Document-Based Question The Crusades

Transcription

1 Task: Historians attribute the Crusades to a diversity of causes. Using the document sources, as well as any background research, write an argumentative, analytical essay that answers the following: DBQ Question Evaluate whether the Crusades were caused primarily by religious devotion or by the desire for political and economic gain. Guidelines Develop a three-to-four page, multi-paragraph, analytical paper with a strong argumentative thesis. o Include an introduction (with general statement/context, proper pacing/flow, and a thesis/structure statement) o Include body paragraphs (with evidence and analysis that support your thesis) o Include a counterargument (and try to defuse that counterargument) o Include a conclusion (by revisiting the thesis in a subtle and nuanced way and by considers broader implications or the big picture. ) Deconstruct, analyze, and mark up the documents in this packet. Swing by to review what strong evidence and analysis looks like. Use evidence from the sources; draw from a minimum of nine (9) document sources. Draw from other helpful outside information. Please cite and include a works cited page. Take a position; don t sit on the fence and argue that both caused the Crusades. 9th century, CE Historical Background The feudal system takes hold in Europe, a loosely-organized system of rule in which lords divided their landholdings among lesser lords, in exchange for military service and crops. At the bottom were serfs who worked in the fields. Feudal or Medieval Europe is considered by historians to be a period of little wealth, learning or technological advance. At the same time, the Muslim world is led by the Abbasid Caliphate ( CE), extending from current-day Pakistan through the Middle East, northern Africa, and southern Spain. The Abbasid s Golden Age of technological and scientific advance, as well as wealth and culture, takes place between CE CE The Great Schism takes place splitting Greek-speaking Eastern Orthodox Church centered in Constantinople from the Latin-speaking Roman Catholic Church centered in Rome CE The Seljuk Turks, who were Sunni Muslims, take over most of Asia Minor (from the Byzantines) and Jerusalem CE Pope Gregory VII argues for a new role for the Catholic Church in the world with rule over secular leaders and over clergy. He urged Christian princes to reclaim lands from Muslims in Spain. Nov CE Pope Urban II preaches the First Crusade. The aim was to assist Byzantine Christians from attack by Seljuk Turks and to return Jerusalem to Christian control CE The First Crusade. The first crusade included 4,000 knights and 25,000 infantry from different parts of Western Europe (mainly France). About 40,000 peasants also participated led by Peter the Hermit, with most killed by the Turks in Asia

2 Minor. Jerusalem was captured by the crusaders in 1099; the Jewish and Muslim population of the city was massacred. Four crusader states were established CE Crusaders take Tyre and occupy all of the coast except for Ascalon CE Zangi, the Muslim ruler of Damascus, takes Edessa, one of the four Crusader states The Second Crusade; crusaders hope to take Edessa but fail CE Saladin controls Egypt for Nur al-din, and then seizes Damascus after Nur al-din dies in Saladin-led Islamic forces capture Jerusalem CE The Third Crusade; under the leadership of Richard the Lionhearted, the crusaders recover several cities including Jaffa and Acre, but not Jerusalem. Richard negotiates for the right for Christian pilgrims to enter Jerusalem CE Crusaders plan to attack Egypt. The crusaders contracted Venetian merchants to transport the knights, their horses and foot soldiers. When the crusaders could not pay the Venetians, the Venetian Doge Dandalo offered a deal: attack the Christian city of Zara on the Adriatic Coast instead. Zara-a Catholic city- had revolted against Venetian domination. The crusaders went on to invade Constantinople-capital of the Byzantine Empireat the request of Alexius, a prince with a claim to the throne. The crusaders invaded Constantinople in 1203 and again in The city was sacked for several days before the Pope ordered an end. The treasure was split between the crusaders and the Venetians CE The fifth, sixth and seventh crusades plan to invade Egypt. They each fail CE The Mongol chief Hulegu, grandson of Genghis Khan, sacks Baghdad, massacring the population and killing the last Abbasid caliph CE The Mamluk sultan Khalil, son of Qalawun, takes Acre, putting an end to two centuries of crusaders presence in the Middle East. Additional Contextual Information Maps in the Holy Lands by the Historical Atlas of the Mediterranean Christian States in 1100 by Fordham University : Crescent and the Cross

