#899 What is a crusade?

What is a crusade? It is a Catholic expedition called forth by the pope for various religious purposes. If it doesn’t have the pope’s blessing, it is not a crusade.

The word “crusade” means a military expedition under the banner of the cross. The first crusades were in the 11^th century and the word “crusade” hadn’t been invented then. The crusaders were called pilgrims in the beginning. It was only in the 12^th century that they were associated with the cross and called “crucesignatus”, which means “one signed by the cross”. This morphed into “croisade”, which is a French word and means “the way of the cross”. This became crusade in English. The cross had two meanings. One, of course, is the literal cross. The crusaders were marching for religious reasons, under the cross of the Catholic church. The second reason is probably the cross made of cloth that they wore on their tunics as a badge or a uniform.

Recently, we use the word crusade to apply to any religious war, or even just to apply to people who are trying to get something done or changed. World Sparrow Day: voluntary organizations and avian enthusiasts on a crusade to bring back sparrows in city”. However, a crusade has to be a holy war and it has to be sanctioned by the pope.

Altogether, there were nine crusades between 1096 and 1291. They all started because Turkish people had begun to emigrate into land that had been vacated by the slowly failing Byzantine Empire, which was what was left of the Eastern Roman Empire. The Turks were Muslims and they ended up occupying Jerusalem and most of the land around it. The crusades might never have happened if it hadn’t been for Emperor Alexius I. He was a general and he managed to seize the Byzantine throne in 1081, making himself emperor. He knew that Byzantine was weaker than it used to be, and he worried that the Turks would end up taking all of their land and Constantinople. He realized that he needed help to fight off the Turks.

Western Europe was far more powerful than it had been for most of the 500 years since the fall of the Roman Empire. Alexius I appealed to Pope Urban II for military aid. Urban II attended the Council of Clermont in 1095 and he used his speech on the last day to call for military aid to help recapture the Holy Lands from the Muslim Turks. Christians were supposed to be peace-loving and against war, but war was allowed if it was just, was for the recovery of lands, and was proclaimed by an authority, such as the pope in the case of a crusade.

Alexius I thought a few people might come to his aid, but Pope Urban’s call to arms was heard far and wide and in 1096, 100,000 people ended up joining the crusade. The crusade lasted for 3 years and by the end they had recaptured most of the land lost to the Turks and had retaken Jerusalem. They built four large castles in Jerusalem, Edessa, Antioch, and Tripoli to protect the land they had “rescued” and the troops headed back home. This was probably the only really successful crusade.  

The Muslims regrouped and they took Edessa in 1144. This sparked the second crusade, which was called to action by Pope Eugene III in 1147. German and French forces marched on the Holy Land again, but they were all completely defeated by the Turks and the second crusade ended in 1149. The Turks continued to grow in strength, and they took back Jerusalem in 1187. Pope Gregory VIII, issued a papal bull to start the third crusade. This is the one Richard the Lionheart (and Robin Hood if you believe the movies) fought in. The third crusade ended in 1192 with a peace treaty, but not with the city of Jerusalem. Pope Innocent III called for the fourth crusade in 1198. The forces got sidetracked and ended up destroying Constantinople instead, without going anywhere near Jerusalem. The last five crusades were all called by popes, and all happened between 1202 and 1271. Not a single one of them was able to get anywhere near Jerusalem, and they didn’t really try. The crusades were used to settle petty squabbles in different countries, as though they knew they had no chance of getting Jerusalem back. The first crusade was the only one of all of them that was successful. By the time the last crusade was finished, the popes had lost a lot of their powers and were not able to call for crusades anymore. And this is what I learned today.

Photo by Haley Black: https://www.pexels.com/photo/white-concrete-building-2087387/

Sources

https://www.history.com/topics/ancient-middle-east/history-of-jerusalem

https://www.history.com/topics/middle-ages/crusades

https://www.newadvent.org/cathen/04543c.htm

https://www.etymonline.com/word/crusade

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jerusalem_in_Christianity

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Council_of_Clermont

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexios_I_Komnenos

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crusades

https://www.usu.edu/markdamen/1320hist&civ/chapters/15crusad.htm