Two themes dominated Western church history in the late eleventh and early twelfth centuries:
The efforts inspired by the papacy to reform the church and free it from secular control
The rallying of secular rulers by the papacy to undertake an armed reconquest of the Holy Land from the Muslims
The result of the former was conflict between the pope and the emperor over lay investiture. The papal reform movement revived the papal theory of the empire as the secular arm of the church. The other side of church-state relations was that the church needed the support of secular rulers, especially as it turned the warlike energies of the western nobles to the religious cause of the Crusades.
I. THE PAPACY AND GREGORY VII#
After the death of Leo IX in 1054 it seemed possible for a time that the gains of reform would be lost, but the reformers kept their goals in mind.
The Lateran decree of 1059 confirmed Leo’s assertion of papal independence from royal power and issued regulations for the election of the pope, with some modifications the “world’s oldest constitution” still in force.
The election of the pope was to be by the cardinal bishops, confirmed by the cardinal presbyters and deacons (later all the cardinals had an equal voice in the election of the pope), and ratified by the people of Rome.
Notification was to be sent to the emperor.
The pope might be chosen outside the city of Rome, might come from anywhere in the church, and took office immediately on election.
This decree established the exclusive right of cardinals to elect the pope and reduced the role of the “clergy and people” (that is, the nobility of Rome and the emperor).
The political situation in Italy and Europe had introduced new factors and added new dimensions to old factors in papal power since the times of the “Greats” — Leo, Gregory, and Nicholas. These factors included:
territorial jurisdiction over the papal states prevented the rise of a single Italian power and afforded the pope a measure of political independence
this led to a policy of balancing the powers of secular rulers in Italy
the consolidation of feudalism confirmed the hierarchical understanding of the church
the papacy afforded a useful source of arbitration as an “appeal court” for Europe
The papal revival reached its climax under Hildebrand, Gregory VII (1073–85).
He had been associated with Gregory VI’s efforts to rescue the papacy, thus his choice of name.
As archdeacon and a diplomat under Alexander II (1061–73), he was already the real power in the papal court.
During the funeral for Alexander II, the people seized Hildebrand and carried him to be installed as pope, an action later ratified by the cardinals.
This action was uncanonical according to the constitution Hildebrand had helped inaugurate under Nicholas II, and it would be used against him in his later struggle with King Henry IV.
Gregory VII was a man with a strong conviction of his divine calling, hence a man who acted out of moral and religious motivation, and a man with strong commitments to justice and to the see of Peter. He took a dim view of the state of the church in his time.
In pursuing his program of church reform he had three sources of political support: the Normans in south Italy, commercial interests in north Italy, and the counts of Tuscany in central Italy.
Gregory kept a file of legal authorities relating to the office of pope. About 1075 a summary or perhaps a “table of contents” of this collection was copied into the register of his letters. Gregory was a canonist, and these twenty-seven statements, known as the Dictatus Papae, served as an index to the principles of papal primacy. The claims expressed in it were the basis of his policy toward the Eastern church, the emperor, and ecclesiastics who were recalcitrant.
Gregory I had exercised a spiritual primacy, and Gregory VII now claimed a supreme temporal power as well. Later popes had more effective power, but there was no need to extend Gregory VII’s claims. Nevertheless, with unshaken confidence in his convictions, he made aggressive and rigid claims for papal authority and church rights. Gregory thus was a key figure in the development of the papal monarchy.
II. THE INVESTITURE CONTROVERSY#
The conflict between Pope Gregory VII and King Henry IV of Germany was so important for the future course of the church, the papacy, and church-state relations, is so revealing about the circumstances of the time, and so captured the imagination of people then and now that it deserves being recounted in some detail.
In spite of its name, the conflict involved more than investiture. Two long-standing but contrasting conceptions of the relationship of the religious and political spheres clashed:
The church as free but under the supervision of the superior state (the royal viewpoint)
The church as independent and deferred to by the state (the papal viewpoint)
Their conflict came to a head in the city of Milan over the selection of the city’s bishop. The situation was complicated by the opposition of the Patarenes (“beggars”) to the bishop and clergy for their corruption and loose morals; Gregory VII took up their cause against the royal nominee. Milan became a test case for which viewpoint would prevail.
The real issue in what has come to be called the “Investiture Controversy”, therefore, was the relation of spiritual and temporal authority. The German king/emperor claimed authority as the representative of the laity, and the pope required obedience from even the emperor.
