephew, Tancred, and Baudouin de Boulogne seized the Cilician places of Tarsus and Mamistra, which they abandoned following dissension. Baudouin then goes to the Upper Euphrates, where he takes Ravendel and Turbessel, which he leaves as a fief to the Armenian companions who have guided him. Called to Edessa by the Armenian Thoros, eager to shake off Turkish tutelage, he became his adopted son and heir.

The blockade of Antioch begins in November, with material brought by a Genoese fleet. But winter makes refueling difficult. Despite the victories won over the armies of Damascus (December), then Aleppo (February 1098), the morale of the besiegers was very low. The defections are numerous (Peter the Hermit, Stephen II of Blois, the leader of the Byzantine contingent, suspected of intrigue with the Turks). Bohémond manages to be promised the city to the detriment of the Byzantine emperor if he entered it first.

A riot rid Baudouin of Boulogne of Thoros of Edessa in March 1098. Baudouin, his heir, founded the county of Edessa. Bohemond manages to enter Antioch with the connivance of one of the defenders (June 3, 1098). The Crusaders, having entered the city, found themselves in a besieged situation, between the Turkish garrison remaining in the citadel, and the reinforcements led by the Atabey of Mosul, Kerbogha. A series of visions and the discovery of the Holy Lance allow them to keep their spirits up. But fugitives, convinced of the imminent fall of the city, joined Alexius Comnenus who reached Philomelium at the head of a relief army. Alexis, who wants to keep the conquests made by the crusade (Smyrna, Ephesus, Sardes), and does not want to measure himself against Kerbogha, turns back. Bohémond de Tarente, victorious at Kerbogha (June 28), masters Antioch. Only Raymond de Saint-Gilles claims to enforce the rights of the emperor over the city. But as Alexis did not assist his vassals, they consider themselves released from their commitment. The Crusade broke with Byzantium.

During the summer, while an epidemic raged in Antioch and carried off the legate Adhémar de Monteil, the Crusaders spread into the neighboring regions, seizing Latakieh and Maarrat to the south, or consolidating their positions in Cilicia. The procrastination of the council of barons about Antioch and the command irritates the rest of the army, which destroys the fortifications of Maarrat, conquered by Saint-Gilles to force him to leave.

After the capture of Antioch, tired of the interminable quarrel between Bohémond de Tarente and Raymond de Saint-Gilles, Godefroy retired temporarily to his brother Baudouin in Edessa, from where he joined the Crusaders when they finally resumed the road to Jerusalem.

The Sack of Jerusalem

The Crusader army takes the road to Jerusalem (January 13, 1099), going up the Orontes valley, without being worried by the Arab emirs of the region. Joining the coast, it seizes Tortosa and Maraclee. Under pressure from his soldiers, Raymond of Toulouse had to abandon the siege of Arqa, which he intended to make the center of his future possessions. Following the coast to Jaffa, the Crusaders enter Bethlehem on June 6 and lay siege to Jerusalem the following day.

The city, fortified and surrounded by ravines, except to the north, awaits help from Egypt. The besiegers lack water, wood and weapons and are not numerous enough to invest it. An expedition to Samaria and the arrival of a Genoese fleet in Jaffa provide the materials needed to build siege engines. A series of purifying fasts, a procession around the city restores its sense of pilgrimage to the crusade. After a difficult two-day assault, the city was taken on July 15. "Entering the city, the pilgrims pursued, massacred the Saracens to the Temple of Solomon... where there was such carnage that ours walked in blood up to their ankles". The city is pillaged, its Muslim and Jewish population massacred.

In the months that followed, a certain number of pilgrims, believing that they had fulfilled their wish, set out again for the West and carried there the news of the triumph of Christianity. Elected prince by his peers who preferred him to Raymond of Toulouse for his weak personality, Godefroi de Bouillon took the title of Advocate of the Holy Sepulchre, thus reserving the rights of the Church over the new State. In July, with the other princes, he surprised the Egyptian relief army at Ascalon, ensuring the survival of his state. In September, he remains alone with three hundred knights and two thousand foot soldiers to defend his conquests (Jerusalem, Jaffa, Lydda, Ramla, Bethlehem, Hebron) to which Galilee is soon added.

In the West, the crusade continues to be preached. Pope Paschal II pronounces excommunication against those who have not fulfilled their vows, sending deserters, such as Etienne de Blois and Hugh de Vermandois, back to Jerusalem.

Consequences

* The First Crusade inaugurates a series of Western interventions in the East
* Foundation of the Crusader States of the Levant
* Contact between the Christianities of East and West
* Establishment of military religious orders (Templars, Hospitallers, Teutonic)
* Development of trade relations with the East
* The Byzantine Empire regains some of its power (before the IV Crusade)


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