Huon

ST. BASIL OF CAESAREA
Letter 188 to Amphilochius, concerning the Canons :

13. Homicide in war is not reckoned by our Fathers as homicide; I presume froth their wish to make concession to men fighting on behalf of chastity and true religion. Perhaps, however, it is well to counsel that those whose hands are not clean only abstain from communion for three years.

http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/3202188.htm

This recommendation was well known in the IXth and Xth centuries, but did not prevent the small noblemen from waging war against their neighbors, and sometimes plundering the serfs of some abbey. These wars between Christians were strongly blamed by the population.

At that time, appeared the movement called "Peace of God". In 975, Guy d'Anjou, bishop of Le Puy (France), asked the milites to take an oath of respecting the country people and the churchmen. This oath was enforced by the parents of the bishop, who were powerful local nobles. In 989, a similar oath was required by the Archbishop of Bordeaux, Gombaud, who was supported by the duke of Aquitaine, William V. The most important nobles, and the king, were eager supporters of the "Peace of God", which did not menace their own power.

But the problem was : what shall do those unemployed soldiers ? A solution, the Crusade !

S.C.Carlson

The First Crusade was in 1095.

Huon

Right. But the First Crusade (to Jerusalem) was preceded by two similar events in Western Europe. The Reconquest of Northern Spain and Portugal, and the installation of the Norman kingdom in Sicily.

Portugal :
1055 : Viseu is conquered.
1064 : Coimbra is conquered.
1093 : Lisbon is conquered.

Leon and Castile :
1079 : Coria conquered.
1085 : Toledo conquered by Alfonso VI.

The Spanish history reminds of the epic of Rodrigo Diaz de Vivar (or Bivar, look Wiki), el Cid Campeador, who ended his life as the lord of Valencia in 1099. He was a knight of small importance, and became one of the greatest Christian nobles of his time. The kings of Castilla, Leon, Aragon and Navarra needed soldiers and hired them from Southern France, especially for the conquest of Toledo.

Count Henry of Burgundy was Count of Portugal at the end of the XIth century, and founded the Portuguese dynasty.

Pope Alexander II(1061-1073) encouraged the Reconquest, and granted "indulgences" to the Christian warriors.

However, this Reconquista did not destroy the Muslims in the conquered regions. There were agreements, granting the Muslims their properties, and their religious rights. See Alfonso VI.

later, a post on the Norman kingdom in Sicily.

demoninho

In all fairness, the crusades were just as much an act of aggression as the aggression the allies committed when they "invaded" Normandy in 1944. Well maybe the crusaders didn't really bahave very courtly after they had liberated the "holy land" but that is another story.

Huon

Hmm, hmm.

The aggression the allies committed when they "invaded" Normandy in 1944.

This does not belong to this thread. The allies did not "invade" Normandy. They invaded Normandy, with or without "...". And it was an aggression against some other people who had invaded (without quotes) Normandy 4 years before 1944. And this former invasion was considered an aggression against the Normands. The allies were welcomed by the Normands, even when Le Havre was destroyed in the battle.

But this should not be developed any more in this thread.

demoninho

Well my point exactly, like the "holy land" was invaded by the mohammedans in 637 under the leadership of Uthman with the only excuse that Mohammed flew flew on a donkey from Jerusalem to heaven, oppressing the native jews and christians, so the crusaders tried to liberate the "holy land" from the mohammedan invaders .

Well it belongs in this thread in as much as the OP assumes the crusades were an act of aggression, which they were not, they were a defensive war. So maybe we should start looking for bible verses which allow you to defend what is yours or had been taken from you.

(Question: should the irish indepence be reversed or never allowed to happen because their occupation lasted so long that they had waivered their rights to be independent? Or was the reconquista an act of aggression on the mohammedan rulers too?)

Huon

In 999, a group of 40 Norman pilgrims came from Jerusalem to Salerno (Italy, South-east of Naples). The local prince was Guaimar III (994-1027). Salerno was continuously attacked by Saracen pirates. The frightened Salernitans did not offer battle, but the warlike Normans did. Soon their bravery drew out the Salernitans and together they routed the Sicilian Muslims.

Around 1020, another Norman, Osmond Drengot, was exiled by the Duke of Normandy Richard II (996-1026). This Osmond went to Italy, with his brothers, among whom Rainolf Drengot. These Normans were hired by the Duke of Naples, Sergius IV, who was at war with the prince of Capua, Pandulf III. The Duke of Naples recovered his duchy in 1029, and gave the town and the land of Aversa to Rainolf Drengot, who became earl of Aversa, and was married to a daughter of Sergio IV. Some years later, his wife died, and he married a niece of Pandulf III, his former enemy.

In 1031, the first members of the Hauteville family arrived in Southern Italy, among them William and Drogo. They were hired successively by Guaimar IV (1027-1052) of Salerno, Pandulf III of Capua, and the byzantine emperor Michael IV the Paphlagonian (1034-1041).
In 1038, a general of Michael IV, George Maniakes, reconquered a part of Sicily from the Muslims with the help of the Hauteville brothers, especially William Iron Arm.

Constantine IX Monomachos (1042-1055) was the successor of Michael IV after a period of anarchy, especially in Southern Italy. The Normans, led by William Iron Arm Hauteville, succeeded in taking Apulia and Calabria with the help of Guaimar IV, and finally had the approval of Emperor Henry III of Germany, in 1047.

Another Hauteville, Robert Guiscard (cunning, crafty) (d. 1085) succeeded his brother William Iron Arm, took the title of Duke in 1059, conquered Messina (Sicily) in 1061, Palermo in 1072. After Palermo had been taken, Robert Guiscard, as suzerain, invested Roger, his youngest brother as Count of Sicily. In 1086, Syracuse surrendered, and when in 1091 Noto surrendered, the conquest was complete.

In 1096, the elder son of Robert Guiscard, named Bohemund, prince of Taranto, engaged in the first crusade, and took Antioch in 1097. Antioch remained the capital of a Latin Principality until 1268. It fell at last to the Egyptian Mamluk Sultan Baibars.

Note : most of these names can be found on Wiki, although my main source is Pierre Aubé (pron. Obey), les empires normands d'Orient (The eastern Norman empires).

dancer_rnb

Considering the lands involved had been part of the Byzantine Empire, what were Roman Catholics soldiers doing invading the area? If I remember right, the Byzantine Emperor had asked for a limited number of troops from Rome.

Solo

First declared crusade. By that time, there was a century of conquista in Spain by Castille-Leon, and 30 years of succesful campaign by the Norman knights in Sicily which destroyed the Moslem power there.

Jiri

Huon

I do not think that the Christian pilgrims, or the Crusaders, needed quotations from the bible to justify their actions. They were convinced that they were doing good things in the name of Jesus Christ, and that their opponents were obviously bad. The chroniclers described the wars, as they were, wars.

Another point which could be raised, is the fact that almost all the Western Catholic princes who had some power in the region, concluded temporary alliances with a Muslim prince against another prince, sometimes the emperor of Constantinople, sometimes another Muslim prince, sometimes another Western prince. And the Muslim leaders were not more scrupulous.