What Inspired a Knight to Go on Crusade?

Take a look at some interesting quotes from well-known historical figures from the Crusades. What motivated a knight to set out on Crusade? Featuring the song "Siege" from J Stephen Roberts.

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The Crusades

A pictorial journey through some riveting moments in the history of the Crusades, set to the song "Agnes" by J Stephen Roberts

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First Among Equals: The Kings of Jerusalem and the High Court

Arguably the most remarkable thing about the Kings of Jerusalem in the first 125 years of the history of the kingdom is that they were elected rather than born. The law of primogeniture did not automatically apply, but rather the High Court of Jerusalem, composed of all the nobility of the kingdom, formally elected the monarch. This was not just a formality, at least not in the first century of the Kingdom. The High Court could impose conditions on candidates, and also force its candidates for a consort upon female heirs. Without its consent, a king or queen, even if crowned and anointed, was just a usurper. Dr. Schrader explains why.

The tradition started, of course, with the conquest of Jerusalem in 1099. The First Crusade had never had a single leader and there was considerable (often destructive) rivalry between the leading lords that took the cross. By the time the crusaders reached Jerusalem, Stephan of Blois had abandoned the crusade altogether, Baldwin of Bouillon had struck off on his own and captured Edessa, and Bohemond of Taranto had remained in Antioch to re-establish a Christian state there.  The remaining lords, however, chose Godfrey of Bouillon to rule over Jerusalem.  Godfrey reputedly refused to wear “a crown of gold where Christ had worn a crown of thorns” and took the title of “Defender” or “Protector” or possibly just “Ruler” of Jerusalem.  

Just one year later, however, he was dead without an heir. The nascent kingdom was in a more precarious state than ever, since the majority of the surviving crusaders felt they had fulfilled their vow and returned home. Those noblemen remaining in the Holy Land again (not without controversy) selected a successor from among themselves, in this case, Godfrey’s brother Baldwin.  Very significantly, he was not the heir entitled by the rules of primogeniture, as he had an elder brother in the West, Eustace. Baldwin did not share his brother’s qualms about calling himself king, and took the title of King Baldwin I. But in 1118 Baldwin I also died without an heir of his body, and the barons of the crusader kingdoms chose for a third time a leader from among their ranks, this time, Baldwin of Bourcq, who thereby became Baldwin II of Jerusalem.

Three such “elections” (with admittedly limited franchise!) set a legal precedent and the Kings of Jerusalem were henceforth always “elected” by the High Court of Jerusalem. The later was initially composed of the leading lords of the realm (which made the election process the equivalent of the English House of Lords electing the Kings of England.) By the mid-12^th century, however, the High Court had been expanded to include the “rear-vassals,” that is men who held a fief from another lord. Thus, in addition to the tenants-in-chief of the king (the barons), the tenants of barons, and their tenants (as long as they were knights) also had a seat on the High Court. Here each man had (at least in theory) an equal voice. As Professor Riley-Smith puts it in his seminal work The Feudal Nobility and the Kingdom of Jerusalem, (Macmillan, 1973), “the voice of the lowliest knight could be raised in the highest court in the land.”

The High Court of Jerusalem had many functions -- judicial, legislative and executive. John La Monte writes in Feudal Monarchy in the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem (Medieval Academy of America, 1932): “Its word was law…and the king who endeavored to act without the advice of, or contrary to the decision of, his High Court found himself confronted with a legalized rebellion on the part of his subjects.” In Jerusalem, the elected king remained “first among equals” vis-à-vis his barons and bishops rather than an absolute sovereign.

Which does not mean that the election of kings was an open, democratic affair. As the products of European feudalism with strong ties to the ruling houses of England and France, the members of the High Court favored the blood relatives of the last monarch. Disputes arose primarily over which of several close relatives had the better claim to the throne. These were legal issues (mixed, of course, with practical considerations, personalities and politics.) Nevertheless, the fact remained that the approval of the High Court was a pre-requisite for legitimate rule, and thus every time a king died there was effectively an interregnum (if not outright crisis), while factions positioned themselves and consensus was established. 

It also meant that the High Court had the ability to impose conditions on candidates even where there was consensus on who that candidate was. An important example of this is the accession of Amalric after the death of Baldwin III. Amalric was Baldwin’s younger brother. He was a mature man with an overall positive reputation and a track record of fighting effectively (a critical criteria in the ever-beleaguered Kingdom of Jerusalem). However, for whatever reason (and these are highly controversial) the High Court did not like his wife, Agnes de Courtney. The High Court forced Amalric set her aside, by making this a condition of their consent to his coronation. 

