Encountering Islam on

the First Crusade

Nicholas Morton
Nottingham Trent University
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C Nicholas Morton 2016

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Encountering Islam on the First Crusade / Nicholas Morton, Nottingham
Trent University.
New York : Cambridge University Press, 2016.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
LCCN 2016018908 ISBN 9781107156890
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History – To 1500. Christianity and other religions.
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Encountering Islam on the First Crusade

The First Crusade (1095–1099) has often been characterised as a head-

to-head confrontation between the forces of Christianity and Islam. For
many, it is the campaign that created a lasting rupture between these
two faiths. Nevertheless, is such a characterisation borne out by the
sources? Engagingly written and supported by a wealth of evidence,
Encountering Islam on the First Crusade offers a major re-interpretation
of the crusaders’ attitudes towards the Arabic and Turkic peoples they
encountered on their journey to Jerusalem. Nicholas Morton considers
how they interpreted the new peoples, civilisations, and landscapes they
encountered, sights for which their former lives in Western Christendom
had provided little preparation. Morton offers a varied picture of cross-
cultural relations, depicting the Near East as an arena in which multiple
protagonists were pitted against each other. Some were fighting for
supremacy, others for their religion, many simply for survival.

n i c h o l a s m o r t o n is a lecturer in History at Nottingham Trent

University. He is the author of many works on the crusades and the
military orders including The Medieval Military Orders and The Teutonic
Knights in the Holy Land, 1190–1291.
 There are, I know, those who prefer not to go beyond the impression, however
accidental, which an old work makes on a mind that brings to it a purely
modern sensibility and modern conceptions; just as there are travellers who
carry their resolute Englishry with them all over the continent, mix only with
other English tourists, enjoy all they see for its ‘quaintness’, and have no wish
to realise what those ways of life, those churches, those vineyards, mean to the
natives. They have their reward. I have no quarrel with people who approach
the past in that spirit. I hope they will pick none with me. But I was writing
for the other sort.
C.S. Lewis1

1 C. S. Lewis, The discarded image: An introduction to medieval and Renaissance literature

(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1964), p. x.
 Contents

Figure and Tables page ix

Acknowledgements x
Note on Translations xi

Introduction 1
Terminology: ‘Saracens’, Turks, and Muslims 15
Methodologies 19
Trans-Cultural Borrowing 19
Reality and Representation 21

1 Predicates 27
Latin Christendom on the Eve of the Crusades: Historical
Background 27
The Lenses through Which Western Christendom Viewed Islam 41
Theological 42
Chansons and the Voice of Knightly Culture 56
Experiential Factors 65

2 The Launch of the First Crusade 67

Historical Background 67
Objectives 73
Urban II 75
Sources 75
Who Was the Crusade Launched Against? 79
What Was the Stated Purpose of the Campaign? 83
How did Urban Present His Enemy? 85
Participants: Intentions 94
Participants: Foreknowledge of the Turks 97

3 The First Crusade and the Conquest of Jerusalem 111

Encountering the Turks 111
Military Confrontations 113
Hierarchies, Culture, and Religion 120
Encountering the Arabs and Fatimids 135
How Important Were the Turks and Arabs to the Crusaders? 150
Conversion, Evil, and the Problem of Hatred 154
Conclusion 183

vii
viii Contents

4 Aftermath 190
Introduction 190
Identifying the Turks 195
Identifying the Turks’ Allies 200
‘Chaldeans’ and Descriptions of the ‘Saracen’ Religion 203
New Information and Classical Influences 215
The Turks and the Apocalypse 216
East and West 226

5 The Impact of the Crusade 234

Introduction 234
The Military Situation, 1050–1150 236
Islam’s Place on Christendom’s Agenda, Before and After
the First Crusade 238
‘Saracens’ in Medieval Narratives Written Away from the Frontier 245
The Holy Land under Christian Control 260
Crusading Fantasy 265
Conclusion 268

Concluding Remarks 270

Bibliography 281
Index 313
 Figure and Tables

Figure
1. References to Muslims in Henry of Huntingdon’s Historia
Anglorum page 257

