Summary
By 1094, Pope Urban II (1088-1099) received an appeal
from Byzantine Emperor Alexius Comnenus for military assistance
against the Turks in Anatolia. Urban had done much to restore
Papal prestige after Gregory VII and the Investiture
Controversy. While engaged in a papal tour of French
dioceses, he stopped at Clermont on 27 November 1095, and Preached
the First Crusade. The Muslim victories against the Byzantines
and their constriction of pilgrimage to Jerusalem were said to
be a disgrace to Christianity. Instead of pursuing strife among
themselves, western nobles and knights should turn their efforts
outward to the enemies of Christianity and the oppressors of the
Holy Land. Thus, the Pope called for an armed pilgrimage, and
those dying in the blessed campaigns of liberation would receive
a heavenly reward.
Urban had been targeting mostly French nobles, and had
wanted a well-disciplined body of knights under control of a Papal
legate. Others were immediately attracted, mostly through itinerant preachers.
Contrary to the Pope's wishes, the Peasants' Crusade began first,
in the spring of 1096. It was lead by the most popular itinerant
preacher, Peter the Hermit. Passing through France into Germany,
its impoverished adherents survived by gifts and plunder. Met in
Germany by more adherents and a few knights, it proceeded to plunder
and destroy Jewish communities, in worms and Metz in particular.
Upon reaching Hungary, the King Coloman would not tolerate their
depredations, and routed a large segment of the force. When it
arrived in tattered shape in Constantinople, the appalled Emperor
ferried them across to Anatolia. The Turks soon annihilated them.
The knightly component of the Crusades was organized by
the late summer of 1096. Henry IV of Germany and Philip I of France were
excommunicated at the time, so the greatest kings of the West were
not part of the Crusade. Urban appointed Adhemar, Bishop of Le
Puy, as Papal legate and leader of the Crusader armies. The brothers
of the kings of France and England--the 'second sons'--were prominent
as Crusade leaders. These included Robert, duke of Normandy, and
Hugh of Vermandois. The Flemmings and northwestern Franks were
led by Baldwin of Flanders and his brother Godfrey of Bouillon,
the Duke of Lower Lorraine. Raymond de St. Gilles led the southern
French knights, while Bohemond, son of Robert Guiscard, gave up
battling in Italy to join the Crusade.
They then left for Constantinople in several waves. Godfrey
led his troops--as well as their bloated baggage train containing
mendicants, pilgrims, merchants, and even prostitutes--along the Danube,
through Hungary, into Bulgaria to Constantinople, barely avoiding
serious entanglements with indigenous populations and warriors
along the way. The Count of Toulouse fared much worse by taking
a route through Italy, Venice, and along the Adriatic coast. On
the way to Durazzo, the difficult terrain and war-like inhabitants
caused his forces several losses as well as starvation. The Normans
and northern French went through Italy, then crossed to Durazzo.
When the whole host was arrived in Constantinople, Alexius did
his best to get rid of them quickly. He quartered them outside
of the city, supplying them with provisions and transportation to
Asia Minor. He then told them to proceed along the southern coast
of the peninsula, but they preferred to go right through its center.
When they captured Nicaea in May 1097, the Emperor occupied it
himself, claiming the surrounding areas for Byzantium.
At this point the Western army consisted, at the most,
of 3,000 knights and 12,000 foot-soldiers. It split into two columns
that were mostly autonomous. The northern force was under Robert
of Normandy and Bohemond, while the southern group was commanded
by Godfrey of Bouillon and Raymond of Toulouse. They soon learned
why the Greeks had told them to avoid the interior--the Greek-Turkish
combat, as well as Turcoman raiding, had denuded the countryside
of provisions, and retreating Turks burned all else. Soon famine
and drought was eating away that the armies. On July 1 at Dorylaeum
in Western Anatolia, Turks and Crusaders met in battle. Bohemond's
forces were initially bested by the light cavalry of the Turks.
Much more agile than the knights and infantry, they were able
to wear them down with arrow-fire for almost the entire day; by
the afternoon, Turkish raiders were plundering Bohemond's base
camp. Suddenly Godfrey's mounted knights appeared at the tops
of the surrounding ridge, and the Turks were defeated by the two
converging crusader columns. The victory at Dorylaeum cheered
the crusaders and caused the Turks to avoid further contests at
all costs, choosing instead to harass the columns as they moved
east. When they reached Edessa in eastern Anatolia, Baldwin decided
to break from the Crusade and establish his fief there. The rest
of the host continued on to Antioch, where they settled down to
a seven-month siege, and a mutual war of attrition with the Turks.
Though the Christians defeated the two Seljuk releif armies, they
were without siege engines or catapults, and were able to do little
to undermine the city's defenses. Ultimately, though, Bohemond
convinced one the of the Muslim tower guars to surrender it to
him, and then proposed to his fellow knights that the first one
to definitively establish a foothold in the city would have it
as his own possession. Bohemond of course was the winner, and
a few days after he assumed the title of prince, another Turkish
relief force arrived under the amir Kitboga. The erstwhile besiegers
were now under siege themselves. Under tremendous physical privation
the crusaders barely survived, until the supposed discovery of
a holy relic--the lance that had pierced the side of Christ during
the Crucifixion--encouraged the Crusader host. On 28 June 1098,
they burst out of the city and defeated the Turks.
Bohemond remained behind, and the crusaders continued
the saga. They reached Jerusalem in June 1099. After a month-long siege
they broke through, massacring the majority of the inhabitants--Muslim,
Christian, and Jewish.