3 Document 1 The reform movement began in a Benedictine monastery in Cluny (east central France); it was founded in 910. The local secular lord was persuaded to give up all his rights to the monastery and surrounding lands. Instead of local supervision, Cluny enjoyed a special papal guarantee of protection. Cluny rejected lay investiture; the monks from Cluny taught papal submission all monks and clergy should be subject to the pope. The Cluniac program forbade clerical marriage and denounced concubinage; no clergy should have hearth-mates. The abbot of Cluny gained control over a network of priors, head of 1,500 monasteries throughout France and Germany. The fervency fanned by the Cluniac reform movement ensured that [Pope] Urban would receive ample volunteers [for the Crusade]. Some were motivated by apocalyptic visions that foresaw a final emperor ruling over Jerusalem before Christ returned; others sought plunder or opportunities to rule elsewhere as eldest sons were privileged to rule over hereditary holding back home; some felt constrained to obey Christ s vicar (the Pope) on earth. Source: Curtis Bostick, Professor, Southern Utah University Document 2 In 1095, Alexios I Komnenos, the Byzantine emperor, dispatched a letter to Pope Urban II, seeking aid from the west against the Seljuk Turks, who had taken nearly all of Asia Minor from the Byzantine Empire. At the Council of Clermont, Urban addressed a great crowd and urged all to aid of the Greeks (Byzantines) and to recover Palestine from Muslim rule. The speech was not preserved, but below is one of the five accounts of the speech. Robert the Monk wrote this perhaps 25 years after the address, but he may have been present at the council. From the confines of Jerusalem and the city of Constantinople a horrible tale has gone forth and very frequently has been brought to our ears, namely, that a race from the kingdom of the Persians, an accursed race, a race utterly alienated from God, a generation forsooth which has not directed its heart and has not entrusted its spirit to God, has invaded the lands of those Christians and has depopulated them by the sword, pillage and fire it has either entirely destroyed the churches of God or appropriated them for the rites of its own religion. They destroy the altars, after having defiled them with their uncleanness. They circumcise the Christians, and the blood of the circumcision they either spread upon the altars or pour into the vases of the baptismal font. When they wish to torture people by a base death, they perforate their navels, and dragging forth the extremity of the intestines, bind it to a stake; then with flogging they lead the victim around until the viscera having gushed forth the victim falls prostrate upon the ground. Others they bind to a post and pierce with arrows. Others they compel to extend their neck with a single blow. What shall I say of the abominable rape of the women? To speak of it is worse than to be silent. The kingdom of the Greeks is now dismembered by them and deprived of territory so vast in extent that it cannot be traversed in a march of two months. On whom therefore is the labor of avenging these wrongs and of recovering this territory incumbent, if not upon you? You, upon whom above other nations God has conferred remarkable glory in arms, great courage, bodily activity, and strength to humble the hairy scalp of those who resist you. Let the deeds of your ancestors move you and incite your minds to manly achievements; the glory and greatness of king Charles the Great, and of his son Louis, and of your other kings, who have destroyed the kingdoms of the pagans, and extended in these lands the territory of the holy church.

4 Let the holy sepulchre of the Lord our Saviour, which is possessed by unclean nations, especially incite you, and the holy places which are now treated with ignominy and irreverently polluted with their filthiness. Oh, most valiant soldiers and descendants of invincible ancestors, be not degenerate, but recall the valor of your progenitors. But if you are hindered by love of children, parents and wives, remember what the Lord says in the Gospel, He that loveth father or mother more than me, is not worthy of me. Every one that hath forsaken houses, or brethren, or sisters, or father, or mother, or wife, or children, or lands for my name s sake shall receive an hundredfold and shall inherit everlasting life. Let none of your possessions detain you, no solicitude for your family affairs Let therefore hatred depart from among you, let your quarrels end, let wars cease, and let all dissensions and controversies slumber. Enter upon the road to the Holy Sepulchre 1 ; wrest that land from the wicked race, and subject it to yourselves. That land which as the Scripture says floweth with milk and honey, was given by God into the possession of the children of Israel. Jerusalem is the navel of the world; the land is fruitful above others, like another paradise of delights. This the Redeemer of the human race has made illustrious by His advent, has beautified by residence, has consecrated by suffering, has redeemed by death, has glorified by burial. This royal city, therefore, situated at the centre of the world, is now held captive by His enemies, and is in subjection to those who do not know God, to the worship of the heathens. She seeks therefore and desires to be liberated, and does not cease to implore you to come to her aid. From you especially she asks succor, because, as we have already said, God has conferred upon you above all nations great glory in arms. Accordingly undertake this journey for the remission of your sins, with the assurance of the imperishable glory of the kingdom of heaven. When Pope Urban had said these and very many similar things in his urbane discourse, he so influenced to one purpose the desires of all who were present, that they cried out, It is the will of God! It is the will of God! When the venerable Roman pontiff heard that, with eyes uplifted to heaven he gave thanks to God and, with his hand commanding silence, said: Most beloved brethren, today is manifest in you what the Lord says in the Gospel, Where two or three are gathered together in my name there am I in the midst of them. Unless the Lord God had been present in your spirits, all of you would not have uttered the same cry. For, although the cry issued from numerous moths, yet the origin of the cry was one. Therefore I say to you that God who implanted this in your breasts, has drawn it forth from you. Let this then be your war-cry in combats, because this word is given to you by God. When an armed attack is made upon the enemy, let this one cry be raised by all the soldiers of God: It is the will of God! It is the will of God!... Whoever, therefore, shall determine upon this holy pilgrimage and shall make his vow to God to that effect and shall offer himself to Him as a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, shall wear the sign of the cross of the Lord on his forehead or on his breast. When, truly, having fulfilled his vow he wishes to return, let him place the cross on his back between his shoulders SOURCE: Pope Urban II, 1095 as recorded by Robert the Monk. 1 The Church of the Holy Sepulchre refers to where Jesus was purportedly crucified and buried. Christians consider this place a holy site.

