What Were the Crusades?

What Were the Crusades?

OTHER WORKS BY JONATHAN RILEY-SMITH PUBLISHED BY MACMILLAN The Knights of St John in Jerusalem and Cyprus, c. 1050-1310 The Feudal Nobility and the Kingdom of Jerusalem, 1174-1277

What Were the Crusades? JONATHAN RILEY-SMITH ~ MACMILLAN

Jonathan Riley-Smith 1977, 1992 All rights reserved. No reproduction, copy or transmission of this publication may be made without written permission. No paragraph of this publication may be reproduced, copied or transmitted save with written permission or in accordance with the provisions of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, or under the terms of any licence permitting limited copying issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency, 90 Tottenham Court Road, London W1P 9HE. Any person who does any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages. First published 1977 by THE MACMILLAN PRESS LTD Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire R021 2XS and London Companies and representatives throughout the world ISBN 978-0-333-56769-2 ISBN 978-1-349-12779-5 (ebook) DOI 10.1007/978-1-349-12779-5 A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. 10987654 05 04 03 02 0 I 00 99

IN MEMORIAM JohnJames Craik Henderson, 1890-1971

The illustration on the cover, in a reference to Revelation 19 vv. 11-21, depicts Christ leading crusader knights, from an early-fourteenth-century MS. (BM Royal 19 B 15, folio 37a). Reproduced by permission of the British Library Board. VI

Contents Preface IX Preface to Second Edition IX 1 WHAT WERE THE CRUSADES? 1 2 AJUSTCAUSE 9 AJust Cause for War 9 Crusades to the Near East 13 Crusades in Spain 16 Crusades in North-eastern Europe 17 Crusades against Schismatics and Heretics 18 Crusades against Lay Powers in the West 20 A Cause for a Crusade 22 3 LEG ITIMATE AUTHORITY 28 Papal Authorisation 28 Peace in Christendom 37 Preaching 38 Finance 42 Strategy 48 Control 49 4 WHO WERE THE CRUSADERS? 53 The Vow 53 Privileges 54 Who Were the Crusaders? 63 Geoffrey of Sergines 67 The Military Orders 73 5 WHEN WERE THE CRUSADES? 78 Select Bibliography of Secondary Works 81 List of Original Sources 86 Index 92 Vll

Preface In this book I have put down thoughts that have developed in over a decade of lecturing to and supervising students at the universities of St Andrews and Cambridge, so my first expression of thanks must be to them, especially Dr Bruce Beebe, whose unpublished thesis on King Edward I of England and the crusades is a good study of an aspect of the movement in the late thirteenth century. I am glad to have the chance of stating again how much I appreciate the wise advice of Dr R. C. Smail, my magister, who read the book in typescript, as did my wife, whose reactions as a 'general reader' have been of great value to me. I am, as always, grateful to her and to my children for providing the kind of environment in which I find it easy to work. Cambridge J. S. C. R.-S. Preface to Second Edition The first edition of this book led to quite a fierce debate on the nature of crusading. Most historians now appear to agree that crusades in theatres of war other than the East were regarded by men and women of the time as equally valid expressions of the movement; and new studies of the movement in Spain, the Baltic region and Italy, and of the twelfth- and thirteenth-century critics have contributed to this growing consensus. But in fact, few fields of history have been subjected to IX

Preface to Second Edition such rapid changes in recent years. Scholars have been turning away from the idea that the majority of crusaders were materialistic in motivation. The image of the landless younger son riding off in search of land and wealth has been replaced by a more complex picture of nobles and knights - very little is known about the peasants - making sacrifices which affected not only themselves but also their families. In consequence, an interest in the religious and social ideas of the laity as a background to motivation is growing. Thought has also been given to the Indulgence, although more work is required before its development becomes entirely clear. And there have been major studies of individual expeditions, together with particularly important research on crusading in the fourteenth, fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. It is now clear that the fourteenth century, like the thirteenth, was one in which there was hardly a year in which a crusade was not being waged somewhere. I have tried to incorporate the new discoveries and perceptions into this edition, while retaining the original thrust of argument: that the starting point for any study of the crusades must be what the Church, their justifier and authoriser, thought of them. Windsor J. S. C. R.-S x