Read Online The Crusades: The Authoritative History of the War for the Holy Land by Thomas Asbridge - Free Book Online
Authors: Thomas Asbridge
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spiritual and material rewards, but was in the first instance both an intimidating and extremely costly activity. Devotion inspired Europe to crusade, and in the long years to come the First Crusaders proved time and again that their most powerful weapon was a shared sense of purpose and indestructible spiritual resolution. 11
BYZANTIUM
From November 1096 onwards the main armies of the First Crusade began to arrive at the great city of Constantinople (Istanbul), ancient gateway to the Orient and capital of the Byzantine Empire. For the next six months the various contingents of the expedition passed through Byzantium on their way to Asia Minor and the frontier with Islam. Constantinople was a natural location for the diverse forces of the crusade to gather, given that it stood on the traditional pilgrim route to the Holy Land and that the Franks had travelled east with the express intention of aiding their Greek brethren.
The ambitions of Alexius
The Byzantine Emperor Alexius I Comnenus had already witnessed the disordered collapse of the People’s Crusade, and it usually is argued that he viewed the advent of the main crusade with equal disdain and suspicion. His daughter and biographer Anna Comnena wrote that Alexius had ‘dreaded [the arrival of the Franks], knowing as he did their uncontrollable passion, their erratic character and their irresolution, not to mention their greed’. Elsewhere she described the crusaders as ‘all the barbarians of the West’ and was particularly scathing in her descriptions of Bohemond as ‘a habitual rogue’ who was ‘by nature a liar’. Drawing upon her vituperative rhetoric, historians have often depicted the early Greco-Latin encounters of 1096–7 as being stained by deep-seated mistrust and ingrained hostility. In fact, Anna Comnena’s account, written decades after the event, was heavily coloured by hindsight. To be sure, currents of wary circumspection, even of antipathy, pulsed beneath the surface of crusader–Byzantine relations. There were even occasional outbreaks of ill-tempered infighting. But to begin with, at least, these were eclipsed by instances of constructive cooperation. 12
To truly understand the First Crusaders’ journey through Byzantium and beyond, the preconceptions and prejudices of both the Franks and the Greeks must be reconstructed. Many imagine that in terms of wealth, power and culture European history has always been dominated by the West. But in the eleventh century the focal point of civilisation lay to the east, in Byzantium, inheritor of Greco-Roman might and glory; continuator of the known world’s most enduring empire. Alexius could trace his imperial heritage back to the likes of Augustus Caesar and Constantine the Great, and for the Franks this imbued the emperor and his realm with a near-mystical aura of majesty.
The crusaders’ arrival at Constantinople served only to reinforce this impression. Standing before its colossal outer walls–four miles long, up to fifteen feet thick and sixty feet tall–there could be no doubt that they beheld the heart of Christian Europe’s great superpower. For those fortunate enough to be granted entry to the capital itself, the wonders only multiplied. Home to perhaps half a million citizens, this metropolis dwarfed the largest city in Latin Europe tenfold. Visitors could marvel at the domed Basilica of St Sophia, Christendom’s most spectacular church, and gaze at the giant triumphal statues of Alexius’ legendary forebears. Constantinople also was home to an unrivalled collection of sacred relics, including Christ’s crown of thorns, locks of the Virgin Mary’s hair, at least two heads of John the Baptist and the bones of virtually all the Apostles.
It is little wonder that most crusaders expected, quite naturally, that their expedition would begin in the service of the emperor. For his part, Alexius offered the Frankish armies a cautious welcome, shepherding them from the
BYZANTIUM
From November 1096 onwards the main armies of the First Crusade began to arrive at the great city of Constantinople (Istanbul), ancient gateway to the Orient and capital of the Byzantine Empire. For the next six months the various contingents of the expedition passed through Byzantium on their way to Asia Minor and the frontier with Islam. Constantinople was a natural location for the diverse forces of the crusade to gather, given that it stood on the traditional pilgrim route to the Holy Land and that the Franks had travelled east with the express intention of aiding their Greek brethren.
The ambitions of Alexius
The Byzantine Emperor Alexius I Comnenus had already witnessed the disordered collapse of the People’s Crusade, and it usually is argued that he viewed the advent of the main crusade with equal disdain and suspicion. His daughter and biographer Anna Comnena wrote that Alexius had ‘dreaded [the arrival of the Franks], knowing as he did their uncontrollable passion, their erratic character and their irresolution, not to mention their greed’. Elsewhere she described the crusaders as ‘all the barbarians of the West’ and was particularly scathing in her descriptions of Bohemond as ‘a habitual rogue’ who was ‘by nature a liar’. Drawing upon her vituperative rhetoric, historians have often depicted the early Greco-Latin encounters of 1096–7 as being stained by deep-seated mistrust and ingrained hostility. In fact, Anna Comnena’s account, written decades after the event, was heavily coloured by hindsight. To be sure, currents of wary circumspection, even of antipathy, pulsed beneath the surface of crusader–Byzantine relations. There were even occasional outbreaks of ill-tempered infighting. But to begin with, at least, these were eclipsed by instances of constructive cooperation. 12
To truly understand the First Crusaders’ journey through Byzantium and beyond, the preconceptions and prejudices of both the Franks and the Greeks must be reconstructed. Many imagine that in terms of wealth, power and culture European history has always been dominated by the West. But in the eleventh century the focal point of civilisation lay to the east, in Byzantium, inheritor of Greco-Roman might and glory; continuator of the known world’s most enduring empire. Alexius could trace his imperial heritage back to the likes of Augustus Caesar and Constantine the Great, and for the Franks this imbued the emperor and his realm with a near-mystical aura of majesty.
The crusaders’ arrival at Constantinople served only to reinforce this impression. Standing before its colossal outer walls–four miles long, up to fifteen feet thick and sixty feet tall–there could be no doubt that they beheld the heart of Christian Europe’s great superpower. For those fortunate enough to be granted entry to the capital itself, the wonders only multiplied. Home to perhaps half a million citizens, this metropolis dwarfed the largest city in Latin Europe tenfold. Visitors could marvel at the domed Basilica of St Sophia, Christendom’s most spectacular church, and gaze at the giant triumphal statues of Alexius’ legendary forebears. Constantinople also was home to an unrivalled collection of sacred relics, including Christ’s crown of thorns, locks of the Virgin Mary’s hair, at least two heads of John the Baptist and the bones of virtually all the Apostles.
It is little wonder that most crusaders expected, quite naturally, that their expedition would begin in the service of the emperor. For his part, Alexius offered the Frankish armies a cautious welcome, shepherding them from the
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