The Crusades: The Authoritative History of the War for the Holy Land Read Free Page B

of his experiences left him in ‘high spirits [and] exultant’. Latin pilgrims often travelled to less distant locations–including major centres like Rome and Santiago de Compostela (in north-east Spain), and even local shrines and churches–but the Holy City was fast emerging as the most revered destination. Jerusalem’s unrivalled sanctity was also reflected in the common medieval practice of placing the city at the centre of maps depicting the world. All of this had a direct bearing upon the exultant reaction to crusade preaching because the holy war was presented as a form of armed pilgrimage, one that had Jerusalem as its ultimate objective. 5
    Warfare and violence in Latin Europe
     
    In launching the crusades the papacy sought to recruit members of one social grouping above all others: the knights of Latin Europe. This military class was still at an early stage of development in the eleventh century. The fundamental characteristic of medieval knighthood was the ability to fight as a mounted warrior. * Knights were almost always accompanied by at least four or five followers who could act as servants–tending to their master’s mount, weaponry and welfare–but who also were capable of fighting as foot soldiers. When the crusades began, these men were not members of full-time standing armies. Most knights were warriors, but also lords or vassals, landholders and farmers–who would expect to give over no more than a few months in any one year to warfare, and even then did not usually fight in established, well-drilled groups.
    The standard forms of warfare in eleventh-century Europe, familiar to almost all knights, involved a mixture of short-distance raiding, skirmishing–which was usually a ragged affair, characterised by chaotic close-quarter combat–and sieges of the many wood-or stone-based castles littered throughout the West. Few Latin soldiers had experience of large-scale pitched battles, because this form of conflict was incredibly unpredictable and therefore generally avoided. Virtually none would have fought in a protracted, long-range campaign of the sort involved in crusading. As such, the holy wars in the East would require the warriors of Latin Christendom to adapt and improve some of their martial skills. 6
    Before the preaching of the First Crusade, most Latin knights still regarded acts of bloodshed as inherently sinful, but they already were accustomed to the idea that, in the eyes of God, certain forms of warfare were more justifiable than others. There also was some sense that the papacy even might be capable of sanctioning violence.
    At first sight, Christianity does appear to be a pacifistic faith. The New Testament Gospels record many occasions when Jesus seemed to reject or prohibit violence: from his warning that he who lived by violence would die by violence, to the Sermon on the Mount’s exhortation to turn the other cheek in response to a blow. The Old Testament also appears to offer clear guidance on the question of violence, with the Mosaic Commandment: ‘Thou shall not kill.’ In the course of the first millennium CE , however, Christian theologians pondering the union between their faith and the military empire of Rome began to question whether scripture really did offer such a decisive condemnation of warfare. The Old Testament certainly seemed equivocal, because as a history of the Hebrews’ desperate struggle for survival, it described a series of holy wars sanctioned by God. This suggested that, under the right circumstances, even vengeful or aggressive warfare might be permissible; and in the New Testament, Jesus had said that he came to bring not peace but a sword, and had used a whip of cords to beat moneylenders out of the Temple.
    The most influential early Christian thinker to wrestle with these issues was the North African bishop St Augustine of Hippo (354–430 CE ). His work laid the foundation upon which the papacy eventually built the notion of crusading. St