5 Document 3 Ekkeherd was a monk and German historian who wrote Hierosolymita: A World History in [After Urban had aroused the spirits of all by the promise of forgiveness to those who undertook the expedition with single-hearted devotion,] toward one hundred thousand men were appointed to the immediate service of God from Aquitaine and Normandy, England, Scotland, Ireland, Brittany, Galicia, Gascony, France, Flanders, Lorraine, and from other Christian peoples, whose names I no longer retain. It was truly an army of crusaders, for they bore the sign of the cross on their garments as a reminder that they should mortify the flesh, and in the hope that they would in this way triumph over the enemies of the cross of Christ, as it had once come to pass in the case of the great Constantine. Thus, through the marvelous and unexampled working of divine dispensation, all these members of Christ, so different in speech, origin, and nationality, were suddenly brought together as one body through their love of Christ. SOURCE: Ekkehard s Hierosolymita, a history, Document 4 Fulcher, who may have been a French priest, accompanied Count Stephen of Blois and Robert of Normandy on the First Crusade. Consider, I pray, and reflect now in our time God has transferred the West into the East, [f]or we who were Occidentals now have been made Orientals. He who was a Roman or a Frank is now a Galilaean, or an inhabitant of Palestine. One who was a citizen of Rheims or of Chartres now has been made a citizen of Tyre or of Antioch. We have already forgotten the places of our birth; already they have become unknown to many of us, or, at least, are unmentioned. Some already possess here homes and servants which they have received through inheritance. Some have taken wives not merely of their own people, but Syrians, or Armenians, or even Saracens who have received the grace of baptism.our parents and relatives from day to day come to join us, abandoning, even though reluctantly, all that they possess. For those who were poor there, here God makes rich. Those who had few coins, here possess countless besants [gold coins]; and those who had not had a villa, here, by the gift of God, already possess a city. Therefore why should one who has found the East so favorable return to the West? God does not wish those to suffer want who, carrying their crosses, have vowed to follow Him, nay even unto the end. You see, therefore, that this is a great miracle, and one which must greatly astonish the whole world. Who has ever heard anything like it Therefore, God wishes to enrich us all and to draw us to himself as His most dear friends. And because He wishes it, we also free desire the same; and what is pleasing to Him we do with a loving and submissive heart, that with Him we may reign happily throughout eternity. SOURCE: Chronicles of Fulk (or Fulcher) of Chartres, late 11 th century