Tables
1. Terms used to define the First Crusade’s opponents found
in charters produced in advance of the campaign 80
2. Agreements and treaties formed between crusaders and
Muslims, 1097–1099 166
3. References to Muslims in Western European letter
collections from the late tenth to twelfth centuries 241
4. References to the Muslim world in Western European
chronicles between c. 900 and 1187 246

ix
 Acknowledgements

I started to chew over this topic about five years ago when pieces of
evidence started come to my attention which simply didn’t fit the current
interpretations of Christian attitudes towards Islam at the time of the
First Crusade. Since that time I have had many conversations on this
topic and shared ideas with a wide range of colleagues working on this
area, whose thoughts and criticisms have been absolutely foundational
to the creation of this book. To all of you may I offer my heartfelt thanks.
I would particularly like to recognise the assistance I have received
from Jonathan Phillips and Elizabeth Lapina, whose suggestions and
criticisms have been extremely valuable. I’m also deeply indebted to my
long-suffering reviewers, whose feedback has been so very helpful.
To the CBRL I owe a particular debt of gratitude for their ongoing
support for this project. Back in 2013 they were kind enough to pay for
me to visit Jerusalem where I was able to share some of my earlier ideas
at their Kenyon Institute. I found many of the questions I was asked at
that time to be extremely helpful and illuminating.
One of my key challenges in building this project was to devise and
prepare my methodologies and theoretical lines of approach. I spent
the better part of the summer of 2012 mulling over these issues and I
am particularly grateful to Judith Rowbotham, Andrew Jotischky, and
Robert Irwin for their input at this time. My further thanks goes to Paul
Crawford, Ian Wilson, Simon Parsons, Bernard Hamilton, Benjamin
Kedar, Adrian Boas, Thomas McCarthy, Bill Niven, and Mark Dickens
for their kindness and support with the project’s later development.
To my family, this book comes with my deepest love and thanks.

x
 Note on Translations

In this work I have translated many passages from their original lan-
guages into modern English. Nevertheless, where a good quality trans-
lation already exists, I have tended – not always – to use the existing
translation rather than creating a new one. There seems little reason to
replicate work.

xi
 Introduction

During the First Crusade (1095–1099), a motley assortment of pilgrim

armies left their homelands and loved ones to attempt a journey of over
2000 miles to distant Jerusalem.1 Most died along the way. The few who
survived found themselves encountering places, cultures, and peoples
that were often simultaneously foreign and familiar. On the one hand,
they had been hearing about Jerusalem and the Holy Land from the
cradle. This was the land of Christ’s birth, life, passion, resurrection, and
ascension. On the other, it was wholly strange, populated by communities
whose culture and outlook on life was so very different to their own. They
saw crocodiles, great snakes, and lions. They ate sugar cane and dates.
They learned the feel of silk. These were landscapes under non-Christian
rule and the pilgrims soon found themselves: conducting diplomacy with
the Fatimids of Egypt, negotiating with the Arab dynasties of Syria, and
fighting wars against the Saljuq Turks. For the majority of pilgrims the
sense of dislocation brought about by these events was considerable. How
they coped with the transition into this new, unfamiliar, and often hostile
milieu is the subject of this book. It shall explore how they drew upon
the received wisdom of their former lives, their lived experiences, and the
guidance they sought from eastern Christians on the road, to understand
the Turkish and Arabic peoples of the Near East.
Within the odyssey that was the First Crusade, the pilgrims encoun-
tered many different societies, but the people who filled them simultane-
ously with the greatest dread and the deepest admiration was the Turks.
The encounters that took place between these two very different peoples
warrants the closest attention not least because they had so much, and
yet so little, in common. Firstly, there were the crusaders. Theirs was

1 The straight-line distance from Paris to Jerusalem is 2068 miles. L. Nı́ Chléirigh has
recently reaffirmed that the First Crusade was understood by participants to be a ‘pil-
grimage’ expedition, answering several critics on this point. See Léan Nı́ Chléirigh,
‘Nova Peregrinatio: The First Crusade as a pilgrimage in contemporary Latin narratives’,
Writing the early Crusades: Text, transmission and memory, ed. M. Bull and D. Kempf
(Woodbridge: Boydell, 2014), pp. 63–74.

