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the First Crusade

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Rachel Dearth
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« on: February 25, 2009, 03:09:30 pm »

First Crusade



The capture of Jerusalem marked the First Crusade's success
Date 1095–1099

Location Near East (Anatolia, Levant, Palestine)
Result Decisive Christian victory and land control
Territorial
changes Anatolia and Levant captured for Christendom;
Kingdom of Jerusalem/crusader states created
 
Belligerents
Christendom:
 Holy Roman Empire


 Genoa
 Lower Lorraine
 Provence
 Kingdom of France


 Blois
 Boulogne
 Flanders
 Le Puy-en-Velay
 Vermandois
 Kingdom of England

 Normandy
 Duchy of Apulia


 Taranto
 Byzantine Empire
 Kingdom of Cilicia

 Saracen:
Great Seljuq Empire
 Danishmends
 Fatimids
 Almoravids
 Abbasids

 
Commanders
 Guglielmo Embriaco

 Godfrey of Bouillon
 Raymond IV
 Stephen II
 Baldwin of Boulogne
 Eustace III of Boulogne
 Robert II of Flanders
 Adhemar of Le Puy
 Hugh of Vermandois
 Robert II of Normandy
 Bohemond of Taranto
 Tancred, Prince of Galilee
 Alexios I Komnenos
 Tatikios
 Constantine I

 Kilij Arslan I

Yaghi-Siyan
Kerbogha
Duqaq
Fakhr al-Mulk Radwan
 Ghazi ibn Danishmend
 Iftikhar ad-Daula
 Al-Afdal Shahanshah

 
Strength
Crusaders:
~ 35,000 men[1]
30,000 infantry[2]
5,000 cavalry[2]

Byzantines:
~ 2,000 men[2]
 Unknown
Casualties and losses
Unknown Unknown
« Last Edit: March 02, 2009, 08:19:03 pm by Rachel Dearth » Report Spam   Logged

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Rachel Dearth
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« Reply #1 on: February 25, 2009, 03:09:50 pm »

The First Crusade was launched in 1095 by Pope Urban II with the primary goal of responding to the appeal from Byzantine Emperor Alexius I. The Emperor requested that western volunteers come to their aid and repel the Seljuk Turks in Anatolia, Modern day Turkey. The Crusade soon turned into a religious conquest and a secondary goal was created - reconquer the sacred city of Jerusalem and the Holy Land and free the Eastern Christians from Islamic rule. What started as an appeal quickly turned into a wholescale Western migration and conquest of territory outside of Europe. Both knights and peasants from many nations of Western Europe travelled over land and by sea towards Jerusalem and captured the city in July 1099, establishing the Kingdom of Jerusalem and other Crusader states. Although these gains lasted for less than two hundred years, the First Crusade was part of the Christian response to the Islamic conquests, as well as the first major step towards reopening international trade in the West since the fall of the Western Roman Empire.

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« Reply #2 on: February 25, 2009, 03:10:07 pm »

The origins of the crusades in general, and of the First Crusade in particular, are varied and are widely debated among historians. They are most commonly linked to the political and social history of eleventh-century Europe, the rise of a reform movement within the Papacy, and the political and religious situation of Christianity and Islam in Europe and the Middle East. Christianity, which had spread throughout Europe, Africa, and the Middle East in the early Middle Ages, was by the early eighth century limited to Europe and Asia Minor after the rapid spread of Islam. The Umayyad Caliphate had conquered Syria, Egypt, and North Africa from the predominantly Christian Byzantine Empire, and Spain from the Christian Visigothic Kingdom.[3] In North Africa, the Ummayad empire eventually collapsed and a number of smaller Muslim kingdoms emerged, such as the Aghlabids, who entered Italy in the 9th century, and the Kalbids, who became prey to the Normans capturing Sicily by 1091. Pisa, Genoa, and Aragon began to battle other Muslim kingdoms for control of the Mediterranean, exemplified by the Mahdia campaign and battles at Majorca and Sardinia.[4]