6 Document 5 Solomon ben Samson was a Jewish scholar in Worms. His account tells the story on an attack on the Jewish community in Mainz in Crusaders killed thousands of Jews on their way to Jerusalem in large German cities like Speyer, Worms, Mainz and Cologne. At this time arrogant people, a people of strange speech, a nation of bitter and impetuous Frenchmen and Germans, set out for the Holy City, which had been desecrated by barbaric nations, there to seek their house of idolatry and banish the Ishmaelites [Muslims] and other denizens of the land Their ranks swelled until the number of men, women, and children exceeded a locus horde covering the earth; Now it came to pass that as they passed through the towns where Jews dwelled, they said to one another: Look now, we are going a long way to seek out the profane shrine and to avenge ourselves on the Ishmaelites; when here, in our midst, are the Jews they whose forefathers murdered and crucified him for no reason. Let us first avenge ourselves on them and exterminate them from among the nation so that the name of Israel will no longer be remembered, or let them adopt our faith and acknowledge the offspring of promiscuity. SOURCE: The Jewish chronicler, Solomon bar Samson, Document 6 Enter the city, our pilgrims pursued and killed Saracens up to the temple of Solomon so that their blood flowed throughout the temple. Finally our knights seized a great number of men and women, and killed whom they wishes Soon the crusaders ran throughout the city, seizing gold, silver, horses, mules and houses full of all kinds of goods. Then, rejoicing and weeping from extreme joy, our men went to worship our Saviour Jesus The Saracens who were still alive dragged the dead ones out in the front of the gates, and made huge piles of them, as big as houses SOURCE: An unknown chronicler of the First Crusade. Document 7 Mesarites was a church official in the Orthodox Church in Constantinople. His account describes the crusaders takeover of the Byzantine capitol, Constantinople in 1204, part of the Fourth Crusade. And so the streets, squares, houses of two and three stories, sacred places, nunneries, houses for nuns and monks, sacred churches, even the Great Church of God and the imperial palace, were filled with men of the enemy, all of them maddened by war and murderous in spirit, all clad in armor and bearing spears, swords and lances, archers and horsemen boasting terribly, barking like Cerberus and exhaling like Charon, as they sacked the sacred places and trampled on the divine things [and] ran riot over the holy vessels.... Moreover, they tore children from their mothers and mothers from their children, and they defiled the virgins in the holy chapels, fearing neither God s anger nor man s vengeance. They searched breasts of women to find out whether some womanly ornament or gold was attached or hidden in the body; hair was loosened and head-coverings removed, and those without homes or money were struck down. SOURCE: Nicholas Mesarites, Vocabulary Cerberus a multi-headed hound in Greek mythology Charon the ferryman who takes souls to Hades in Greek mythology

7 Document 8 Description of the economic impact of the Crusades: unknown source. Merchants in Venice and other northern Italian cities built large fleets to carry crusaders to the Holy Land. They later used those fleets to open new markets in the crusaders states. Even after the Muslims had recaptured the city of Acre, Italian merchants kept these trade routes open. Our words sugar, cotton, rice, and muslin, which were borrowed from Arabic, show the range of trade goods involved. Document 9 The author describes the impact the 4th Crusade had on the Catholic Church. Thus in April 1204, the crusaders and Venetians stormed Constantinople, sacked the city, destroying its magnificent library, and grabbed thousands of relics that were later sold in Europe. From destruction, the Byzantine Empire as a political unit never recovered. Moreover, the assault of one Christian people on another, when one of the goals of the Fourth Crusade was reunion of Greek and Latin churches, made the split between the Greek and Latin churches permanent. It also helped discredit the entire crusading movement. Document 10 The Islamic leader Saladin s speech urging his people to retake Jerusalem, 1187 If God blesses us by enabling us to drive His enemies out of Jerusalem, how fortunate and happy we would be! For Jerusalem has been controlled by the enemy for ninety-one years, during which time God has received nothing from us here in the way of adoration. At the same time, the zeal of the Muslim rulers to deliver it languished. Time passed, and so did many indifferent generations, while the Franks succeeded in rooting themselves strongly there. Now God has reserved the merit of its recovery for one house, the house of the sons of Ayyub [Saladin s family], in order to unite all hearts in appreciation of its members. Document 11 The Perfect History by Ibn Al-Athir (Arab Muslim Historian), 1200s The population was put to the sword by the Franks, who pillaged (raided) the area for a week In Masjid al-aqsa [mosque next to the Dome of the Rock on the Temple Mount] the Franks slaughtered more than 70,000 people, among them a large number of Imams and Muslim scholars The Franks stripped the Dome of the Rock of more than forty silver candelabra and a great silver lamp weighing forty-four Syrian pounds, as well as a hundred and fifty smaller silver candelabra and more than twenty gold ones, and a great deal more booty.

