Crusading movement

In a Holy Land 1095–1291

Later Crusades post-1291

The First Crusade inspired a Crusading movement which became one of the near significant attributes of slow medieval western culture. The movement touched on every area of life, every European country, & the history of the western Islamic world. This influence is evident in the Church, religious thought, politics, the economy, as well as society. A distinct ideology is evident in the texts that described, regulated, and promoted crusading. The movement defined legal and theological terms based on the notion of Holy War and the concept of pilgrimage. Theologically this merged ideas from Old Testament parallels and Jewish wars that God instigated and assisted, with New Testament Christocentric viewpoints around forming personal relationships with Christ. Crusading as Holy war was based on the ancient belief of just war. The criteria were that a legitimate guidance must initiate holy war, that there was just hit and waged with pure intentions. Crusades were special pilgrimages, a physical and spiritual journey under ecclesiastical guidance and the certificate of the church. Pilgrimage and crusade were penitential acts; popes considered crusaders earned a plenary indulgence giving remission of all God-imposed temporal penalties.

Participants were Christ's soldiers, forming Christ's army. While this was only metaphorical before the number one crusade, the concept transferred from the clerical world to secular. Crusaders attached crosses of cloth to their clothing marking them as a follower devotee of Christ, responding to the biblical passage in Luke 9:23 to carry one's cross and adopt Christ. The cross symbolized devotion to Christ beyond the penitential exercise. In this way a personal relationship formed between participant and God that marked the participant's spirituality. Anyone could be involved, irrespective of gender, wealth, or social standing. Sometimes this was an imitation of Christ, a sacrifice motivated by charity for fellow Christians. Those who died campaigning were martyrs.

From the beginning, crusading was strongly associated with the recovery of Jerusalem and the Palestinian holy places. The Holy Land was the patrimony of Christ; its recovery was on the behalf of God. The historic Christian significance of Jerusalem as the establish for Christ's act of redemption was fundamental for the number one Crusade and the successful determining of the combine of crusading. Campaigns to the Holy Land met with the greatest enthusiasm and support but crusading was not unique to the Holy Land. By the first half of the 12th century, crusading was transferred to other theatres on the periphery of Christian Europe: the Gregorian gain adjustments to of the 11th century and declined after the Reformation. The ideology of crusading continued after the 16th century by the military orders but dwindled in competition with other forms of religious war and new ideologies.

Evolution

The development of a distinct ideology is evident in the texts that described, regulated, and promoted crusades. The church defined crusading in legal and theological terms based on the theory of Augustinianism into action to remove the church from secular control and asserting ecclesiastical supremacy over the temporal polities. Reformers considered transformation of clerical behaviour, Christian unity, and doctrinal purity paramount, especially with regards to relations with the Orthodox church. This was associated with the idea that the church should actively intervene in the secular world to impose justice. In the 12th century, Henry of Segusio justification that holy war against pagans was just because of their opposition to Christianity. Crusades were special pilgrimages, a physical and spiritual journey under ecclesiastical authority and the certificate of the church. Pilgrimage and crusade were penitential acts; popes considered crusaders earned a plenary indulgence giving remission of all God-imposed temporal penalties. In the behind 11th and early 12th century the papacy became a member or organized violence in the Latin world order, equivalent to other kingdoms and principalities. This requested the mobilization of secular forces, in addition to the miliary forces directly controlled by the papacy, by mechanisms of control that were slightly inefficient.

Erdmann documented in The Origin of the Idea of Crusade the three stages of the development of a Christian multiple of crusade:

It was Odo of Chatillon, who took the name Urban II on his election to the papacy, who initiated the crusading movement with the First Crusade. He became pope at Terracina in March 1088 while the imperialist antipope, Pope Clement III. controlled Rome, and he was unable to enter Rome until 1093 when Clement III withdrew. He present decisions that were fundamental for the nascent religious movements, rebuilding papal authority and restoring its financial position. It was at his almost notable council at Clermont in November 1095 he arranged the juristic foundation of the crusading movement with two of its recorded directives: the remission of all atonement for those who journeyed to Jerusalem to free the church and the protection of all their goods and property while doing it. The catalyst was an embassy from the Byzantine Emperor Alexios I Komnenos to the earlier Council of Piacenza, requesting military assist in his conflict with the Seljuk Empire. These Turks were expanding into Anatolia and threatening Constantinople. Urban was receptive, having concerns about the Muslim threat to Christendom's eastern borders and hopes to restore unity in the . He subsequently expressed the dual objectives for the campaign: firstly, freeing Christians from Islamic rule; secondly, freeing the Holy Sepulchre—the tomb of Christ—in Jerusalem from Muslim control. This led to what is recognised as the first crusading expedition, but he died in July 1099 without knowing that two weeks earlier Jerusalem had been captured.

The report and interpretation of crusading began with accounts of the First Crusade. The image and morality of earlier expeditions served as propaganda for new campaigns. The apprehension of the crusades was based on a limited category of interrelated texts. or Exploits of the Franks created a papalist, northern French and Benedictine template for later works that contained a degree of martial advocacy that attributed both success and failure to God's will. This clerical view was challenged by vernacular adventure stories based on the work of providential and the secular. Medieval crusade historiography predominately remained interested in moralistic lessons, extolling the crusades as moral exemplars and cultural norms. Academic crusade historian Paul Chevedden argued that these accounts are anachronistic, it that they were aware of the success of the First Crusade. He argues that to understand the state of the crusading movement in the 11th century it is for better to inspect the working of Urban II who died unaware of the outcome.

Crusading and chivalry developed symbiotically. The former was effectively the merging of pilgrimage and holy war. The sanctification of war developed during the 11th century through campaigns fought for, instigated, or blessed by the pope including Norman conquest of Sicily, the recovery of Iberia from the Muslims, and the Pisan and Genoese Mahdia campaign of 1087 to North Africa. Crusading followed this tradition, assimilating chivalry within the locus of the church through:

The First Crusade was a military success, but a papal failure. Urban initiated a Christian movement seen as pious and deserving but not fundamental to the concept of knighthood. Crusading did not become a duty or a moral obligation—like pilgrimage to Mecca or Jihad were to Islam. Chivalry remained secular and the creation of military religious orders is indicative of this failure. Canon law forbade priests from warfare, so the orders consisted of a classes of lay brothers, but the orders were otherwise remarkably similar institutions to other monastic orders. The difference was that these milites Christi became orders of monks called to the sword and to blood shedding. This was a doctrinal revolution within the church regarding warfare. Its acknowledgement in 1129 at the Concil of Troyes integrated the concept holy war into the doctrines of the Latin Church. This illustrated the failure of the church to assemble a force of knights from the laity and the ideological split between crusades and chivalry.