The Coastal Strategy

2020 ◽  
pp. 28-65
Author(s):  
Steve Tibble
Keyword(s):  
Eastern Mediterranean ◽  
Holy Land ◽  
First Crusade ◽  
Crusader States

This chapter mentions an English pilgrim named Saewulf, who made the trip in the summer of 1102 to the Palestinian coast, where he was caught in the midst of battle with crusaders. It talks about the Franks, European settlers in the Holy Land, who kept coming to the new crusader states even in the most dangerous of times and the most perilous of conditions. It analyzes the capture of Jerusalem and the extraordinary culmination of the First Crusade in which strategy exists only in the context of objectives and the decisions that lead up to them. The chapter explains the first phase of Frankish strategy on taking control of the entire coastline of Syria and Palestine. It also looks at the coastal strategy that followed a remarkable trajectory across the three crusader states that bordered on the eastern Mediterranean.

Prelude

2020 ◽  
pp. 18-27
Author(s):  
Steve Tibble
Keyword(s):  
Middle East ◽  
Holy Land ◽  
Human Actions ◽  
Entire Life ◽  
First Crusade ◽  
Self Interest ◽  
Policy Objectives ◽  
Crusader States

This chapter describes a time before strategy, when the lands of the Middle East were intensely fractured, and trust and loyalty were scarce commodities. It looks at a time when self-interest was paramount and where chaos was so ingrained that an entire life could be lived without knowing anything else. It also talks about wars that are guided by politics, driven by policy objectives, and implemented through strategy but often lost in the rushed outpouring of human actions and emotions. The chapter discusses the liberation of Jerusalem and the end of the First Crusade, where most of the original crusaders returned home and some remained to defend the Holy Land. It also includes the four political entities that are collectively known as the “crusader states”: The Kingdom of Jerusalem, the County of Tripoli, the Principality of Antioch, and the County of Edessa.

Stigmata on the First Crusade

2005 ◽  
Vol 41 ◽  
pp. 99-108 ◽  
Author(s):  
William J. Purkis
Keyword(s):  
Holy Land ◽  
First Crusade ◽  
Eyewitness Account ◽  
The Dead

In his eyewitness account of the First Crusade, Fulcher of Chartres described the shipwreck and drowning of a boatload of crusaders who were bound for the Holy Land in 1097. After the bodies of the dead were recovered, he explained how ‘they discovered crosses evidently marked on the flesh above the shoulders’. Fulcher supposed this incident to be a miracle, ‘divinely revealed’, and that the marking was a ‘token of faith’ (pignusfidei) bestowed by God upon his servants. It was a sign to the surviving crusaders that God favoured them and would fulfil the promise he had made that ‘the just, though they shall be taken prematurely by death, shall be in peace’ (Wisd. 4, 7).

The Emergence of the Military Order in the Twelfth Century

1985 ◽  
Vol 36 (2) ◽  
pp. 175-195 ◽  
Author(s):  
A.J. Forey
Keyword(s):  
Twelfth Century ◽  
Ninth Century ◽  
The Body ◽  
First Century ◽  
Holy Land ◽  
Way Of Life ◽  
First Crusade ◽  
Military Orders ◽  
Order Of Santiago ◽  
The Military

At the time when encyclopaedic works on the military orders began to be produced in the late sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, it was widely held that the military order was an institution which had existed for most of the Christian era. Many of the orders catalogued in these volumes were reported to have been founded well before the period of the crusades, although there were often conflicting opinions about the precise antiquity of a particular foundation. Various dates were, for example, given for the establishment of the military order which the knights of the Holy Sepulchre were thought to constitute: although some held that it had been founded shortly after the first crusade, its creation was attributed by others to St James the Less in the first century A.D., while its origins were also placed in the time of Constantine and in that of Charlemagne. The foundation of the order of Santiago, which in fact occurred in 1170, was often traced back to the ninth century; yet while some linked it with the supposed discovery of the body of St James during the reign of Alfonso 11, others associated it with the legendary victory of Clavijo, which was placed in the time of Ramiro i. The accumulation of myth and tradition recorded in these encyclopaedias has exercised a prolonged influence on historians of the military orders: disproof has not always been sufficient to silence a persistent tradition. It is, nevertheless, clear that the Christian military order, in the sense of an institution whose members combined a military with a religious way of life, in fact originated during the earlier part of the twelfth century in the Holy Land.