Amalric’s daughter Sibylla was also married to someone the High Court detested, Guy de Lusignan. However, unlike her father, she was not willing to set-aside her husband. With the support of only a couple of powerful barons (her uncle of Edessa and the Lord of Oultrejourdan) and the Templar Grand Master (who did not sit in the High Court, but controlled some pretty effective troops), she tried carried out a coup d’etat in which she was crowned without the consent or presence of the High Court. To add insult to injury, she then crowned her husband king with her own hand because the Patriarch would not do it. 

Far from side-lining the High Court, this led to a constitutional crisis that was to last six years. First, the majority of the barons and bishops prepared to crown a (legitimate) rival king and queen: Amalric’s younger daughter, Isabella, and her husband Humphrey de Toron. The plan was foiled by Toron, who apparently in public agreed to it but then in the dark of night fled the baronial camp to do homage to Sibylla. Without an alternative to Guy, the baronial opposition temporarily collapsed, but that did not make Sibylla and Guy’s coronation any more legal. Notably, the Baron of Ramla and Mirabel was so outraged that he preferred to renounce his entire estate and leave the realm. The Count of Tripoli went even farther and made a separate peace with Saladin. 

With the loss of the kingdom in the aftermath of Hattin, the High Court temporarily vanished as well, but its spirit lived on in the actions of the leading barons and bishops. At the death of Sibylla in 1190, Isabella was unquestionably the rightful queen, but after Toron's betrayal four years earlier these men were no longer willing to even consider Toron as king. They effectively forced Isabella to separate from Toron and marry a man they believed better suited to rule. When Richard of England asked for a judgment on who should be king, his own candidate Guy de Lusignan, or Isabella’s (new) husband Conrad de Montferrat, the fighting men of Jerusalem (i.e. the same men who would have made up the High Court had the Kingdom still been intact) voted (allegedly unanimously) for Conrad the Montferrat ― and Richard the Lionheart backed-down, conceded defeat, and recognized Montferrat. 

When Montferrat was assassinated a few days later, it was again the barons and bishops of Jerusalem, the de-facto High Court, that selected her next husband, Henri de Champagne. By the time Champagne died five years later, the High Court had been re-constituted, and officially selected Isabella’s last husband, Aimery de Lusignan. 

Thereafter, the High Court selected the husband for the next two queens, which is the same thing as saying they selected the next two kings. Unfortunately, in the second instance they chose Friedrich II Hohenstaufen, the Holy Roman Emperor, and he had neither understanding nor respect for an institution like the High Court. He tried to impose his brand of absolutism on Jerusalem, thereby provoking a full-scale rebellion by the barons that led to a humiliating defeat of the imperial faction and a validation of Jerusalem's unique laws -- but that is material for a separate entry.

Dr Helena P. Schrader holds a PhD in History.

She is the Chief Editor of the Real Crusades History Blog.

She is the author of numerous books both fiction and non-fiction, including a three-part biography of Balian d'Ibelin.

The High Court in the Kingdom Jerusalem plays a key role particularly in the second and third books of my Jerusalem Trilogy:

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Battles of the Crusades: The Road to Dorylaeum

+ Real Crusades History + is pleased to present the first entry in the "Battles of the Crusades" series by Rand Brown II. Rand will be bringing us short essays on some of the most important battles of the crusades at irregular intervals. For each battle, he plans to provide a discussion of the circumstances, leadership, forces and objectives in one entry and a description of the battle, its aftermath and consequences in a second. He starts with the Battle of Dorylaeum in the First Crusade.

After Pope Urban II officially began the First Crusade with his famous Clermont address in November of 1095, it was nearly a year and a half before the first real military clash between Latin crusaders and their Islamic foes took place.  Understandable for an undertaking of this magnitude, the First Crusade had gotten off to a rocky start – in the previous year, a mob of commoners led by the self-proclaimed visionary Peter “the Hermit” ignored Pope Urban’s exhortation to wait for the various lords selected to lead the crusade and marched off in a frenzy for Constantinople.  After crossing the Bosphorus against the advice of Emperor Alexios, they were promptly and easily massacred by the Seljuk Turks - who at that time handily controlled the vast majority of Asia Minor having seized it from the Eastern Roman Empire throughout the previous century.  According to various sources, the Turks made massive mounds of the pilgrims’ bones that were still there when the actual crusading army passed that way.  However, this tragic event actually worked in the crusaders’ favor, as it fooled the local Turkish sultans into thinking that Peter’s ill-fated mob had been the extent of the West’s efforts to reclaim the East, causing them to be caught completely off guard at the arrival of the far more professional Lords’ crusading armies.   

