The World of the Crusader (Edexcel A-Level History): Revision Notes
The World of the Crusader
Understanding why people were willing to go on crusade in 1095 and throughout the 12th century requires an appreciation of the world in which crusaders lived. This context is essential for comprehending crusading motivations and the factors that made the crusades possible.
Church and belief
In 11th-century Christian Europe, the vast majority of people were Catholics who followed the religious authority of the pope, at least in name. Those who held different beliefs, such as Jewish communities across Europe, were regarded as infidels or heretics.
Beliefs about the afterlife
The central feature of medieval Christian faith was an intense preoccupation with life after death. Christians believed in three destinations for the soul:
- Heaven – the ultimate reward for the faithful
- Hell – eternal punishment for sinners
- Purgatory – a middle place between heaven and hell where souls underwent spiritual correction for their sins until they were pure enough to enter heaven (though this concept was not fully defined until the 13th century)
This obsession with securing salvation drove Christians to take various actions to avoid hell, reduce their time in purgatory, and reach heaven. The fear of eternal damnation was a powerful motivator that shaped medieval society and made religious authorities extremely influential.
Common responses included:
- Joining religious orders as monks or nuns
- Making donations to the Church
- Going on pilgrimages (journeys with a religious purpose, considered a form of penance, often to destinations associated with saints or Christ's life)
The Cluniac reform movement
From the tenth century onwards, these religious ideas grew stronger, giving the Church new power to influence laypeople. This transformation was largely due to the Cluniac reform movement, which began in 909 at the monastery of Cluny in Burgundy.
The movement reached its peak under Abbot Hugh of Cluny (1049–1109). Cluny and its dependent monasteries encouraged nobles to reflect on how they could make amends for their sins. The Cluniac reforms emphasised:
- The importance of good works
- Gifts to monasteries
- The Jerusalem pilgrimage
- Spiritual purity and freedom from secular control
The Cluniacs aimed to minimise lay interference in Church affairs. To achieve this, they sought to influence noble behaviour and were among the earliest supporters of the Peace Movement in France – an attempt, enforced through Church councils, to limit violence in Europe (beginning in the late tenth century). They hoped that by creating better order in French society, nobles and their vassals would be encouraged to perform good works.
Effects of the Cluniac reforms
The influence of Cluny spread from Burgundy across Europe into Germany, Spain, and Italy, revitalising the Church. The reforms had several important consequences:
Increased pilgrimages: There was a constant flow of pilgrims to holy sites, especially Jerusalem. In 1064, for example, between 7,000 and 12,000 German pilgrims travelled to Jerusalem. Though this was exceptional, pilgrims continued to journey there right up until the First Crusade.
Focus on Christian control of Jerusalem
Jerusalem had been under Muslim control since 638, but the growing number of pilgrims promoted the belief that this situation should change. This gradual shift in thinking helped create the conditions necessary for the crusading movement.
Receptiveness to holy war: People became more open to the idea of waging holy war to achieve remission of their sins. The abbots of Cluny encouraged campaigns against the Saracens (Muslims) in Spain in the early 11th century, laying the groundwork for Pope Urban II's proclamation of a holy war to capture Jerusalem.
Everyday life
Most people in the crusader's world lived in a small, confined environment with limited life expectancy, little opportunity for social advancement, and constant risks of famine and disease.
Feudal society
Europe was largely a feudal society. This meant that people who farmed the land were bound to a warrior lord and had to perform services in exchange for the land they lived on. They had minimal contact with the rest of their country, let alone the wider world.
Limited communication
Literacy was confined to churchmen and the nobility, so information spread very slowly. Even urgent news could only travel at the speed of a horse's gallop. Different groups received information through various channels:
- Ordinary people: through travelling players, merchants, and wandering preachers
- Nobles: through troubadours (poets who sang and composed for aristocratic or knightly audiences)
- Religious communities: from travellers
Chronicles recorded these accounts, providing a window into the crusader's world, though most people would never have read them. This limited flow of information meant that news of distant events, including the fall of cities in the Holy Land, could take months to reach western Europe.
Population and economic growth
Despite these constraints, the century before the First Crusade witnessed considerable change. The population had grown to 36 million by 1000 and increased by 20 percent over the next 100 years. Alongside this demographic growth, the economy improved as:
- Trading flourished
- Land that had been left fallow was cultivated again
By 1095, Europe had more people, more wealth, and more resources than it had enjoyed since the contraction and decline of the early medieval period. This demographic and economic growth created the conditions necessary to support large-scale military expeditions like the crusades.
Rulers
Power and authority in the medieval world rested with a few key individuals who had either inherited their positions or been elected by equally powerful figures.
Religious leaders
The Pope: Based in Rome for most of the crusading period, he was head of the Latin Catholic Church.
The Patriarch: The pope's chief rival was the patriarch of the Greek Orthodox Church, based in Constantinople. A patriarch was a bishop of one of the five seats of authority created during the earliest days of Christianity.
Secular rulers
Emperors: Ruled over vast territories such as the Byzantine Empire and the Holy Roman Empire (covering much of modern-day Germany). However, imperial borders were not fixed. The Byzantine Empire, for instance, had controlled many important cities along the pilgrim route to the Holy Land in the 11th century, including key locations like Nicaea, Tarsus, and Antioch. Byzantine control of these cities, and much of Asia Minor, was gradually lost to the Turks as the century progressed.
Kings: Ruled over smaller kingdoms such as England and parts of France.
Italian maritime cities
The situation in Italian states differed from northern Europe because they were dominated by powerful cities such as Pisa, Genoa, and Venice. These maritime cities increased their control of Mediterranean shipping during the 11th century:
Western Mediterranean: Pisa and Genoa drove out Muslims from their trade routes, sacking the Muslim-controlled port of Mahdia in Africa in 1087.
