The Crusades and the High Middle Ages

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The Crusades

Pope Urban II, pope 1088-1099, (picture) was responsible for aiding Emperor Alexus I of Constantinople in launching the first Crusade. (Alexus was complaining because Muslim armies were advancing into his territories).
In a speech given at the Council of Clermont in France, in 1095, Urban combined the concept of making a pilgrimage to the Holy Land with that of “serving justice against infidels”.
He stated “God himself will lead them, for they will be doing His work. There will be absolution and remission of sins for all that die in the service of Christ. Here they are poor and miserable sinners; there they will be rich and happy”.

So the year of 1095 saw the beginnings of the Crusader period initiated by Pope Urban II, (which lasted for about 200 years). The name Crusade means ‘taking the Cross’. On the way to battle the Crusaders wore a cross on the front of their suit of armor, and on their return wore the cross on the back.

Urban promised the Crusaders “spiritual rewards and material gains”, and the promise of salvation to all who joined “Gods work”. For this reason whole families were part of the 60,000 who arrived at Alexus’s Constantinople (who was enraged at the sight of them because he was expecting only about 3000 elite soldiers, and had to feed 60,000 tired men, woman and children).

However, after consuming the spoils of Edessa and Antioch, thousands of knights of the 1095 Crusade ended up being less interested in liberating the Holy Land. They redirected their efforts to search for land and gold, and to “serve justice” in the name of the Roman Catholic Church upon all who were not of their ranks. They besieged Christian cities (Edessa), killed Muslims, Jews and true believers. They sawed open dead bodies in search for gold that Muslims were rumored to have swallowed, ate human flesh including that of children impaled on spits, tortured, raped, sent children into slavery, and plundered, all with the assurance from Rome of automatic pardon for sins.
(Indulgence (the purchasing of forgiveness) was freely availed to all Crusader saints).

One cannot give an accurate account of medieval history without fronting the great evil inflicted by the Crusader Church upon the very people, whom God chose to entrust his oracles (Rom 3:2), the Jews.
The Crusades, in addition to their pilgrimage atrocities, inflicted the vile reproach of anti-Semitism, which execrated the Church of that dispensation. As a result, the symbol of the Cross, to the Jew, became a sign of great evil; rather than a proclamation of salvation and grace which was indeed intended to gift the house of Israel first (Romans 1:16).
Note: Anti-Semitism would more accurately be termed “anti-Jewish”, because the Semitites were made up of both Jewish and Arab populations.
Today, perpetrators of the same maleficence have changed the term anti-Semitism to anti-Zionism to deceitfully evade association, albeit it shares the same spirit

Eventually, after four years, a 3000-mile march, a five-week siege, and an estimated 30,000 of Jerusalem inhabitant’s dead, the Holy City in 1099 was captured by Duke Godfrey’s saints. His knights set up their Latin State and renamed it Palestine (after “Philistine”) to enrage the Jewish inhabitants.

Historian Raymond of Agiles described the capture of Jerusalem by the Crusaders in 1099:
“Piles of heads, hands and feet were to be seen in the streets of the city. It was necessary to pick one's way over the bodies of men and horses. But these were small matters compared to what happened at the temple of Solomon, a place where religious services ware ordinarily chanted. What happened there? If I tell the truth, it will exceed your powers of belief. So let it suffice to say this much at least, that in the temple and portico of Solomon, men rode in blood up to their knees and bridle reins”.

Pope Urban, in the meantime, had died just prior to the news reaching Rome of his Crusaders “fulfilling his [Gods] work”. Whilst many of the clergy disagreed with the murderous rampages, they were powerless to do anything because to a large extent they were seeing the fruit of the doctrines and prejudice they had propagated. In the papacy’s conquest to rid the empire of infidels, people were hunted down and killed in frenzy type massacres not seen since that of General Titus’s rampage of 70AD. Jews were rounded up into synagogues then set alight.

Between 1050-1648, Jews were expelled from many countries including England, France, Hungary, Portugal, Spain, Lithuania, Ukraine and Germany, most often at the instigation of the Roman Catholic Church.
It was not until the 20th Century, in 1965, that Vatican II revised Catholic policy concerning the Jews legitimacy to continue as a religion, and exonerated them for the murder of Christ. It was not until May 6, 2001 that the Roman Catholic Church through Pope John Paul II while in a mosque in Damascus greeted the Grand Mufti and asked forgiveness from Muslims “for the past”, (implying the Crusade era?).