1
2 Introduction

formerly the static existence of agricultural communities whose elites

fought small-scale noble vendettas, enjoyed jocular entertainments, and
steadily accumulated spiritual and material capital from one generation
to the next. Still, they were also a people in transition because sud-
denly, for the first time in centuries, they were taking the road in almost
migratory numbers; an agricultural people on the move. Then, from the
opposite direction came the Turks, only a few decades removed from
the Central Asian steppe. Their horizons were radically different. The
waves of nomadic Turkic tribesmen emanating from the great Asiatic
grass sea broke on many shores and China, Persia, and India lay on their
mental skylines. Theirs was a world of movement, of vast distances, of
self-sufficiency and the battle for survival against the forces of nature.
Dismissed by almost all their agricultural neighbours as barbarians, the
Turks were also a people in transition. Like the crusaders they were new-
comers to the Near East and, having conquered many lands, their leaders
were slowly evolving from tribal chiefs into settled rulers; the tribal and
the shamanistic were merging with the Islamic and the Persian. In some
respects it is hard to imagine two more different peoples belligerently
making ‘first contact’ during the First Crusade and yet they also had so
much in common.
They were both conquerors, intent on taking and holding land. They
both found themselves governing many native peoples who reacted to
their rule in similar ways: some fled or died upon their swords, others
attempted to manipulate them to their own ends, some even came to
them for sanctuary; all had to come to terms with their new masters. The
Turks and Franks also recognised much that they admired in one another.
Whether landowning knights or tribal warriors, these were societies which
valued their arms and mounts and both saw these similarities in each
other. The more optimistic even speculated that they might somehow be
related. Both were martial peoples who celebrated war and interpreted
its outcome as spiritual judgement.
The convergence of these complex and disparate peoples, both of
whom were midway through rapid social evolutions, is a fascinating affair.
It defies reduction or easy categorization. Their interactions are as com-
posite and varied as the thousands of individuals involved. The matter is
complicated still further by the fact that the Turks and Franks encoun-
tered one another in the great arena of history: the Near East. These
confrontations took place within a battered and partially subdued land-
scape of Byzantine, Syrian, Fatimid, and Armenian societies, which were
themselves perched upon the ruins of classical empires, Old Testament
kingdoms, and fallen Islamic dynasties. During the crusade, all these
societies – past and present – made their influence felt, whilst no living
society was left unaltered by its passing.
 Introduction 3

This study will explore the crusaders’ relations, whether belligerent or

more pacific, with the Muslim (or in some cases partially Islamified) peo-
ples of the Near East. It will demonstrate how the pilgrims reacted and
responded to the different ethnic groups they encountered and exam-
ine how they made sense of these interactions through the lens of their
own prior experience and world view. Crucially, it will demonstrate how
they came to rely upon eastern Christians for guidance and information
upon the world of the Near East. At a macro level, there will also be dis-
cussion upon the longer-term effects of the First Crusade upon western
Christendom’s broad engagement with the Islamic world.
The complexity and richness of the interactions that occurred between
Christendom and Islam during the early crusading period (eleventh–
twelfth centuries) is one of the great attractions of this study area. The
vibrancy, brutality, and diversity of the relationships and perspectives
which emerged at this time – whether on the frontiers, or within academic
or mercantile circles – have led many scholars to ponder how the various
Christian protagonists perceived their Muslim neighbours.
The current academic pugilists weighing into this particular ring hail
from many different schools of thought with each bringing their own
methodologies, insights, and assumptions to bear. All approaches have
produced their distinct results and many studies have sought to describe
the conceptual lenses through which medieval Christians viewed their
Muslim neighbours. These differing scholarly approaches to inter-faith
relations at the time of the early crusades will now be reviewed.
To begin, there are the historians of the Crusades and the medieval
Mediterranean, specialising in the crusading movement and Christen-
dom’s southern frontier. This is a large group whose publications are
typically empirical and inter-disciplinary in approach. Outputs from this
school of thought are generally characterised by a close examination
of the textual primary sources arising from multiple cultures spliced
with a readiness to incorporate findings from archaeological and art
history studies. When they touch upon the question of Christendom’s
relationship with Islam, in an eleventh/twelfth-century crusading con-
text, most will stress the diversity of frontier interactions – friendly and
hostile – between Christians and Muslims throughout this period, draw-
ing attention to the many commercial, diplomatic, and social links that
evolved alongside the frequent military encounters.2 The First Crusade is

2 For an excellent and recent example of a work which stresses the diversity of the con-
nections established across the faith boundary, see Epstein’s recent study (although
unlike many other authors in this field he does show some willingness to engage with
post-colonial theory). See S. Epstein, Purity lost: Transgressing boundaries in the east-
ern Mediterranean, 1000–1400 (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2006). Many
crusading histories take this (or a similar) view; see, for example, C. Tyerman, God’s war:
4 Introduction