The controversy was narrowed down to the practice of “lay investiture” (the bestowing of the symbols of spiritual office in the church by lay rulers) and the compromise resolving the controversy was in these terms.
A. The Context of the Conflict#
The church was very much involved in the social, economic, and political structures given the modern name feudalism (from feudum - possession of a gift, which carried obligations). Feudalism became more clearly delineated in tenth-and-eleventh-century France and spread from there.
Modern interpretations differ, but three elements may be identified:
The social element of lordship and vassalage (which were the medieval words for the relationship)
The economic element of property (a fief)
The political element of decentralized government and law (which provided the setting and the need for these arrangements)
A key element in the relationship, vassalage, is attested already in the eighth century: a lord protected his “man,” who as a vassal aided his protector. From late Carolingian times the duty of service became linked no longer simply with a person but with a gift of land, and the latter became understood as no longer a temporary enjoyment of the fruits of an estate but as an outright gift.
Feudalism thus refers to the personal relationship between two persons of knightly or noble status (and so from the upper class socially) in which one granted to the other income-producing property (usually land), the fief, in return for various forms of assistance.
A ceremony of homage sealed the relationship, the vassal upon receiving a fief or benefice and promise of protection pledged service to the lord. By the end of the eleventh century the developed ceremony included a promise by the vassal kneeling without weapons, placing his hands together between the hands of the lord, who raised him up and kissed him.
The lord had to defend his “man,” give him gifts, receive him at table, and bring up his sons and marry off his daughters if need be.
The vassal provided the lord with financial aid, lodgings, military service, and counsel.
When a fief passed into possession by the church, the church made a financial compensation for the loss of services.
Many persons had willed land to the church or a monastery, so that bishops and abbots inherited feudal obligations and became themselves great feudal lords with serfs working the land. Ambitious and greedy men wanted these major offices in the church, for these positions, which gave control of great church holdings, were more than spiritual offices.
Moreover, nobles had control over the selection of bishops and abbots because, unless they accepted a person as a vassal, they could withhold possession of the lands associated with these offices. Often a noble’s private chapel (eigenkirche, “proprietary church”) served as the village church, but the noble wanted to keep on selecting the priest.
The reform movement of the eleventh and twelfth centuries sought to remove these places of worship from laymen and give them to bishops. The landowners preferred, if they must give them up, to give them to monasteries in return for prayers by the monks for their souls. Church officials, moreover, had assumed many civil functions in the collapse of the western empire and so had duties to civil rulers.
Church and state, therefore, were intertwined in a great variety of societal functions.
All administrative and secretarial departments were staffed by churchmen, and so the way was prepared for the eventual change in the meaning of the word “cleric” from clergyman to one who performed “clerical” duties.
The income from church lands was important to ecclesiastical and civil rulers.
The kings and other rulers thought they should be able to choose their own officials, but the church did not think it should accept prelates chosen for political reasons.
“Lay investiture” was the narrow issue about which the struggle over conflicting interests and opposing viewpoints was fought. The term technically meant the conferring of the insignia of ecclesiastical office, such as the bishops’ ring and staff, by secular rulers. It has been observed that the twofold duties of churchmen, often inconsistent with each other, made a conflict inevitable but at the same time insoluble, since neither the church nor the state could afford to lose their services.
Four actions were involved in the handing over of the rights and privileges of a church office, but these actions were not so clearly distinguished in the eleventh century as they came to be.
Election by the canons of a cathedral and acclamation by the people
Consecration by an archbishop, who bestowed the staff and ring as symbols of office
Oath of allegiance to the temporal lord, who granted possession of the property of the diocese
Bestowal of jurisdiction, which an auxiliary bishop did not have and from which one could be removed by the pope
In the eleventh century election was almost “designation” by the king or local noble. A free election would often have meant a free fight.
Consecration was the liturgical action in which the Holy Spirit was imparted.
The property, whether belonging to the diocese, monastery, or parish, was the benefice that provided the income for the office.
Jurisdiction was the right to perform the duties (including civil) that went with the office.
B. The Dispute between Gregory VII and Henry IV#
Beginning in 1074, a series of reform synods under Pope Gregory VII proclaimed again the requirement of priestly celibacy, forbade lay investiture (those who received it were placed under the penalty of excommunication in 1078), and in 1075 renewed the excommunication (first decreed in 1073) as simoniacs of five of king Henry IV’s councilors, with whom he had continued to associate.