scholarly journals False Hope and Empty Promises from a Priest-King in the East: How Environment and Communication Shape Belief

2019 ◽  
Vol 2 ◽  
pp. xvi-xvi
Author(s):  
Joaquim Baeta
Keyword(s):  
Holy Land ◽  
12Th Century ◽  
Beliefs And Values ◽  
Ultimate Failure ◽  
Crusader States ◽  
Communication Methods ◽  
The Church

As the 12th century entered its midpoint, unease permeated through Christendom. In 1144, the County of Edessa had fallen to Zengi, the atabeg of Mosul and Aleppo, signalling that all was not well in the Holy Land. News of the fall of Edessa quickly travelled westward, with the Catholic Pope, Eugenius III, issuing a papal bull calling for a Second Crusade in December of the next yea r. Nevertheless, for the Edessa’s fellow Crusader states, the restlessness of being surrounded by the Islamic had turned to alarm. Help was gravely needed. Then came word of aid from an unlikely place: the East itself. Rumours had swirled of a Christian monarch in the East, but actual proof of his existence was scant, based mainly on fantastical tales of the Orient. That changed in December of 1145, with a conversation between Bishops Otto of Freising and Hugh of Jabala. Hugh told Otto of a Nestorian Christian priest-king “beyond Persia and Armenia”, who had “warred upon the so-­called Samiards, the brother kings of the Medes and Persians.” More critically, Hugh reported that this priest-king had “moved his army to aid the church of Jerusalem” but was unable to cross the Tigris and returned home. Such was the legend of Prester John, the ruler of an eastern Christian kingdom that offered hope and little else to a Christian West that would steadily lose its grip on the Holy Land. Why did Prester John never come to the aid of the Crusader states? The story o f this priest- king, his supposed interactions with western Christendom and ultimate failure to deliver on his promises, reveals how the environmen t we inhabit and the methods we use to communicate shape our beliefs and values, and that as our environments and communication methods change, so do these beliefs and values.

Friends and Foes (1099–1129)

2020 ◽  
pp. 50-87
Author(s):  
Nicholas Morton
Keyword(s):  
Near East ◽  
Early History ◽  
Early Years ◽  
Real Possibility ◽  
First Crusade ◽  
History Of ◽  
Crusader States ◽  
City States ◽  
The Many ◽  
Complete Collapse

Chapter 2 Friends and Foes discusses the Crusader States’ closest neighbours in the early years of the twelfth century. On their southern borders the Franks confronted the Egyptian Fatimid Empire and it will be shown here how the the Franks managed to overcome the many attacks launched against them by Fatimid commanders. On their eastern borders, the Franks faced the Turkish city-states of Damascus and Aleppo. This chapter shows how the Turks were never able to unite against the Franks due both to their continued infighting and to the many other threats to their rule. This was an era where the complete collapse of Turkish authority across Syria was a very real possibility, driven by Frankish attacks as well as by many local rebellions. In this environment, mere survival was often the goal steering these Turkish leaders’ policies and it was frequently in their interests to manage the threat posed by the Crusader States by diplomatic means rather than seeking to drive them out of the Near East altogether. Further North, in the wake of the First Crusade, the Armenian lords of Cilicia and Southern Anatolia seized the opportunity to drive back Turkish authority, but they then had to negotiate new relationships for themselves with the Crusader States. These included moments of both conflict and rivalry as well as and friendship and accord. The early history of their interactions is examined in detail.