Although the logistics of meeting up all the various contingents at Constantinople had been a fraught and time-consuming process that took over a year after Clermont, the armies that crossed the Bosphorus in early 1097 were well-equipped, disciplined, and led by a cadre of some of the finest leadership in Europe.  With virtually no warning, the crusaders – bolstered by contingents of Byzantine forces – rapidly seized the famed city of Nicaea which surrendered with very little resistance.  The local sultan, Kilij Arslan, was now faced the dilemma of having to respond once again to an unexpected foreign threat or lose vital credibility as a leader among his fellow Turkic warlords.  As the crusaders continued to make their way eastwards, Kilij knew he had to act and soon.

In stark contrast to the disastrous lack of leadership of the so-called “People’s Crusade,” the armies of the First Crusade followed representatives of perhaps one the finest generations of Western medieval leadership.  Broken into regional contingents and strongly divided along ethnic identities, the crusading army sported a sort of “council” of nobles who all viewed each other (more or less) as peers.  Some of the more prominent obviously carried a bit more weight with regards to administrative and command decisions.   

At the nominal head of the army was the papal legate, Bishop Adhemar le Puy, who had been hand-picked by Pope Urban to represent papal authority for the pilgrimage and serve as both the moral guide and unifying element for the lay leaders who might be tempted to stray from the intended goal or, worse, begin fighting among one another.  Among the lay leadership, Count Raymond of Toulouse had been one of the first to take the cross and was allegedly personally involved with Pope Urban during the planning phases even before Clermont.  An elderly man by the time of the First Crusade, Raymond had already fought Moors in Spain in his younger years – according to some sources, he had even ridden alongside Rodrigo de Vivar (the famed “El Cid”).  He was also handily the wealthiest of the crusading lords, bringing immense financial resources from his holdings in the Languedoc to the disposal of the crusade.  Raymond led a vast contingent of troops from Provence, Aquitaine, Gascony, and the north-eastern coast of Spain.   

Juxtaposed to Raymond was the Italio-Norman warrior, Bohemond of Taranto.  He was the son of the famed Norman adventurer, Robert Guiscard – who gave Bohemond his nickname (his Christian name was Mark) due to his immense size in reference to a giant in Italian folklore. Bohemond’s participation in the crusade was at first problematic.  For the past several decades, Bohemond’s family had relentlessly attacked Byzantine territories in the Adriatic and Bohemond himself had dealt the Emperor Alexios a particularly humiliating defeat at Dyrrhachium in 1081.  It took the swearing of multiple oaths before Alexios relented to Bohemond’s presence within the crusader leadership, and even then, the tension was palpable.  However, Bohemond was by far the most militarily experienced leader among the various lords, having spent a lifetime fighting in the eastern Mediterranean and who knew what to expect once they crossed into Asia Minor.  His expertise would prove invaluable during the engagement at Dorylaeum as would his contingent of crack Italio-Norman knights, Sicilians, and Neapolitans.   

Representing many of the northern European nobles was Godfrey of Boullion.  A highly respected lord within Europe, he had initially been a key vassal of the Holy Roman Emperor and incorrigible enemy of the papacy, Henry IV.  After the end of the Investiture Crisis, however, Godfrey became closely aligned with the Popes in Rome and his joining the crusade against the wishes of his excommunicated liege-lord must have been a significant public relations victory for Pope Urban.  After selling off his lands, Godfrey used the sum to raise a considerable force from the Rhineland, Flanders, Lorraine, and other territories loosely associated with the German Empire.  Lastly, the crusader lords were accompanied by a Byzantine military advisor, Tatikios, and a nominal contingent of Imperial troops from Constantinople.  Relations between the Western lords and Emperor Alexios were strained at best and a significant amount of distrust resided between both sides.  Tatikios essentially served as the eyes and ears of Alexios on this endeavor and ensured that any formerly Byzantine territory recovered by the crusaders was promptly returned to Imperial rule.