At the western edge of Europe, and of Islamic expansion, the Reconquista in Spain was well underway by the eleventh century; it was intermittently ideological, as evidenced by the Epitome Ovetense written at the behest of Alfonso III of Asturias in 881, but it was not a proto-crusade.[5] Increasingly in the eleventh century foreign knights, mostly from France, visited Spain to assist the Christians in their efforts.[6] Shortly before the First Crusade, Pope Urban II had encouraged Spanish Christians to reconquer Tarragona, near Barcelona, using much of the same symbolism and rhetoric that was later used to preach the crusade.[7]

In the east was the Byzantine Empire, fellow Christians who had long followed a separate Orthodox rite. Since 1054 the Eastern Orthodox and Roman Catholic churches had been in schism, and the imposition of Roman church authority in the east may have been one of the causes of the crusade.[8] Under Emperor Alexius I Comnenus, the empire was largely confined to Europe and the western coast of Anatolia, and faced many enemies: the Normans in the west and the Seljuk Turks in the east. The Seljuks invaded Byzantium in 1071, and in response, in 1074, Pope Gregory VII called for the milites Christi ("soldiers of Christ") to go to their aid. This call, while largely ignored and even opposed, nevertheless focused a great deal of attention on the east.[9]

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« Reply #3 on: February 25, 2009, 03:10:23 pm »

The Seljuks and Byzantines continually fought for control of Anatolia and Syria. The Seljuks, who were orthodox Sunni Muslims, formerly ruled a large empire ("Great Seljuk") but by the time of the First Crusade it had divided into many smaller states after the death of Malik Shah I in 1092. Malik Shah was succeeded in the Anatolian Sultanate of Rüm by Kilij Arslan I, and in Syria by his brother Tutush I, who died in 1095. Tutush's sons Radwan and Duqaq inherited Aleppo and Damascus respectively, further dividing Syria amongst emirs antagonistic towards each other, as well as Kerbogha, the atabeg of Mosul.[10]

Egypt and much of Palestine were controlled by the Arab Shi'ite Fatimids, whose empire was significantly smaller since the arrival of the Seljuks. Warfare between the Fatimids and Seljuks caused great disruption for the local Christians and for western pilgrims. The Fatimids, at this time ruled by caliph al-Musta'li, with the vizier al-Afdal Shahanshah holding actual power, had lost Jerusalem to the Seljuks in 1076, but recaptured it from the Ortoqids, a smaller Turkic tribe associated with the Seljuks, in 1098, just before the arrival of the crusaders.[11]

The heart of western Europe itself had been relatively stabilized after the Christianization of the Saxons, Vikings, and Magyars by the end of the tenth century. However, the breakdown of the Carolingian Empire gave rise to an entire class of warriors who now had little to do but fight among themselves.[12] The random violence of the knightly class, and often knighthood itself, were regularly condemned by the church, and the Peace of God was established to prohibit fighting on certain days of the year. At the same time, the reform-minded Papacy came into conflict with the secular world, resulting in the Investiture Controversy, and popes such as Gregory VII needed theological justification for the subsequent warfare. It became acceptable for the Pope to utilize knights in the name of Christendom, not only against political enemies of the Papacy, but also against Muslim Spain, or, theoretically, against the Seljuks in the east.[13]

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« Reply #4 on: February 25, 2009, 03:11:09 pm »



Umayyad Caliphate at its greatest extent
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« Reply #5 on: February 25, 2009, 03:11:38 pm »

Historiography

All these events are claimed by historians to have contributed to the origin of the crusades. According to the "Erdmann thesis", developed by German historian Carl Erdmann, the origin was directly linked to the eleventh-century reform movements. Exportation of violence to the east, and assistance to the struggling Byzantine Empire were the primary goals, with Jerusalem a secondary, popular goal.[14]