Papal legates called provincial synods to promote the reform agenda. Much of the German episcopate, however, opposed these measures. There was tension between the German bishops and Gregory because of his treatment of them; Gregory’s claims to authority were seldom challenged, but frequently ignored or avoided. Henry, in the flush of victory over Saxon rebels, proceeded to appoint the archbishop of Milan. Gregory denounced him in a letter of 1075.
Henry IV was in a rage, and the Diet of the empire that met at Worms in January, 1076, declared that Gregory VII had wrongfully become pope. Gregory VII responded at the Lenten synod, February 22, 1076, by excommunicating Henry.
Although Henry answered by having his bishops excommunicate Gregory, he was nonetheless left in a precarious position. His enemies in Germany now had the upper hand and gave him one year to remove the papal ban. The pope set out for Germany to preside at a Diet at Augusburg to settle German affairs. Henry, determined to forestall a coalition of the pope and the princes, started across the Alps.
Gregory, not knowing Henry’s intentions, took refuge in the castle of the countess Matilda of Tuscany at Canossa, a precaution that led to the charge of “hiding behind a woman’s skirt.” Henry, however, appeared in penitential garb, walking barefeet in the snow for three days outside the wall of the castle. Gregory had promised to take no action without consulting the princes, but as a priest he could not refuse absolution to someone genuinely penitent. The clever Henry took advantage of this, and Gregory lifted the excommunication.
The contrast of Henry IV’s humiliation at Canossa in 1077 with his father Henry III’s removal of three rival popes in 1046 shows how much papal fortunes had changed in thirty years.
Henry won a diplomatic victory at the price of personal humiliation. He regained his power in Germany, and the recalcitrant princes went their own way without regard to the pope. Since Henry continued his old policies, Gregory issued a new excommunication against Henry in 1080. This time it had little effect, because the king’s opponents, having been left in the lurch by the pope before, paid little attention to it. Two-thirds of the German episcopate supported Henry, declared Gregory deposed, and supported the antipope, Clement III. Henry invaded Italy in 1081 and in 1084 set up the antipope, who gave him the imperial crown.
Gregory had lost the immediate political struggle, but he had won a moral victory. The picture of the king begging forgiveness before the pope was a symbol and precedent worth the loss of the alliance with the German princes.
In spite of the circumstances of Gregory’s death, the monarchical form of government of the Roman church was now solidly in place.
C. The Final Settlement#
Gregory VII’s pontificate had left the prestige of the church greatly enhanced, and that new prestige could not be destroyed by brute force. On the other hand, the practical influence of the monarch was only slightly diminished. Henry IV died in 1106 still under excommunication and with much turmoil in Germany.
Pope Paschal II reached an agreement with Henry V in 1111:
Henry would renounce his rights to investiture, confirm the papal states, and guarantee the churches their offerings and non-royal possessions
The bishops would renounce their royal properties and their place as princes of the empire
This far-reaching and radical solution would have been revolutionary in its economic and political consequences; such a return to apostolic poverty would leave the church poor and subservient, so the bishops rejected this compromise and it failed.
In 1122 the Concordat of Worms between Emperor Henry V and Pope Callistus II resolved the conflict between the empire and the papacy over investiture. The monarch gave up the custom of investing prelates with ring and staff (the symbols of ecclesiastical office), but kept his influence in the choice of prelates and the right to bestow the regalia (the symbols of temporal authority including the non-ecclesiastical property and material possessions).
The First Lateran Council of 1123 — the Ninth Ecumenical Council according to Roman reckoning, and the first in the West and first to be called by a pope — ratified the Concordat of Worms and the gains of the reform movement.
It was “ecumenical” not because the bishops came from all countries, but according to the new definition that it was summoned, presided over, and confirmed by the pope — a view already anticipated in the Dictatus Papae.
Proprietary churches were another aspect of the entanglement of the spiritual and the temporal. In spite of earlier denunciations by popes and councils, they continued into the twelfth century, when the transformation of owners into patrons was accomplished.
Lay investiture in the narrow sense was abolished, but the conflict between empire and papacy continued on through the Middle Ages. So did Hildebrand’s ideal.