On the opposite side, the crusaders were about to face one of the premier Seljuk warlords of the day, Kilij Arslan (whose second name means “the Lion” in Seljuk), the sultan of Rum.  Kilij was a formidable leader who belonged to the same generation of Turkic warriors that had inflicted the disastrous defeat upon the Byzantines at Manzikert in 1071 (which provided the initial inspiration for the First Crusade).  However, Seljuk society was still predominantly nomadic and they were definitely the newcomers in Asia Minor.  Seljuk society was stratocratic in nature and fiercely competitive – the loss of prestige for a particular warlord could easily mean his downfall.  Petty rivalries between various tribes and chieftains were the order of the day and, unbeknownst to them, the Western crusaders marched into a land with very little real unity governing over it.  In his effort to halt the crusader advance, Kilij called upon his kinsman, Ghazi, of the Danishmendid tribe to assist him.  While very little is known about Ghazi, he was undoubtedly one of the few warlords Kilij could trust to answer his call in his desperate hour.

The crusader army that marched upon Asia Minor was the product of nearly 500 years of Western military tradition that arose after the fall of the Western Roman Empire.  This was the era of the heavily armored knightly cavalryman and the dawn of the military tradition that would later become known as chivalry.  Developing from old Roman cavalry methods and Frankish improvisations during the Carolingian period, the premier Western warrior was the knight.  Heavily armored with maille hauberk and coif, armed and trained for close-in melee combat, and mounted on steeds especially bred for massed charges, the Western knight in the 11^th Century was the epitome of shock and maneuver and was especially lethal in hand-to-hand combat.  Supporting these knights were thousands of infantrymen of varying degrees of quality – ranging from highly disciplined specialists wielding both melee and ranged weapons to inexperienced volunteers eager to do their part in the “fighting-pilgrimage” to Jerusalem and who would often prove to be a hindrance in battle rather than a help.

In stark contrast to the melee-centric traditions of the Western crusaders, the Seljuks exemplified the skirmishing traditions of their fellow steppe-peoples.  As with their Hunnic, Avar, and other Central Asian kinsmen, the Turks relied on a potent mix of mounted speed, maneuver, and massed firepower to rapidly outmaneuver and swarm their foes – all while staying clear of any close encounters until the odds were heavily in their favor.  Turkic armies of this period were almost entirely mounted on hardy steppe breeds that were tough, but fast when well-handled.  The core of the army usually formed around the warlord and his elite retinue of Sipahi, hybrid mounted warriors who usually carried both lance and bow.  While these were the cream of the horde, the meat consisted of thousands of mounted archers – all barely armored, but carrying the classic weapon of the steppe cultures, the recurve bow.  

Small in size, but very powerful within its 150-200yd range, the recurve bow was comprised of wood, horn, and sinew all glued together and “recurved” for greater power within a smaller frame – the ideal weapon for the mounted archer.  Crusader chroniclers like Raymond of Aguilars commented that in battle the Turks “have this custom in fighting, even though they are few in number, they always strive to encircle their enemy.”  They often used feigned retreats and ambushes to overwhelm squadrons of pursuing opponents, as they did in several engagements with the Byzantines.  Speed, surprise, and mobility were critical for the Seljuks – because the alternative often meant their ruin.  In close quarters melee, even the finest Seljuk warrior was at a disadvantage.

For those who wore any armor at all, Turkic armor consisted of multiple variations on the lightweight hazagand – a sort of cotton jerkin coat with possible scale or light maille sewn into it.  Compared against the far heavier and higher quality steel armor and weaponry of the West, the average Turk stood little chance in close melee unless his arrow-fire had sufficiently worn down his opponent.  These two warfighting traditions were on a collision course as the crusader host precariously made their way across Anatolia towards the small abandoned military outpost of Dorylaeum.

To be continued January 27. Watch for it here on + Real Crusades History + Blog!

Sources Referenced:

John France.  Victory in the East – A Military History of the First Crusade.  Cambridge UK: Cambridge University Press, 1994.

_______.  Western Warfare in the Age of the Crusades 1000-1300.  Ithaca NY: Cornell University Press, 1999.

Fulcher of Chartres, et al.  The Chronicle of Fulcher of Chartres and Other Source Materials.  Ed. Edward Peters.  Philadelphia PA: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1971.

To Shine with Honor: Coming of Age describes France in the decades before the First Crusade.
 

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The First Crusade - Episode 20: The Battle of Ascalon, 1099

With Jerusalem captured, the Crusaders now face a counterattack from a Fatimid army marching up from Ascalon. But Godfrey of Bouillon and Raymond IV of Toulouse rally the Christian army in a daring offensive meant to stop the Fatimids in their tracks.