Generally, historians have either followed Erdmann, with further expansions upon his thesis; more recently, they have also considered the influence of the rise of Islam. According to Steven Runciman, there was no immediate threat from Islam, for "in the middle of the eleventh century the lot of the Christians in Palestine had seldom been so pleasant."[15] The crusade was a combination of theological justification for holy war and a "general restlessness and taste for adventure", especially among the Normans and the "younger sons" of the French nobility who had no other opportunities.[16] Thomas Asbridge argues that the crusade was simply Pope Urban II's attempt to expand the power of the church, and to reunite the churches of Rome and Constantinople, which had been in schism since 1054. The spread of Islam was unimportant, because "Islam and Christendom had coexisted for centuries in relative equanimity."[17] Thomas Madden represents the opposite view; while the crusade was certainly linked to church reform and attempts to assert papal authority, it was most importantly a pious struggle, waged by faithful idealists, to liberate fellow Christians who "had suffered mightily at the hands of the Turks." This argument distinguishes the relatively recent violence and warfare that followed the arrival of the Turks from the general advance of Islam which is dismissed by Runciman and Asbridge.[18] Christopher Tyerman incorporates both arguments; the crusade developed out of church reform and theories of holy war as much as it was a response to conflicts with Islam throughout Europe and the Middle East.[19] For Jonathan Riley-Smith, poor harvests, overpopulation, and a pre-existing movement towards colonising the frontier areas of Europe also contributed to the crusade; he also notes, however, that "most commentators then and a minority of historians now have maintained that the chief motivation was a genuine idealism."[20]

The idea that the crusades were a response to Islam dates back as far as twelfth-century historian William of Tyre, who began his chronicle with the fall of Jerusalem to Umar ibn al-Khattab.[21] Although the original Islamic conquests took place centuries before the First Crusade, there were more recent events that European Christians still remembered. In 1009 the Church of the Holy Sepulchre was destroyed by the Fatimid Caliph al-Hakim bi-Amr Allah; Pope Sergius IV supposedly called for a military expedition in response, and in France, many Jewish communities were even attacked in misplaced retaliation. Nevertheless, the Church was rebuilt after al-Hakim's death, and pilgrimages resumed, including the Great German Pilgrimage of 1064–1065, although those pilgrims also suffered attacks from local Muslims.[22]

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« Reply #6 on: February 25, 2009, 03:12:54 pm »

Chronological sequence of the Crusade



Pope Urban II at the Council of Clermont. Illumination from the Livre des Passages d'Outre-mer, of c 1490 (Bibliothèque National)
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« Reply #7 on: February 25, 2009, 03:13:54 pm »

Council of Clermont

The Council of Clermont was a mixed synod of ecclesiastics and laymen of the Catholic Church, which was held on November 27, 1095 at Clermont, France and triggered the First Crusade.

In 1095 the Byzantine emperor Alexius I Comnenus sent envoys to the west requesting military assistance against the Seljuk Turks. The message was received by Pope Urban II at the Council of Piacenza; later that year, in November, Urban called the Council of Clermont to discuss the matter further. In convoking the council, Urban urged the bishops and abbots whom he addressed directly, to bring with them the prominent lords in their provinces.

The Council lasted from November 19 to November 28, and was attended by about 300 clerics from throughout France. Urban discussed Cluniac reforms of the Church, and also extended the excommunication of Philip I of France for his adulterous remarriage to Bertrade of Montfort. On November 27, Urban spoke for the first time about the problems in the east, as he declared bellum sacrum against the Muslims who had occupied the Holy Land and were attacking the Eastern Roman Empire.

There are six main sources of information about this portion of the council: the anonymous Gesta Francorum ("The Deeds of the Franks") influencing others: Fulcher of Chartres, Robert the Monk, Baldric, archbishop of Dol, and Guibert de Nogent, who were apparently present at the council; also a letter survives that was written by Urban himself in December of 1095.

According to Fulcher of Chartres who wrote a version of the speech in Gesta Francorum Jerusalem Expugnantium, Urban addressed various abuses of the church such as simony and the lack of adherence to the Peace of God:

Let those who have been accustomed unjustly to wage private warfare against the faithful now go against the infidels and end with victory this war which should have been begun long ago. Let those who for a long time, have been robbers, now become knights. Let those who have been fighting against their brothers and relatives now fight in a proper way against the barbarians. Let those who have been serving as mercenaries for small pay now obtain the eternal reward. Let those who have been wearing themselves out in both body and soul now work for a double honor. [1]
Urban then went on to cite the need of the eastern Byzantine Empire for aid against Muslim attack:

Freshly quickened by the divine correction, you must apply the strength of your righteousness to another matter which concerns you as well as God. For your brethren who live in the east are in urgent need of your help, and you must hasten to give them the aid which has often been promised them. For, as the most of you have heard, the Turks and Arabs have attacked them and have conquered the territory of Romania [the Greek empire] as far west as the shore of the Mediterranean and the Hellespont, which is called the Arm of St. George. They have occupied more and more of the lands of those Christians, and have overcome them in seven battles. They have killed and captured many, and have destroyed the churches and devastated the empire. If you permit them to continue thus for awhile with impurity, the faithful of God will be much more widely attacked by them. On this account I, or rather the Lord, beseech you as Christ's heralds to publish this everywhere and to persuade all people of whatever rank, foot-soldiers and knights, poor and rich, to carry aid promptly to those Christians and to destroy that vile race from the lands of our friends. [2]
In Gesta Dei per Francos by Robert the Monk, writing about twenty years after the council, an extended version of the speech presents the call to the "race of the Franks" as a peroration climaxing Urban's call for orthodoxy, reform and submission to the Church. Robert records that the pope asked western Christians, poor and rich, to come to the aid of the Greeks in the east, because "Deus vult," ("God wills it"), the rousing cry with which Urban ended his final address. Robert records that Urban promised remission of sins for those who went to the east, although he probably did not mean what later came to be called indulgences. Robert recorded that Urban's emphasis was on reconquering the Holy Land rather than aiding the Greeks; the intervening decades and the events of the First Crusade had certainly shifted the emphasis. According to Robert, Urban listed various gruesome offenses of the Muslims:

They circumcise the Christians, and the blood of the circumcision they either spread upon the altars or pour into the vases of the baptismal font.

and more alleged atrocities expressed in inflammatory images that were derived from hagiography, but did not mention indulgences. Perhaps with the wisdom of hindsight, Robert makes Urban advise that none but knights should go, not the old and feeble, nor priests without the permission of their bishops, "for such are more of a hindrance than aid, more of a burden than advantage... nor ought women to set out at all, without their husbands or brothers or legal guardians."

About the same time, Baldrick, archbishop of Dol, also basing his account generally on Gesta Francorum, focused on the offenses of the Muslims and the reconquest of the Holy Land in terms likely to appeal to chivalry. Like Fulcher he also recorded that Urban deplored the violence of the Christian knights of Gaul. "It is less wicked to brandish your sword against Saracens," Baldrick's Urban cries, comparing them to the Amalekites. The violence of knights he wanted to see ennobled in the service of Christ, defending the churches of the East as if defending a mother. Baldrick asserts that Urban, there on the spot, appointed the bishop of Puy to lead the crusade.

Guibert, abbot of Nogent, was an eye witness; he also recorded that Urban's emphasis was reconquest of the Holy Land, but not necessarily to help the Greeks or other Christians there; Urban's speech, in Nogent's version, emphasized the sanctity of the Holy Land, which must be in Christian possession so that prophecies about the end of the world could be fulfilled.

On the last day of the council, a general call was sent out to the knights and nobles of France. Urban apparently knew in advance of the day that Raymond IV of Toulouse, exemplary for courage and piety, was fully prepared to take up arms. Urban himself spent a few months preaching the Crusade in France, while papal legates spread the word in the south of Italy, during which time the focus presumably turned from helping Alexius to taking Jerusalem; the general population, upon hearing about the Council, probably understood this to be the point of the Crusade in the first place.

Urban's own letter, addressed to the faithful "waiting in Flanders," does not mention Jerusalem at all; he only calls for help for the Eastern Churches, and appoints Adhemar of Le Puy to lead the Crusade, to set out on the day of the Assumption of Mary, August 15.



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« Reply #8 on: February 25, 2009, 03:15:14 pm »

Deus vult

Deus vult (Latin, God wills it) was the cry of the people at the declaration of the First Crusade by Pope Urban II at the Council of Clermont in 1095[1]. The phrase appears variously as deus vult, (Classical Latin) dieu le veut, (French) deus lo vult (medieval Vulgar Latin), etc.

Deus lo vult is the motto of the Equestrian Order of the Holy Sepulchre of Jerusalem, a Catholic order of chivalry.

Deus Vult is the name of the expansion pack for the Paradox Interactive game Crusader Kings.