III. THE SACRAMENT OF PENANCE#
Penance is the name given to the procedures for obtaining forgiveness of post-baptismal sins and so the means for the removal of an excommunication. Although the theology of penance was not formulated until the twelfth century, the practices were rooted in the pre-Nicene church. The penitential discipline of the early church, however, had been altered in various ways:
From being public and non-repeatable to becoming private and repeatable
From being a punishment to becoming a positive part of the religious life
Since the time of Gregory I the basic framework followed during the Middle Ages had been in place. The essential parts were contrition, confession, and works of satisfaction. Although the guilt (culpa) of sin was forgiven on the basis of penitence and confession, the medieval practice, influenced by Germanic legal theory, required in addition punishment (poena), “satisfactions.”
These “punishments” for sin might be worked off either on earth or in purgatory, which received greater stress in the twelfth century.
Instead of the severe fasts and public displays of penance that earlier served as a satisfaction for sins, “redemptions” or commutations that substituted praying the Psalms or giving alms were in use from Carolingian times. These practices set the background for the development of indulgences.
Private confession once a year at Lent, common since Carolingian times, was made obligatory by the Fourth Lateran Council of 1215. Public confession, however, did not disappear, and the penitential exercises continued to be rather public.
From the beginning of the eleventh century it was customary to grant absolution after confession and before imposing the satisfaction. From the twelfth century a declarative formula instead of a prayer was in use, and by 1350 “I absolve you” was the common formula.
IV. THE FIRST CRUSADE#
The First Crusade is connected with the assertions of papal authority and developments in the sacrament of penance. Many of the families involved in the First Crusade had ties with the papal reform movement of the eleventh century. Gregory VII explained that military service could be an act of penance when directed against his opponents in the Investiture Controversy. This early emphasis on penitential warfare soon became bearing arms in God’s service. The idea of violence as an expression of piety was a new development and requires some explanation of how it came about.
A. The Devolution of the Idea of Holy War for Christians#
Six strands of thought contributed to the idea of the Crusades.
1. The acceptance of a Christian’s participation in warfare
Many early Christians saw themselves as soldiers of one emperor, Jesus Christ, with a duty to inflict no harm on others. Others, seeing no clear distinction between the army and the police power of the state, served in the military but as much as possible avoided the pagan religious aspects of army life.
Under Constantine all the functions of the state came to be thought of as within the sphere of a Christian’s activities. The Council of Arles (314), in a canon subject to differing interpretations, refused communion to Christians in the army who threw down their weapons in time of peace.
Eusebius suggested the righteousness of war against demonic forces—divisiveness within the empire and barbarian invasions from without. Yet it was a long time before Christian thinkers accepted the idea, itself older than Christianity, of a “just war.” Augustine was an exponent of the view, but he still felt even a just war involved an element of sin for which one must do penance.
Although the Muslims came to be regarded as a legitimate object of just war, Charles Martel still thought of his work as self-defense. Charlemagne felt he could undertake missionary warfare, but the idea that war was sin continued on beyond the Carolingian period.
It was still a grave sin in the eleventh century to kill a man in a battle waged for secular ends. Even the Normans under William the Conqueror at the battle of Hastings in 1066, a battle blessed with papal approval and fought against a perjurer on holy relics (Earl Harold), were subject to penances for the deaths they inflicted.
2. The devolution of the right of just warfare from the imperial ruler to kings to knights
Charlemagne and his successors had claimed the right of warfare for the emperor alone. Then it was accepted that the anointed kings could undertake a just war as well as the emperor. Feudalism, however, increasingly placed the burden of keeping order on local nobles.
From the tenth century the warrior, his arms, and his banners were liturgically blessed. Under the code of chivalry the knight possessed a hallowed sword so that he was free to use it according to his understanding of justice. The knight with his arms became a symbol of Christian peace.
The Peace of God movement, paradoxically, contributed to the development of the idea that shedding of blood in battle was more than justified and could even be salvific in the service of God when directed against pagans and heretics.
The benediction of the sword was originally used only in royal coronations, but it now devolved so individual knights could freely use their hallowed sword for the protection of churches and of the oppressed.
The blessing of the sword represented a decline in the older view that killing was wrong and demanded penance. The ceremony of dubbing a knight was given a religious character. Chivalry became the Christian form of the military life.
3. The influence of Islam
The acceptance of the idea of holy war by the medieval church may perhaps have been due in part to the influence of this concept from Islam. The privilege of the crusaders to receive forgiveness from punishment for sins had a parallel in the promise to go to paradise given to Muslim warriors in a holy war.