generally given as a high point of inter-civilisational hostility followed by

a period of accommodation as the campaign’s survivors were forced to
come to terms with the business of ruling large Muslim populations in
the Neat East.3 When defining the crusaders’ perspectives, typical points
of reference include the Muslim nobleman Usama ibn Munqidh and his
friendship with the Templars, the Spanish pilgrim Ibn Jubayr’s remarks
about the many Muslim communities living peacefully under Frankish
rule, the treaties made between Franks and Muslims during the First
Crusade, the First Crusade’s Jerusalem massacre (1099), and William of
Tyre’s praise for the Turkish ruler Nur ad-Din. The compilation of such
points normally generates a mixed picture in which religious hostility
and inter-cultural interaction lie side by side. Historians raised in this
school also tend to reject the idea that the First Crusade and the sub-
sequent period of Christian settlement in the Near East (following the
First Crusade) can be characterised as an all-out inter-civilisational battle
for supremacy. Köhler in particular has stressed that it was pragmatism
and realpolitik, rather than confessional divisions, which determined the
political decisions made by Muslim and Christian leaders.4
Such historians have, however, typically been cautious in engaging with
hypothetical models, particularly post-colonial theory. One feature of the
voluminous research produced by these academics is that whilst many
studies have offered insights into the first crusaders’ attitudes towards
Islam, it is only in the last few years that any full-length studies have
appeared on this subject.5
Another group of scholars to contribute to this discussion consists of
those who research Christendom’s general relationship with the Islamic
world during the medieval period, embracing all regions, contexts, and
frontiers. Naturally, they are painting on a broader canvas, and the Cru-
sades (still less the First Crusade) represent only one component in their

A new history of the Crusades (London: Allen Lane, 2006), pp. 126, 192; T. Asbridge, The
Crusades: The authoritative history of the war for the Holy Land (New York: Ecco, 2010),
pp. 122, 176–183; T. Asbridge, ‘Knowing the enemy: Latin relations with Islam at the
time of the First Crusade’, Knighthoods of Christ: Essays on the history of the Crusades and
the Knights Templar, presented to Malcolm Barber (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2007), p. 25.
3 See, for example, J. Phillips, Holy warriors: A modern history of the Crusades (London:
Vintage Books, 2009), p. 38.
4 M. Köhler, Alliances and treaties between Frankish and Muslim rulers in the Middle East:
Cross-cultural diplomacy in the period of the Crusades, trans. P. M. Holt, revised by
K. Hirschler (Leiden: Brill, 2013), passim.
5 M. Völkl, Muslime – Märtyrer – Militia Christi: Identität, Feindbild und Fremderfahrung
während der ersten Kreuzzüge (Stuttgart: Kohlhammer, 2011). Another excellent full-
length monogragh which considers the representation of Muslims both in the crusading
chronicles and chansons is A. Leclercq, Portraits croisés: L’image des Francs et des Musulmans
dans les textes sur la Première Croisade, Nouvelle Bibliothèque du Moyen Âge XCVI (Paris:
Honoré Champion, 2014).
 Introduction 5

wider field. The great founders of this research area were Norman Daniel
and Richard Southern, whose famous studies have become sounding-
boards for later historians. Scholars in this area, following their illustri-
ous forebears, have made a particular study of Christendom’s leading
intellectuals and their engagement with non-Christians. Bede, Peter the
Venerable, Joachim of Fiore, Francis of Assisi, James of Vitry, William
of Tripoli, Dante, Ramon Lull, and Riccoldo of Montecroce are typi-
cal subjects of discussion.6 Moreover, whilst crusade historians tend to
concentrate on the cut-and-thrust of frontier life, academics in this field
have engaged deeply with medieval intellectual attitudes towards Islam
the religion and the stereotypes surrounding the identity and person of
Mohammed. A key figure in this area today is John Tolan, who has
focused his attention on such subjects, particularly attitudes towards
Mohammed (although he does also deal with frontier relations).7 For the
most part, the conclusions reached by historians in this field tend to be
darker than those reached by scholars of the Crusades, stressing the sus-
tained hostility felt by medieval contemporaries towards non-Christian
religions (particularly Islam). Tolan ends his major work, Saracens, pon-
dering the notion that medieval Christianity’s claim to be the universal
truth inevitably provoked its adherents to denigrate non-Christians.8
Given the common interests between these schools of thought and
crusades historiography, it is remarkable how little interaction there has
been between them; they rarely reference each other’s works or engage
with each other’s major debates. Perhaps this lack of communication
is explained in part by a readiness among scholars in these fields to
engage more enthusiastically with theoretical models. Edward Said’s
arguments, particularly those propounded in his Orientalism (1978) have
found a more receptive – although not uncritical – audience among such
scholars.9

6 The classic works which laid the foundations for this field of study are R. Southern,
Western views of Islam in the Middle Ages (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press,
1962); N. Daniel, Islam and the West: The making of an image (Edinburgh: Edinburgh
University Press, 2009).
7 J. Tolan, Saracens: Islam in the medieval European imagination (New York: Columbia
University Press, 2002).
8 Tolan, Saracens, p. 283.
9 See, for example, Tolan’s remarks: J. Tolan, ‘Afterword’, Contextualizing the Muslim other
in medieval Christian discourse, ed. J. Frakes (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2011),
p. 171; Tolan, Saracens, pp. xvii–xix, 280–281; J. Frakes, Vernacular and Latin discourses
of the Muslim other in medieval Germany, The new Middle Ages (New York: Palgrave
Macmillan, 2011); S. Akbari, Idols in the East: European representations of Islam and
the Orient, 1100–1450 (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2009), pp. 5–14. For an
excellent and very thought-provoking survey of the key writers in this field, see K. Skottki,
‘Medieval western perceptions of Islam and the scholars: What went wrong?’, Cultural
6 Introduction