Eastern Mediterranean: Venice worked hard to secure trade between the West and Constantinople.
The actions of these cities on the Mediterranean Sea, combined with the difficulties faced by rulers like the Byzantine emperor, helped create an atmosphere of expansionism that clashed with the growing Muslim threat from the East. The commercial success of these Italian cities demonstrated that Christian Europe could project power across the Mediterranean.
Warfare
External threats
During the 11th century, the Byzantine Empire—a bastion of Christianity in the East—faced an intensifying external onslaught from the Seljuk Turks. By contrast, the external threat to western Europe from the Vikings had ended by around 1000.
Small-scale conflicts
The most frequent examples of warfare in western Europe were small-scale conflicts between rival nobles over disputed land. For instance, Raymond of Toulouse fought over the Rouergue for 13 years with Robert, count of Auvergne. This type of fighting trained the knights of western Europe to fight as organised units under a lord.
The development of knights
Knights were heavily armoured men who fought on horseback. On the eve of the First Crusade, a knight's position in society was closer to that of a peasant than a noble. In return for military service to a lord, a knight might hold land or be supported as part of the lord's household. However, by the end of the 12th century, a knight's status had been transformed into that of a noble—a distinct social group determined by birth.
Military technology
Knights became formidable warriors thanks to developments in technology:
Stirrups and high saddles: Helped ensure security on horseback, allowing knights to fight more effectively while mounted.
Horseshoes: Allowed horses to cover rough terrain, making knights a more mobile and adaptable force.
Heavy armour: Most knights wore a hauberk (chain mail coat) with a coif (cap) and carried a kite-shaped wooden shield. This protected them (though not their horses) from arrows and glancing sword blows.
Military effectiveness
These changes made knights a powerful fighting force. They were mobile, accustomed to fighting in units alongside their lord, and had some protection from archer attacks.
The Battle of Hastings (1066)
This military potential was demonstrated at the Battle of Hastings in 1066, where William of Normandy's success showcased the skilled use of infantry, feigned retreat, and heavily armoured knights—illustrating the military capability western Europe possessed by the late 11th century. The Norman victory proved that well-coordinated cavalry charges combined with tactical infantry manoeuvres could overcome even a strong defensive position.
Why was a crusade possible?
Crusaders lived in a world undergoing immense change. Understanding crusading motivations requires considering this context:
Key Factors That Made Crusading Possible:
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Religious openness: The Cluniac revolution in the Church meant people were receptive to new opportunities to atone for their sins.
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Desire for Jerusalem: The rise in pilgrimages to Jerusalem strengthened the desire to claim it for Christendom.
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Byzantine vulnerability: The Byzantine Empire had protected Christianity in the East and helped ensure pilgrim access to the Holy Land, but its position was now under threat.
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Population growth: The rising population in western Europe had massive implications for both society and the economy.
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Mediterranean dominance: The growing command of the Mediterranean by powerful Italian cities contributed to western Europe's confidence that it could expand beyond its borders.
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Military capability: The military potential of the heavily armoured knight gave western Europe newfound power to achieve this expansion.
How did religious belief motivate people to go on a crusade?
The concept of 'just war'
Breaking the Ten Commandments
Pope Urban II asked 11th-century knights to kill Muslims to recapture Jerusalem, the place of Christ's crucifixion and resurrection. In effect, he asked them to break one of the Ten Commandments: "You shall not kill". The Commandments were religious rules revealed by God to Moses and recorded in the Bible. Breaking one meant eternal condemnation to hell—not an attractive prospect for a knight.
Urban needed to convince knights that killing would be acceptable. This was no small theological challenge: how could the Church ask faithful Christians to commit what appeared to be a mortal sin? The answer lay in developing a sophisticated religious justification for warfare.
Urban turned to Countess Mathilda of Tuscany for help in providing content for his sermons promoting the crusade.
The theory of a just war
Mathilda helped Urban apply the theory of just war to the First Crusade. She gathered canonists (experts in church law), such as Anselm II of Lucca, to develop the idea of penitential warfare—a war fought as penance to make up for sins committed.
This religious justification for war was created by Augustine of Hippo around 400 AD. He argued that killing would be acceptable if three conditions were met:
Augustine's Three Conditions for Just War
1. A good reason: The Holy Land was Christ's legacy to the Christian Church and had been part of the Roman Empire. Christians had every right to reclaim it.
2. Good intentions: Crusaders would be like pilgrims, undertaking the journey out of love for Christ.
3. An official leader: The First Crusade was proclaimed by the pope, considered God's representative on Earth.
Convincing later crusaders
These arguments persuaded knights that it would be acceptable to break the Ten Commandments, just this once, and go on crusade. To convince later crusaders, monks created compilations of religious arguments for popes and preachers to use.
For example, the 12th-century canon lawyer Gratian wrote the Concordia discordantium canonum, which provided a question-and-answer guide to just war theory. These ideas were further developed from 1140 to 1190, but all had the same goal: to reassure people that they could go on crusade without sacrificing their souls.
Key Points to Remember:
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Medieval Christians were obsessed with the afterlife (heaven, hell, purgatory) and sought ways to ensure salvation through pilgrimages, donations, and good works.
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The Cluniac reform movement revitalised the Church and promoted pilgrimages to Jerusalem, laying the groundwork for the idea of crusading.
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By 1095, western Europe had experienced population growth, economic expansion, and the development of heavily armoured knights as a formidable military force.
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Italian maritime cities gained control of Mediterranean trade routes, creating confidence that Europe could expand beyond its borders.
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The 'just war' theory, based on Augustine of Hippo's ideas, provided religious justification for crusading by arguing that killing was acceptable if done for the right reasons, with good intentions, and under official Church leadership.