Having captured Jerusalem, the Holy Sepulchre (the prime destination of the Crusaders) was soon magnificently restored in stone, in Romanesque fashion. The Upper Room also soon bore the Crusader arches on the ceilings, which remain today (picture).
They set up a hospital order ran by their Knights known as the “Knights of the order of St John of Jerusalem” (the origin of the St Johns ambulance).

Four Kingdoms were created along the Mediterranean Coast. The Crusaders also formed semi-monastic military orders. They were, the Templars (knights of the temple) who set themselves up originally on the Temple Mount; the Hospitaliers (Knights of St John); and the Teutonic Knights (who were exclusively German). Their aim was to protect pilgrims and fight Muslims at every opportunity. The Templars were unique in that they took the monastery vows, and yet killed. They remained a small band of “warrior monks” until their leader found favor with the famous St Bernard of France in 1126. From this time their rank swelled with new recruits. They never retreated from battle unless they were outnumbered 3-1, and during the Crusade period suffered the loss of over 20,000 knights.
The Templars were said to have been richer than the Kings themselves.

The only benefit the Crusades wrought was the revival of trade throughout Europe and the Middle East. Viewed in the light of their original purpose, the Crusades failed. They did not retard the advance of Islam. They also revealed the continuing inability of Latin Christians (the higher class) to understand Greek speaking Christians (generally the lower rural class), and hardened the schism between them. They fostered intolerance between Muslims and Christians whereas, just prior both had enjoyed a period  of mutual religious respect.
(Picture: Original crusader decoration, Old City Jerusalem).

In 04 July 1187 Saladin (Salah-al-Din ibn Ayyub) conquered the might of the Crusader army at Hattin (near the shores of the Sea of Galilee) which had been weakened through division in the ranks, exhaustion and dehydration from the desert heat.
Saladin then advanced toward Jerusalem where the few knights who remained in the Holy City held out from 20 Sept until 02 Oct whereupon their leader, Balian negotiated a ransom for the liberty of each citizen and promised not to destroy the Al-Aqsa Mosque if their lives were spared (the Mosque was being used at the time for stables).

The non-combatants in Jerusalem were in great despair. According to the chronicle of Ernoul, a squire of Balian, "…Our Lord did not deign to hear the prayers or noise that was made in the city. For the stench of adultery, of disgusting extravagance, and of sin against nature would not let their prayers rise to God."
The women and children cut their hair, hoping to please God and thereby ensure victory. The clergy organized a barefoot procession around the walls, just as the clergy on the First Crusade had done during their assault of 1099.

Saladin was said to have respected the Christian leader, Balian and extended mercy (which included providing his wife and family safe passage to Tyre).
After negotiation between himself and Balian, the city was eventually taken peacefully, and an end came to the Crusader Kingdom of Jerusalem.

Afterwards Saladin allowed Christian pilgrimages to continue, and the Church of the Holy Sepulcher to remain in Christian hands. The great golden cross that rose above the Dome of the Rock, however, was toppled and replaced by the crescent moon, the symbol of Islam (picture), which has remained ever since.

A few years later in 1191, during the third Crusade, King Richard I (Richard the Lionheart) with 17,000 men conquered Acre, and then Jaffo, but realized his army was too depleted to maintain a hold on Jerusalem, should they take it. So at only 28 miles from the city gates he returned to Acre, to consolidate the Mediterranean hold, and eventually back to Europe having failed in their initial objective of again “rescuing the Lord’s city from the infidels”.

The balance of power shifted between the Arabs and the Europeans during the decades that followed. In the meantime, the Papacy grew in power and again reformed their ruling dogma. The Pope became a type of Feudal Lord. He climaxed in power and influence during the reign of Pope Innocent III in 1197 AD.
Innocent told the princes of Europe he “was like the sun and that the Kings were like moons. As the moon received its light from the sun, the kings derived their powers from the pope”
And further claimed “the Papacy was below God but above and beyond the reach of man, will judge all but be judged by no one”. As Peter’s successor of the Medieval Church, he held the keys to heaven and hell, was perceived as the only the mediator between God and man, and therefore controlled who entered heaven.
The Roman Catholic Church still holds to this heresy.