A linked group of scholars are those who research the depictions

of ‘Saracens’ contained in the chansons and epic verse of the Middle
Ages. These chansons concern many aspects of medieval life, telling tales
of heroic quests, courtly knights, and evil beasts. Among these tales,
depictions of warfare against ‘Saracens’ appear regularly. The Chanson
de Roland and the Chanson d’Antioche are the two works to receive the
greatest attention with regard to the First Crusade and many studies dis-
cuss their interpretation.10 Key explanatory tools, commonly employed
in research on these sources, are notions of alterity, in particular the
use made by medieval Christian writers of hostile representations of
the ‘Saracen other’ to demarcate their own identity and that of their
co-religionists. In recent years there has been a lively debate on the precise
nature and structure of such models of medieval alterity, which in their
most basic form posit an opposition between contemporary represen-
tations of ‘white’, ‘light’, ‘handsome’ Christians fighting ‘black’, ‘dark’,
‘ugly’ Saracens, the purpose attributed by scholars to such representa-
tions being the reinforcement of Christian group identity.
A particularly sophisticated example of such debates can be seen in
Akbari’s Idols in the East in which, in a wide-ranging discussion (cov-
ering the period 1100–1450), she breaks down the medieval discourses
on Islam into their component parts, arguing that such representations
were a hybrid formed from multiple strands of thought. These include
the conviction that geography and climate determine the behaviour and
physiology of different peoples (including ‘Saracens’); the fundamental
medieval belief that Islam was an erroneous and carnal faith; respect
at a intellectual level for some aspects of Islamic philosophy (drawing
primarily on Roger Bacon and Dante); and, in a crusading context, the
importance attached to the sanctity of Jerusalem and, by extension, the
belief that any non-Christian presence was inherently a pollutant. This
is her lens. She sums up this perspective describing persuasively how
medieval Christians were ‘at once attracted and repelled, fascinated and

transfers in dispute: Representations in Asia, Europe and the Arab world since the Middle
Ages, ed. J. Feuchter (Frankfurt: Campus Verlag, 2011), pp. 107–134. See also Blanks’s
survey: D. Blanks, ‘Western views of Islam in the pre-modern period: A brief history
of past approaches’, Western views of Islam in medieval and early modern Europe, ed.
D. Blanks and M. Frassetto (Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1999), pp. 11–53. Other studies
that have influenced the theoretical approaches employed to the study of European
attitudes towards Islam include: C. Bouchard, “Every valley shall be exalted”: The dis-
course of opposites in twelfth-century thought (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2003);
D. Nirenberg, Communities of violence: Persecution of minorities in the Middle Ages (Prince-
ton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1996).
10 For a starting point on chansons concerning the crusades, see Danial, Heroes and Sara-
cens; Akbari, Idols in the east. See also Leclercq, Portraits croisés.
 Introduction 7

disturbed’ by Islam and the Orient.11 Within this, she draws deeply
upon notions of alterity, showing how such models developed over time,
but making the fundamental point that ‘through defining Islam, then,
medieval Christians were able to define themselves.’12
Another much-debated theme within this research field concerns the
identification and definition of the two dominant strands within Medieval
European discourses on Islam (and their inter-relationships). Norman
Daniel labelled these as ‘official’ and ‘unofficial’ approaches. The ‘offi-
cial’ view was that of the Church and its major writers, engaging with
Islam on a spiritual level and seeking to situate Muslims within their the-
ological world view. The ‘unofficial’ perspective was that depicted in the
chansons and romances so beloved by knightly elites, telling tales of heroic
battles, beautiful maidens, and treacherous ‘Saracen’ kings. These two
narratives, which existed side by side in medieval society, adopt rather
different stances in their approaches to the Muslim world and are dis-
tinct from one another in many respects, especially in their intended
audiences, narrative objectives, and basic knowledge. Certainly, Nor-
man Daniel stressed the differences dividing them.13 Nevertheless, in
recent years, his view has been moderated somewhat by Akbari in the
earlier-mentioned Idols in the east. She makes the point that these twin
narratives may have had individual qualities and yet there were clear inter-
relationships between them. In a similar vein, this study will demonstrate
that clerical views informed the chansons while chivalric notions man-
ifested themselves in more scholarly texts.14 Moreover, this work will
draw upon this debate primarily in its aim to confirm that crusading
texts represent – to varying degrees – syntheses of these two strands.
The final group to be considered here could perhaps be described as
‘world’ historians, or at least those concerned with the development of
civilisations over the longue durée. These are scholars courageous enough
to propound overarching theories spanning many centuries and conti-
nents, and who approach the Crusades as one component phase in a far
broader trajectory. Edward Said is an example of one such writer, and
whilst he actually says very little about either the Crusades or the medieval
period as a whole, his major work, Orientalism, lays out a broad schema
for understanding western attitudes towards the ‘Orient’ (and Islam in
particular), stretching from the classical period through to the modern
age. His basic point is that western European approaches to the ‘Orient’