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« Reply #9 on: February 25, 2009, 03:15:58 pm »

Recruitment

Urban's speech had been well-planned; he had discussed the crusade with Adhemar, Bishop of Le Puy, and Raymond IV of Toulouse, and instantly the expedition had the support of two of southern France's most important leaders. Adhemar himself was present at the Council and was the first to "take the cross." For the rest of 1095 and into 1096, Urban spread the message throughout France, and urged his bishops and legates to preach in their own dioceses elsewhere in France, Germany, and Italy as well. However, it is clear that the response to the speech was much larger than even the Pope, let alone Alexius, expected. During his tour of France, Urban tried to forbid certain people (including women, monks, and the sick) from joining the crusade, but found this nearly impossible. In the end most who took up the call were not knights, but peasants who were not wealthy and had little in the way of fighting skills, in an outpouring of a new emotional and personal piety that was not easily harnessed by the ecclesiastical and lay aristocracy.[28] Typically preaching would conclude with every volunteer taking a vow to complete a pilgrimage to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre; they were also given a cross, usually sewn onto their clothes.[29]

As Thomas Asbridge wrote, "Just as we can do nothing more than estimate the number of thousands who responded to the crusading ideal, so too, with the surviving evidence, we can gain only a limited insight into their motivation and intent."[30] Previous generations of scholars argued that the crusaders were motivated by greed, hoping to find a better life away from the famines and warfare occurring in France, but as Asbridge says, "this image is ... profoundly misleading."[31] Greed is unlikely to have been a major factor because of the extremely high cost of travelling so far from home, and because almost all of the crusaders eventually returned home after completing their pilgrimage, rather than trying to carve out possessions for themselves in the Holy Land.[32] It is difficult or impossible to assess the motives of the thousands of poor for whom there is no historical record, and even for the knights, whose stories were usually told by monks or clerics. However, since the secular medieval world was so deeply ingrained with the spiritual world of the church, it is likely that personal piety was a major factor for many crusaders.[33]

Despite this popular enthusiasm, however, Urban ensured that there would be an army of knights, drawn from the French aristocracy. Aside from Adhemar and Raymond, the leaders he recruited throughout 1096 were Bohemond of Taranto, a southern Italian ally of the reform popes; Bohemond's nephew Tancred; Godfrey of Bouillon, who had previously been an anti-reform ally of the Holy Roman Emperor; his brother Baldwin of Boulogne; Hugh of Vermandois, brother of the excommunicated King Philip I of France; Robert of Normandy, brother of King William II of England; and his relatives Stephen of Blois and Robert of Flanders. The crusaders represented northern and southern France, Germany, and southern Italy, and so they were divided into four separate armies which were not always cooperative, although they were held together by their common ultimate goal.[34]

The motives of the nobility are somewhat clearer; greed was apparently not a major factor. It is commonly assumed, for example by Runciman as mentioned above, that only younger members of a family went on crusade, looking for wealth and adventure elsewhere, as they had no prospects for advancement at home. Riley-Smith has shown that this was not the case. The crusade was led by some of the most powerful nobles of France, who left everything behind, and it was often the case that entire families went on crusade, at their own great expense.[35] For example, Robert of Normandy sold the Duchy of Normandy to his brother, and Godfrey sold or mortgaged his property to the church.[36] According to Tancred's biographer, he was worried about the sinful nature of knightly warfare, and was excited to find a holy outlet for violence.[37] Tancred and Bohemond, as well as Godfrey, Baldwin, and their older brother Eustace are examples of families who crusaded together. Riley-Smith argues that the enthusiasm for the crusade was perhaps based on family relations, as most of the French crusaders were distant relatives.[38]

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« Reply #10 on: February 25, 2009, 03:17:22 pm »



The defeat of the People's Crusade
Medieval illuminated manuscript showing Peter the Hermit's People's Crusade of 1096
 
Source http://www.unf.edu/classes/crusades/image/BNF-massacreofpeterhermitsarmy-1490.jpg
 
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Crusade
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« Reply #11 on: February 27, 2009, 01:09:26 pm »

People's Crusade

The defeat of the People's Crusade
Date October 1096[1]
Location Anatolia and Nicea
Result Decisive Seljuk Muslim victory[2]
 