In the reverse direction, religio-political opposition to Islam, even before the call for the crusade, had led Normans in southern Italy to set about retaking Sicily from Islam. It also led French knights to take part in the beginning of the reconquest of Spain. This reconquest was started by Christian rulers in northern Spain in the eleventh century.
4. The papalization of warfare
The raising of armies on behalf of the papal states by the popes, as with Leo IX, led to the universalizing of the conception of warfare once again.
Churchmen came to accept warfare in certain circumstances as something that could be engaged in on God’s authority
Theologians interpreted Augustine’s views of a just war to mean that soldiers fighting in a war authorized by the pope incurred no blame
The right of the church to defend the interests of Christendom with the material sword was extended further by Pope Urban II, for it was now acknowledged that the church as such could engage in warfare. He directed attention away from conflicts within Christendom to a crusade against the infidels.
The Crusade was not only a just war; it was a holy war. One fought now not just as a Christian but because he was a Christian. Christians must retake the holy city from the infidels. In this theory only the pope could engage in a universal holy war; in a sense, he could do what the ancient emperors claimed to do.
5. The practice of pilgrimage
Some went on pilgrimage to a holy site as a penance imposed by a confessor, some as an act of devotion (often to fulfill a vow), and some went to Jerusalem in their old age in order to die there.
Pilgrims to Jerusalem had at first been forbidden to carry arms.
Then they carried them for self-defense.
Finally, the “pilgrims” took the offensive against the Muslims.
The Crusades combined the language of pilgrimage and of a military expedition. Pilgrimage to Jerusalem was one of the motifs inspiring the zeal of the crusaders.
6. The motive of reuniting the church
The schism between East and West was still fresh in the minds of Western churchmen, who saw military aid given to the Byzantine empire as a basis for renewing good relations and the restoration of communion.
B. The Preaching of the Crusade - Pope Urban II (1088-99)#
Generally the Muslims were tolerant of their Christian subjects, but sometimes there were exceptions that aroused Christian resentment.
The caliph Al-Hakim, who ruled from Egypt, claimed to be divine (the Druze are his followers) and started a campaign against those who refused to accept his claims. When Al-Hakim leveled the shrine of the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem in 1009 as part of a larger campaign to convert Christians and Jews, it was a vivid reminder that the holiest sites of Christianity were controlled by unbelievers, and the passions of Christians even in the West were inflamed against Muslims, even though Al-Hakim’s successor had the church rebuilt.
The Islamic empire in the East had a similar experience to the earlier Roman Empire in the West: As the Germanic invaders were converted to Catholic Christianity, so the Turkish invaders of the Muslim territories were converted to Islam. The Seljuk Turks in 1070–71 took Palestine, including Jerusalem.
The eastern empire’s decline from its peak under the Macedonian dynasty was highlighted by two military losses in 1071:
The fall of Bari, the last major Byzantine holding in southern Italy, to the Normans
The defeat at Manzikert by the Seljuk Turks, who proceeded to occupy much of Asia Minor
Although the practice continued, it was now more difficult for Christians to make pilgrimages to Jerusalem, so the Byzantine emperor Alexius I Comnenus (1081–1118) made a request for aid from the West.
Pope Urban II, a product of the monastery at Cluny and a supporter of Gregory VII, followed the latter’s example in working for union of East and West. Urban thought the crusade would impress the Eastern church with the religious vitality and charity of the West. The outcome, however, proved to be quite the reverse.
At a council at Clermont in 1095, Urban brought together the strands leading to a Holy War by combining the motifs of pilgrimage to Jerusalem and of pious violence. He declared that it was no longer possible to go to Jerusalem without weapons; an armed processional was necessary.
Urban II at Clermont offered to crusaders the same remission of the church’s penalties for sin that were customarily granted to pilgrims to Jerusalem, but in the subsequent promotion of the crusade preachers extended the promise to a remission of all penalties for sin that God would inflict both in this life and in the next. Thus the Crusades marked an important step in the development of indulgences.
An indulgence was the remission of the temporal punishments (whether inflicted on earth or in purgatory) for sin. The guilt of sin (eternal punishment) was forgiven by absolution in response to the contrition and confession by the sinner, but satisfaction (temporal punishment) still had to be made for sins. To obtain an indulgence some good work was prescribed.
The rigors of the campaign to retake the Holy Land were seen as satisfying the requirements for temporal punishment for sins. No other satisfaction for sins was necessary. Urban had earlier extended the same promise of remission of penance to those fighting the Muslims in Spain.