11 Akbari, Idols in the east, p. 279.

12 Akbari, Idols in the east, p. 281 (see also p. 216) and passim.
13 N. Daniel, Heroes and Saracens: An interpretation of the chansons de geste (Edinburgh:
Edinburgh University Press, 1984), pp. 1–2.
14 Akbari, Idols in the east, pp. 201–203 and passim.
8 Introduction

have been moulded by a long-standing paternalistic discourse which is

inherently hegemonic and which asserts an arrogant sense of imperialist
supremacy over the ‘non-European’ other.15 Given that he touches upon
the Middle Ages, it is necessary for medievalists to consider the relevance
of his arguments.
Having said this, engaging meaningfully with Said’s views on the
medieval era is problematic. The gist of his thesis is rather blurred at
times.16 In some places Said argues that Europe’s medieval (and ulti-
mately modern) encounter with Islam was dictated in part by a deep
sense of fear emanating ultimately from the rapid Islamic advances into
Europe during the Early Middle Ages.17 On other occasions, however, he
talks about a long-standing Western supremacist and hegemonic stance
towards the ‘Orient’ propagated during the medieval period but dating
back to the classical era. The union of these two impulses, both the
fear of the invaded and the arrogance of the supremacist, one must
conclude, cumulatively laid the foundations for a modern European per-
spective. This summary is problematic; at best it is a line-of-best-fit.
Said’s arguments are mercurial. Said continually describes long-standing
western attitudes in imperialist terms (manifesting a confident will to
dominate and codify the Islamic ‘Orient’) and he builds many modern
perspectives on medieval foundations. Even so, he simultaneously pro-
vides strong grounds for viewing medieval Europe as the subaltern in this
civilisational relationship in that he acknowledges that for much of the
medieval period Christendom was weaker, in retreat, and driven by fear
of its Islamic neighbour.18 Consequently, Said’s views surrounding the
medieval period are hedged with ambiguity in that he presents Europe
both as the imperialist and the subaltern. This creates a tension in his
argument, which is not fully unpacked.
On these grounds, it is rather difficult to know how to approach and
employ Said’s Orientalism. It has been too influential to ignore and yet
the hostility with which he offers his views contorts so much of his thesis.
Still, this present work is not intended as a full-length critique of his
argument.19 It would be more positive to extract from his argument that
which is relevant to this present study. Some component parts of Said’s
ideas, which either relate to, or encompass, the medieval period warrant
15 E. Said, Orientalism (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1978).
16 R. Irwin, For the lust of knowing: The orientalists and their enemies (London: Penguin,
2006), p. 284.
17 Although this really only comes fully into focus in an afterword written in 1995: E. Said,
Orientalism (London: Penguin, 1995), p. 344. In this he follows: Southern, Western views
of Islam, pp. 3–5.
18 See Tolan, ‘Afterword’, p. 175; Akbari, Idols in the east, pp. 7, 9.
19 For a detailed critique, see Irwin, For the lust of knowing.
 Introduction 9

closer attention. The notion that Christendom’s approaches to Islam

were driven by a spirit of fear is worthy of closer inspection. Likewise,
one premise that undergirds Orientalism is the fundamental conviction
that Islam was important to western Europe. After all, Said characterised
the ‘Orient’ (exemplified by Islam) as Europe’s ‘great complementary
opposite’.20 The question of whether Islam occupied anything like so
exalted a position within medieval European thought-worlds will be con-
sidered in full.
Another key writer to offer a model of comparable breadth is Samuel
Huntington. A major line of argument in his famous Clash of Civilizations
and the Remaking of World Order is that there has been a historic faultline
between western Europe (and latterly America) and the Islamic world:
‘each has been the other’s Other’.21 The essence of his thesis is captured
in the following sentence:

So long as Islam remains Islam (which it will) and the West remains the West
(which is more dubious), this fundamental conflict between two great civilisations
and ways of life will continue to define their relations in the future even as it has
defined them for the past fourteen centuries.22

In short, it is/has been a sustained and existential battle for supremacy.