Belligerents
Christendom, Catholicism
West European Christians, Armenian Kingdom of Cilicia Seljuks,
and other Muslims
Commanders
Walter the Penniless
Peter the Hermit Kilij Arslan[3]
Strength
20,000 Crusaders[4]
(initially 40,000 Crusaders)[5] Unknown
Casualties and losses
High[6] Relatively low
 
 
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« Reply #12 on: February 27, 2009, 01:09:55 pm »

Pope Urban II planned departure of the crusade for August 15, 1096, but months before this, a number of unexpected armies of peasants and lowly knights organized and set off for Jerusalem on their own. The peasant population had been afflicted by drought, famine, and plague for many years before 1096, and some of them seem to have envisioned the crusade as an escape from these hardships. Spurring them on had been a number of coincidental meteorological occurrences beginning in 1095 that seemed to be a divine blessing for the movement: a meteor shower, aurorae, a lunar eclipse, and a comet, among other events. An outbreak of ergotism, which usually led to mass pilgrimages anyway, had also occurred just before the Council of Clermont. Millenarianism, the belief that the end of the world was imminent, popular in the early 11th century, experienced a resurgence in popularity. The response was beyond expectations: While Urban might have expected a few thousand knights, he ended up with a migration numbering up to 40,000 Crusaders of mostly unskilled fighters, including women and children.[5]

A charismatic monk and powerful orator named Peter the Hermit of Amiens was the spiritual leader of the movement. He was known for riding a donkey and dressing in simple clothing. He had vigorously preached the crusade throughout northern France and Flanders. He claimed to have been appointed to preach by Christ himself (and supposedly had a divine letter to prove it), and it is likely that some of his followers thought he, not Urban, was the true originator of the crusading idea. It is often believed that Peter's army was a band of illiterate, incompetent peasants who had no idea where they were going, and who believed that every city of any size they encountered on their way was Jerusalem itself; this may have been true for some, but the long tradition for pilgrimages to Jerusalem ensured that the location and distance of the city were well-known. While the majority were unskilled in fighting, there were some well-trained minor knights leading them, such as the future chronicler Fulcher of Chartres, and Walter Sans-Avoir (also known as Walter the Penniless), who, as his name suggests, was an impoverished knight with no lord and no vassals, but was nonetheless experienced in warfare.


[edit] Persecution of the Jews
Main article: Persecution of Jews in the First Crusade
The preaching of the First Crusade inspired an outbreak of anti-Semitism. In parts of France and Germany, Jews were perceived as just as much an enemy as Muslims: they were thought to be responsible for the crucifixion, and they were more immediately visible than the distant Muslims. Many people wondered why they should travel thousands of miles to fight non-believers when there were already non-believers closer to home.

It is also likely that the crusaders were motivated by their need for money. The Rhineland communities were relatively wealthy, both due to their isolation, and because they were not restricted as Christians were against moneylending. Many crusaders had to go into debt in order to purchase weaponry and equipment for the expedition; as Western Christianity strictly forbade usury (unlike Orthodox Christianity, which merely regulated it), many crusaders inevitably found themselves indebted to Jewish moneylenders. Having armed themselves by assuming the debt, the crusaders conveniently rationalized the killing of Jews as an extension of their Christian mission.

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« Reply #13 on: February 27, 2009, 01:11:08 pm »

Walter and the French

Peter gathered his army at Cologne on April 12, 1096, planning to stop there and preach to the Germans and gather more crusaders. The French, however, were not willing to wait for Peter and the Germans and under the leadership of Walter Sans-Avoir a few thousand French crusaders left before Peter reached Hungary on May 8, passing through Hungary without incident and arriving at the river Save at the border of Byzantine territory at Belgrade. The Belgrade commander was taken by surprise having no orders on what to do with them and refused entry, forcing the crusaders to pillage the countryside for food. This resulted in skirmishes with the Belgrade garrison and, to make matters worse, sixteen of Walter's men had tried to rob a market in Semlin across the river in Hungary and were stripped of their armor and clothing which was hung from the castle walls. Eventually the crusaders were allowed to carry on to Nish, where they were provided with food and waited to hear from Constantinople on their allowed passage. By the end of July the army arrived in Constantinople under Byzantine escort.

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« Reply #14 on: February 27, 2009, 01:12:16 pm »



1888 map showing proximity of Semlin (today Zemun), river Save and Belgrade.
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