Holy war became a new way of gaining forgiveness of sins, an alternative to entering the monastic life. Later the same promise of remission of penalties for sin was extended to those who equipped a crusader. The promise of remission of the punishments due for sin gave a religious character to the whole crusading enterprise.
Urban, himself French and a Cluniac, singled out the French as the special bearers of the crusading idea. French was the language of the crusaders, and “French” became the term for Europeans among the Muslims, just as “Turks” emerged among Europeans as the generic name for the religio-political enemies of Christendom. A phrase that echoed through the literature of the Crusades was to “avenge the honor of God” that had been offended by the Muslims.
Those who responded to Urban’s call and the calls for later crusades did so out of a variety of personal motivations. Various interpretations of the Crusades are reflected in the motivations assigned to the crusaders.
For some there was the expectation of improving their fortunes by plunder, for some there was the love of adventure, for some the ambition for territorial enrichment or social advancement. Expectations of material gain from the enterprise, however, were rarely achieved.
Some acted out of religious hatred for the “infidel Turks,” while some out of genuine devotion to Jesus Christ felt a positive commitment to return the site of his crucifixion to the hands of believers.
These aspirations were not mutually exclusive, and for many there must have been a mingling of motives, from a religious perspective some worthy and others unworthy.
C. The Crusaders and the Fighting#
The pope preached the crusade, but he had very little control over it. The recruitment, organization, and oversight fell to the knights, many of whom came from middle-ranking nobles.
A first contingent led by Peter the Hermit of Amiens and other violent preachers anticipated the main army of crusaders. Made up largely of discontented peasants, this rabble pillaged its way across Europe, on the way inciting in central Europe a severe persecution of Jews, who had received intense persecution in France earlier in the century. Their effort ended in disaster when many were killed by the Turks near Nicaea and Peter fled.
The main body of crusaders started out in 1096. The leaders included:
Godfrey of Bouillon, duke of Lorraine, whose ideal remained untarnished to the end
Baldwin of Boulogne, his brother
Bishop Adhemar of LePuy, the principal religious advisor
Raymond of Toulouse
Bohemond, a Norman from Taranto in south Italy
At Constantinople the crusaders learned they were to give an oath of allegiance, which they reluctantly gave, to Emperor Alexius, who preferred mercenaries—not armies under their own commanders.
The Turks were defeated at Nicaea; Dorylaeum fell in 1097; Antioch fell in 1098. Disunity among the Muslims contributed to the success of the First Crusade. The goal of the crusade, Jerusalem, fell in 1099, accompanied by much bloodshed. After the hardships and losses experienced on the way, the victory convinced the crusaders that the hand of God had helped them capture Jerusalem.
The crusaders were no more brutal than Muslims, nor more brutal than was expected in warfare at the time (and there were examples of chivalrous conduct on both sides).
Successive contingents of crusaders set out by various routes to the East until 1131, including an expedition organized by Italian commercial cities in 1101.
D. The Theological Aspect of Reunion#
While the fighting was going on, there was an effort at theological reconciliation with the Greek church. A council met in 1098 at Bari in southeast Italy, for which the pope enlisted the support of Anselm of Canterbury.
The council discussed some of the points of difference between the Greek and Latin churches:
The filioque addition to the Nicene Creed
Differences in the liturgy of the eucharist
In regard to the latter, the Eastern church summoned the Holy Spirit in the epiclesis (invocation), whereas in the West the recitation of Jesus’ words at the Last Supper effected the change in the elements into the body and blood of Jesus.
The outcome of the second eucharistic controversy made the understanding of the Real Presence more of a problem than the difference between leavened and unleavened bread. The authority of the pope was not discussed.
This council could have been the capstone to the First Crusade, but in the meantime, according to the view of the eastern empire, the crusaders had gotten out of hand.
E. Results of the Crusade#
One major result of the First Crusade was the further alienation of the Greeks from the West. The independent actions by the crusaders were not the kind of help Alexius wanted. Even greater alienation of the Muslims resulted from the subsequent two-hundred-year history of the Crusades, which permanently poisoned Muslim-Christian relations and ended the spirit of tolerance for Christians living under Muslim rule.
Perhaps the only peoples to welcome the crusaders were some of the Christian minorities who had suffered from both Byzantine and Muslim rule, such as the Armenians and the Maronites in Lebanon. The latter affiliated with Rome in 1182 as a uniate church, maintaining their own liturgical rites and customs, but these ties had to be reestablished in the fifteenth century.