In 1202-1204, Pope Innocent III Crusaders were sent again to liberate the Holy City, but fell short and turned instead on Christian Constantinople. The pope excommunicated the Crusaders but he made no move to halt or overturn their actions because he felt, erroneously, that the Latin presence would bring about reconciliation between the Eastern and Western Churches. It never happened.
(Picture: remains of a Crusader castle)

In all there were seven Crusades. The era of the Crusades began in 1095 and ended in 1291 when Acre, the last of the Latin holdings in Palestine was lost and the Templars returned to settle in France. There, their reign came to an end on Friday 13, 1307 (hence the origin of Fri 13) when King Phillip IV of France raided every Templar center covertly, convicted them of 127 blasphemies, and in essence, destroyed the Order. In 1314 the Templar Master and 50 other men were burnt at the Stake. The master, seconds from death, shouted that both Phillip and the Pope would sit before God in judgement the same year. As it turned out, Pope Clement died within the month, and King Phillip within the year.

The major Crusades were:

I. 1095-1099, called by Pope Urban II.
II. 1147-49, headed by King Louis VII which was a disastrous failure, including the loss of
one of the four Latin Kingdoms.
III. 1188-92, proclaimed by Pope Gregory VIII in the wake of the catastrophe of the second
Crusade led by Richard the Lion-Heart.
IV. 1202-1204; Constantinople was sacked,
V. 1217-1221; which included the conquest of Damietta,
VI. 1228-29; In which Frederick II took part and Richard of Cornwall in 1239.
VII 1248-50; led by St. Louis (Louis IX of France).

One significant belief was enhanced during the Crusades, the acceptance of, and the practice of indulgences. The priest, as it was believed, had a ‘reservoir of merit’ to call upon to help the lesser Christian. This reservoir of merit was believed to have been earned by saints who had since died, but then passed on the merit of grace to the ‘paying’ living when called upon.

The Papacy went on to exercise its dominance over all of Europe’s nations and enforced it through ‘Interdicts’ - the ceasing of public worship and access to the sacraments, and thereby claimed control of the flow of grace and salvation.
It threatened 85 Interdicts in total upon regions throughout Europe who dared not to conform to its authority. For example, most princes had no option but to acknowledge the pope as their feudal lord. In the days of Robin Hood, King John of England opposed the appointment of the archbishop of Canterbury, so Innocent III excommunicated him and placed England under Interdict. Under pressure from his barons, John capitulated to Innocent by becoming his vassal. England was received back as a fief (where land is held in return for feudal service) but had to pay the Papacy a sizable annual tribute.
The threat of excommunication on the other hand, was used successfully to control the general populace. Upon receiving excommunication, the funeral bell tolled, the book shut and the candle extinguished. Any people finding themselves out of favor could not do business, obtain council, or claim a proper burial. In fact their bodies were left on a dumpsite to rot.

It was also during the period of the Crusades, that Europe saw more than 500 Gothic style Cathedrals built. Some were up to 40 stories high, - albeit occasionally the tops fell off. Notre Dame was built during 1163-1235 (photo).
The people came to boast in the magnificence of the Cathedrals as a symbol of their identity and safety.
They became a place similar to the domes of the Eastern Orthodox Church where people would go to experience a mystic awe amidst incense, vivid stain glass windows and music, then leave not understanding a word of the Latin language spoken and chanted.

The period of the 11th and 12th centuries, known as the ‘High Middle Ages’, was also the era of the Universities and Scholastic philosophy. Many of the knights couldn’t read, but brought back the spoils of manuscripts of Greek philosophers like Aristotle, Plato etc.
This started people thinking again for themselves and asking whether there may be a theology besides Papal theology. So long as the conclusions supported the Church’s doctrines and rule, the Papacy encouraged such thought because it created a legal basis for its authority and existence.

Universities started simply through people gathering around informed intellectuals, usually in the grounds of the Cathedrals. Oxford, for example started in a shed. Within a short period of time some congregations grew to become Monastic type schools, where they discussed theology and the attributes of God.
Eventually Universities formulated a basic curriculum of rhetoric, arithmetic, logic, geometry, music and astronomy.

One university that opposed the Papacy’s supremacy was that of Paris. The Pope sent Thomas Aquinas, 1224-1274 (photo) to settle the disputes and in doing so Aquinas became the main instrument in writing much of the Canon Law (or Church law). This became the basis for the Roman Catholic Church doctrinal law, which was in content, supportive of Pope Gregory’s doctrines.
The development of the Universities saw the emergence of systematic theologians, again affirming such doctrines and dogma. They expounded reasons that would justify and give a rational, legal basis for Papal authority concerning such issues as excommunication, and what would be expected of the sinner to earn restoration to the heavenly fold etc.
The Canon Law remained unchanged until Vatican I (1869), and Vatican II (1962) where it revisited, changed, and in many cases re-affirmed, its long standing medieval traditions.