Frankish Expansion

2020 ◽  
pp. 20-49
Author(s):  
Nicholas Morton
Keyword(s):  
Military History ◽  
Close Attention ◽  
First Crusade ◽  
Working Through ◽  
Strategic Goals ◽  
Crusader States

Chapter 1, Frankish Expansion, explores the chaotic years following the departure of the First Crusaders. In this period, the Frankish settlers who chose to remain and defend the newly-founded Crusader States were locked in an almost permanent state of war with many of their foes. This chapter recreates their military history, examining how such small numbers of Frankish knights could continue to expand their territories across the Levantine region. Working through each of the four Crusader States in turn, it examines the aspirations of these fledgling states and discusses their evolving strategic goals. In their early days, in the wake of the First Crusade and its military victories, these states could be extremely ambitious when selecting their targets, although their aspirations became more tempered in later years. Close attention is also paid to the level of co-operation demonstrated by these Frankish leaders, along with their willingness to seek allies among both their neighbours and the communities under their control.

Western Converts to Islam (Later Eleventh to Later Fifteenth Centuries)

Traditio ◽  
2013 ◽  
Vol 68 ◽  
pp. 153-231
Author(s):  
A. J. Forey
Keyword(s):  
Iberian Peninsula ◽  
Fifteenth Century ◽  
Thirteenth Century ◽  
Eleventh Century ◽  
Holy Land ◽  
Beliefs And Practices ◽  
Mediterranean Regions ◽  
Crusader States ◽  
Made In

The early expansion of Islam led in time to widespread conversions of Christians in conquered territories. In the later eleventh century, however, western Christendom was in turn launching offensives against Islam on several fronts. Territorial gains were made in various Mediterranean regions and, although by the end of the thirteenth century the Holy Land had been lost again, Sicily remained in Christian hands, and in the second half of the thirteenth century in the Iberian peninsula only Granada remained under Muslim control: the whole peninsula was under Christian rule before the end of the fifteenth century. This expansion was accompanied, especially in the thirteenth century, by attempts to convert Muslims and other non-Christians. Yet in the period from the late eleventh until the later fifteenth century some western Christians converted to Islam. The purpose of the present paper is to consider the situations that prompted the adoption of Islam, and the reasons for such conversions, although the evidence is usually insufficient to indicate exactly why a particular Christian became a Muslim: the preconceived ideas voiced in western sources about forced conversions can be misleading and, although a crude distinction might be made between conversions from conviction and those based on worldly considerations, motives did not necessarily always fit neatly into just one of these two categories. But obviously not all converts would have had an equal understanding of the nature of Islamic beliefs and practices. The response of western ecclesiastical and secular authorities to renegades will also be considered. Further conversions of Christian peoples who had already for centuries been living under Muslim rule will not be examined, but only the adoption of Islam by those whose origins lay in western Christian countries or who were normally resident in these, and by westerners whose lands were newly conquered by Muslim powers after the eleventh century; and the focus will be mainly, though not exclusively, on the crusader states and the Iberian peninsula.

History and Memory as Factors in Greek Orthodox Pilgrimage to the Holy Land under Crusader Rule

2000 ◽  
Vol 36 ◽  
pp. 110-122
Author(s):  
Andrew Jotischky
Keyword(s):  
Crucial Role ◽  
Eleventh Century ◽  
Holy Land ◽  
Greek Orthodox ◽  
History And Memory ◽  
First Crusade ◽  
Textual Tradition

Western pilgrimage to the Holy Land can be explained through patterns of evolving spirituality. The development in the eleventh century of a penitential theology in which pilgrimage played a crucial role, coupled with the practical opportunities for travel occasioned by the success of the First Crusade, brought the Holy Land closer than ever. The survival of a strong textual tradition manifested in pilgrimage itineraries, many of which are autobiographical in tone, further contributes to our perception of pilgrimage as an example of medieval religion in practice.

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