For others, such as the Copts in Egypt, the Crusades were a calamity, since they were suspected of Western sympathies by Muslim rulers and treated as schismatics by the Latins. Indeed, they were prohibited by the Latins from making pilgrimage to Jerusalem.
Jews did not fare any better than Muslims from the Crusades, and indeed the First and Second Crusades were disastrous for the Jews in western Europe who—because of the Crusades’ emphasis on the cross of Jesus Christ and the related charge of deicide—experienced anti-Semitic pogroms by the general populace in spite of opposition to such treatment from popes and church leaders like Bernard of Clairvaux.
Relations with the Eastern churches were not improved by the erection of two Latin patriarchates, Antioch and Jerusalem. Later, under Innocent III in the wake of the Fourth Crusade, a Latin patriarch was appointed for Constantinople also.
The Crusades weakened the Byzantine empire and so hastened its fall. The Arab governments were also weakened and left susceptible to the Turkish and Mongol invasions.
An immediate result of the First Crusade was the establishment of Latin states in the East:
Edessa became a county under Count Baldwin
The principality of Antioch was ruled by Bohemond
The Italian cities founded a state at Tripoli
Jerusalem was declared to be ruled by Jesus Christ as king with Godfrey as Protector of the Holy Sepulcher
Godfrey’s scruples about not taking the title “king” over the city where his Lord was crucified were not shared by his brother Baldwin, who succeeded him on his death in 1100 and did assume the title “king” (1100–1118).
A significant new development in monastic history was the rise of the knightly monastic orders.
- The first of these was the Knights Templar, founded in 1118 under Hugh of Payens.
King Baldwin gave the Templars their name, and from them the idea of fighting for the Temple passed to other orders. King Philip IV of France confiscated the property of the Templars in 1307, and Pope Clement V dissolved the order in 1312.
- The practices of the Templars were soon imitated by the Hospitallers, who had an earlier origin as a charitable order.
They had been organized in 1050 by merchants from Amalfi resident in Jerusalem to protect pilgrims. They provided hospitality and later care of the sick, exemplifying the change in the connotations of the word “hospitality” to those of the word “hospital.” Under Gerard (d. 1120) the Hospitallers gained papal sanction. His successor, Raymond of Provence, reorganized the Hospitallers as a military order on the pattern of the Knights Templar. The Hospitallers or Knights of St. John the Baptist were known after 1310 as the Knights of Rhodes and after 1530 as the Knights of Malta.
- Another important military order, the Teutonic Knights (the Order of St. Mary of Teuton), arose later (papal approval in 1199) in the Third Crusade.
The knightly monastic orders had certain features in common. With them warfare as a temporary act of devotion became warfare as a devotional way of life. They represented a fusion of two meanings of the “militia of Christ”, monks and crusaders. The old monastic idea of fighting the demons coalesced with a literal military goal.
As the military mission became dominant, smaller eleeomosynary (benevolent) orders arose. All the knightly orders were devoted to the idea of pilgrimage to Jerusalem. Knights, serving brothers, and priests comprised the membership of the orders. A Grand Master was in control, and there were annual chapter meetings of all the local priors. The Hospitallers and the Templars became international.
In studying the military aspects of relations between Christianity and Islam one should remember that there were peaceful interchanges in the Middle Ages between Muslims and Christians. Some Christians advocated peaceful missions to the Muslims. Non-violent encounters may be seen especially in mutual borrowings in art.
On the positive side, the Crusades promoted a greater sense of unity in western Europe. Its various peoples, sharing a common Latin culture, giving allegiance to the pope in Rome, and joined in a common religio-military enterprise, became more aware of their unity.
The Crusades resulted in increased prestige for the papacy. The involvement of the laity in the Crusades stirred religious sensibilities that may be related in some ways to the new religious movements of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries.
Another result of the Crusades was the stimulation of an intellectual revival in western Europe. In a measure this was already present, or there would not have been enough energy to start a crusade. But the crusaders brought back with them new experiences and knowledge from another part of the world that greatly stimulated intellectual life.
Moreover, there was direct contact with Muslim thought in Spain and Sicily that contributed to the twelfth-century renaissance in Europe. A revitalization in theology, as well as in other areas, can be located especially in Normandy, particularly at the monasteries of Bec and Comte. That intellectual activity is associated with the development of Scholasticism.