For him, the primary building blocks of the modern world are the
relationships between civilisational units: western Christianity and the
Islamic world representing two such units. Naturally, Huntington was
writing predominantly about contemporary affairs, but the relevance of
his theory to this work lies in his attempts to present his ‘Clash of Civi-
lizations’ between Christianity and Islam as a permanent civilisational
truth spanning back to the seventh century. Like Said, in his main work,
he passed very rapidly through the crusading era but his thesis still poses
important questions, perhaps most importantly: did the First Crusade
create/propitiate/dilate a Clash of Civilisations between Christianity and

20 Said, Orientalism, p. 58. This is a notion that has been contested by Irwin who wrote:
‘Islam did not feature largely in medieval European thought. It played, at best, a minor
role in forming the self-image of Christendom’. Irwin, For the lust of knowing, p. 53.
21 Huntington’s main publication on this topic has been S. Huntington, The clash of
civilizations and the remaking of world order (London: Simon & Schuster, 1996) (quotation
p. 209). This quotation seems to override Huntington’s earlier observation made on
page 21 that global civilisations pre-1500 were only intermittently in contact with one
another. This work is an expansion on his earlier article in Foreign Affairs: S. Huntington,
‘The clash of civilizations’, Foreign Affairs 72.3 (1993), 22–49. Bernard Lewis had
already been making arguments in a similar vein, even to the point of using the term
‘Clash of Civilizations’, in his article: B. Lewis, ‘The roots of Muslim rage’, The Atlantic
Monthly 266.3 (1990), 47–60 (cited by Huntington in Clash of civilizations, p. 213).
22 Huntington, Clash of civilizations, p. 212.
10 Introduction

Islam? Or is this kind of terminology unhelpful when bringing the events

of this period into focus?23
Said’s Orientalism and Huntington’s Clash of Civilizations are among
the few major ‘world history’ theories to really provoke a response from
medievalists concerned with Christian/Islamic relations (even some his-
torians of the Crusades have taken notice). Indeed, medievalists have
been debating this kind of theory long before Huntington’s Clash of Civi-
lizations hit the press. The question of whether the First Crusade and
the establishment of the Latin East provoked a long-standing and vicious
conflict between two diametrically opposed religious/civilisational forces,
each bent on the other’s destruction, has been batted about for cen-
turies. Notably, in 1991 (only two years before Huntington’s first article
on this theme), Michael Köhler instigated a frontal assault on this same
notion.24
One of the dangers with characterising entire schools of thought en bloc
in this way is that naturally such broad generalisations fail to recognise the
individuality of specific authors. To those writers who feel corralled and
misrepresented by this brusque sweep through the historiography, may
I offer my apologies. Nevertheless, such an approach is necessary. The
question of the crusaders’ attitudes towards – and treatment of – Muslims
is one of the most sensitive and most contemporaneously contentious of
topics. The number of historians to pronounce their verdict is legion and
it would be impossible to do justice to each. It was tempting, when writing
this book, to confine research solely to works produced by historians of
the Crusades. After all, they are the most tightly engaged with the First
Crusade sources and their immediate contexts. Still, such an approach

23 Interestingly it is much harder to find medieval historians who support the notion
of the Crusades as a ‘Clash of Civilizations’ than it is to find those who refute it.
Menache described the early crusades in this way, but only in passing. S. Menache,
‘Emotions in the service of politics: Another crusading perspective on the experience of
crusading (1095–1187)’, Jerusalem the golden: The origins and impact of the First Crusade,
ed. S. Edgington and L. Garcı́a-Guijarro, Outremer: Studies in the Crusades and the Latin
East III (Turnhout: Brepols, 2014), p. 235. I suspect that the refutations offered by
crusades historians are not offered predominantly in response to scholarly texts which
support the idea but, rather, to answer ideas currently in circulation within the modern
media. Certainly when Paul Crawford rejects the notion that the Crusades instigated
such a ‘clash’, he is primarily responding to conclusions reached by the modern media
and politicians: P. F. Crawford, ‘The First Crusade: Unprovoked offense or overdue
defense’, Seven myths of the Crusades, ed. A. J. Andrea and A. Holt (Indianapolis, IN:
Hackett Publishing Company, 2015), pp. 1–28. I am grateful to Professor Andrea and
for being given a glimpse of the pre-publication proofs of this work. For discussion on
popular cinematic representations of the Crusades, see N. Haydock and E. Risden (eds),
Hollywood in the Holy Land: Essays on film depictions of the Crusades and Christian-Muslim
clashes (Jefferson, NC: McFarland & Company, 2009).
24 Köhler, Alliances and treaties.
 Introduction 11