8 Document 12 Jonathan Phillips is a lecturer in Medieval History at Royal Holloway, University of London and the author of Defenders of the Holy Land: Relations between the Latin East and the West, (Oxford University Press, 1996). In this scholarly source, Phillips discusses the First Crusade. Urban blended the familiar ideas of pilgrimage and penance with the more radical notion of papallysanctioned violence to produce what a contemporary writer described as a new means of attaining salvation. He followed the speech at Clermont with an extensive preaching tour through France and by the dispatch of letters and legations elsewhere in Europe The reasons for such a wide-ranging response are complex. Our distance from events and the nature of the surviving evidence mean that we can never achieve a perfect insight into a crusader s mind. We should not necessarily look for a single motive in determining an individual s desire to take the cross, although certain themes emerge more clearly than others. An understanding of the actions of each crusader must be grounded in the cultural, political, and economic context of the time. Spiritual concerns were a prominent factor governing peoples lives in the late eleventh century. It was an intensely religious age; pilgrimage and monastic life flourished, and donations to ecclesiastical institutions were increasingly commonplace. Christian Europe was also one of the most guilt-ridden societies in history. Sin was ubiquitous in everyday life and the images of fire and torture so frequently depicted on churches reinforced the fear of eternal damnation. The need for all people whether rich or poor, nobles or labourers to atone for their actions helps to explain the level of enthusiasm for the First Crusade and also the crusaders determination to fulfil[l] their vows by completing the journey to Jerusalem. The pope s original conception of the crusade was for a compact contingent of knights to assist Emperor Alexius of Byzantium in his struggle against the Seljuk Turks of Asia Minor before marching on to the Holy Land. His appeal was directed, therefore, towards the knightly classes of native France, a region of weak central authority and endemic lawlessness which was often initiated by the knights themselves. The crusade may have been one way to channel this violence elsewhere as well as giving the knights an opportunity of salvation Crusading was extremely expensive. To equip oneself with chainmail, horses and supplies would cost a great deal some estimates suggest over four years annual income. However, the recent experience of the Norman Conquest, for example, would have given people some idea of the resources needed to fight for a large-scale and lengthy military expedition. In order to finance the crusade it was often necessary to mortgage or sell lands and rights to the church. The records of these transactions give further indication as to who took part and how they raised money for the journey. Incidentally, the issue of cost is another reason why the old cliché of crusaders being freebooting younger sons is deeply suspect, simply because such men would have been unable to afford to set out in the first instance Although the religious motivation of the First Crusaders should be emphasized, it would be naïve to argue that other interests were absent. When a noble embarked upon the crusade it was inevitable that he would be accompanied by his household retainers. He would have to provide support for his knights, squires and servants. All were an integral part of a medieval army and, because of this, ties of allegiance and loyalty should be advanced as a further reason for taking the cross, even though such a commitment was, in theory, a strictly voluntary exercise.

9 The desire for land was a further motive, but it did not apply to all the crusaders. Many charters contain clauses detailing financial arrangements that would come into force only if the crusader died during the expedition. Such measures suggest that the participants were well aware of the dangers of the crusade, but hoped to return home once the vow was completed The fact that the Crusader States were seriously undermanned throughout their existence also indicates that relatively few crusaders chose to remain in the Levant and become settlers. Some men, however, were explicit in their intention never to return to the West and clearly planned to carve out new territories for themselves in the East The need to repay debts incurred in paying for the expedition, coupled with poor economic conditions a series of droughts and bad harvests had marked the early 1090s suggest that the desire for money may have been a priority for the crusaders. Perhaps the search for salvation and the wish for financial gain seem too mutually exclusive in our eyes. One has only to think of TV evangelism to shudder at the potential for abuse in this connection, yet it is not improbable or contradictory that pious men took the cross also hoping to improve their financial and material prospects. There must also have been crusaders for home the wish to accumulate wealth predominated. The sources indicate that such people must have been gravely disappointed. There is remarkably little evidence of people returning from the crusade with newfound riches People certainly brought back relics from the Holy Land. Lord Riou of Lohéac, for example, acquired a fragment of the True Cross and bequeathed it to his local church when he died in But the experience of the First Crusade does not suggest that it was the route to easy profit. None-theless, the narrative sources contain frequent reports of the crusaders seeking booty. After the siege of Ma arrat and Nu man (December 1098) Muslim graves were dug up and the bodies slit open to check if any treasure had been swallowed. Acts of a similarly brutal nature were repeated elsewhere. The most likely explanation for this behavior is that substantial sums of money were required to keep the expedition going. The duration and rigour of the campaign exhausted the resources of the vast majority. Crusaders endured terrible suffering during the march across Asia Minor and t at the siege of Antioch (October 1097-June 1098). Food prices became grossly inflated and losses of horses and equipment were enormous. It is an important distinction, therefore, that acts of greed were usually initiated in response to the need to survive, rather than the long-term motivation to accumulate treasure. For those interested solely in money, the cost of warfare and the duration of the expedition meant that the depredations of land closer to home had to be a safer option that going on crusade. If some had set out hoping to acquire untold riches it seems that the hardships of the expedition soon deterred theme because throughout the course of the crusade a stream of deserters left the main army to endure the experience.