would fail to take into account the sheer density of interest in this area;
or the contributions made by other academic circles.
So what does a new book on this subject have to offer? This topic may
be well trampled, but there is still much that can be said.25 There are
foundational questions here that reward closer inspection. To take one
example, historians are generally comfortable describing the crusaders
fighting their battles against the Muslim Turks. Nevertheless, this pre-
supposes that Turks can unproblematically be characterised as ‘Muslims’.
Recent research has demonstrated that the Turks were only partially
Islamified by the end of the eleventh century and they still retained
much of their shamanistic spirituality and steppe culture; thus, even
the basic binary that the crusade was fought between Christians and
Muslims requires reconsideration. Thus, key questions to be considered
here include:
r How far had the Islamic religion penetrated among the Turks by
the time of the crusade? (i.e. were the crusaders actually fighting
‘Muslims’?)
r Did the crusaders view the various peoples they encountered in battle
simply as undifferentiated ‘Muslims’/‘Saracens’ or were their percep-
tions and approaches founded more on their foes’ ethnic identity, i.e.
Turkish, Arabic, Kurdish, and so on?
r Did the crusaders draw solely upon their own traditions when attempt-
ing to identify and interpret the Turkish and other Muslim peoples
they encountered? Or did they seek guidance from eastern Chris-
tians/Muslims?
r Had any news of the Turks penetrated western Europe in advance of
the crusade? (And by extension, how much were the crusaders told
about the Turks during the recruitment phase of the campaign?)
r Were western Christendom’s secular and ecclesiastical elites any more
interested in ‘Saracens’ after the crusade than before?
By exploring these questions, new dimensions to the crusaders’ atti-
tudes towards the peoples they encountered during the crusade will be

25 Examples of articles that provide an overview on this topic include: B. Hamilton, ‘Know-
ing the enemy: Western understanding of Islam at the time of the Crusades’, Journal
of the Royal Asiatic Society 7.3 (1997), 373–387; M. Jubb, ‘The crusaders’ perceptions
of their opponents’, Palgrave advances in the Crusades, ed. H. Nicholson (Basingstoke:
Palgrave Macmillan, 2005), pp. 225–244; J. France, ‘The First Crusade and Islam’,
The Muslim World 67 (1977), 147–157; R. Hill, ‘The Christian view of Muslims at the
time of the First Crusade’, The eastern Mediterranean lands in the period of the Crusades,
ed. P. Holt (Warminster: Aris and Phillips, 1977), pp. 1–8; N. Housley, ‘The Crusades
and Islam’, Medieval Encounters 13 (2007), 189–208. There are also the monographs
mentioned earlier.
12 Introduction

identified, drawing out unexplored aspects of their thought-worlds, their

sources of inspiration, and their lived experience.
Another conviction that is often communicated – whether explicitly or
implicitly – in studies on this subject is the belief that ‘Saracens’ were
vital to western Europe’s identity (and therefore to that of the crusaders)
by providing the essential ‘other’ against which Christendom defined
its own identity. The roots of this theoretical approach – going back to
Friedrich Hegel – lie in the notion that individuals or societies construct
their own identity by defining it against that of enemies or strangers
(i.e. ‘I know who I am, because I am not you’). In a similar vein, as
Said commented when speaking broadly about the European identity:
‘the Orient has helped to define Europe (or the West) as its contrasting
image, idea, personality, experience’.26
Methodologies of this type have been employed in many contexts and
have been applied to a wide range of civilisations. The idea that the ‘self’
acquires meaning through its comparison against the ‘other’ has clearly
spoken deeply to many people.27 Clearly it has explanatory power when
discussing human nature (as many studies – including those discussed
earlier – have shown), but this kind of approach can be taken too far.
At times, historians have placed the self/other model at the very heart of
Christendom’s identity: that is, Christendom’s core identity was defined
by its sustained opposition to Islam.28 Identity is complex and the prod-
uct of many influences. Antagonistic neighbours, and the hostile stereo-
types that are formed to characterise them, may play their part in shaping
a society’s character but to position their influence as the fundamental
fountainhead of identity is too reductionist. Most contemporaries living
away from the frontier in medieval Europe could have passed their entire
lives without ever meeting a Muslim, still less living in fear of imminent
attack. For them at least, Islam could not have been much more than a
26 Said, Orientalism, pp. 1–2 (see also p. 58).
27 For wide-ranging discussion on this theme, see A. Classen, ‘The self, the other, and
everything in between: Xenological phenomenology of the Middle Ages’, Meeting the
foreign in the Middle Ages, ed. A. Classen (New York: Routledge, 2002), p. xi.
28 For example, Blanks and Frassetto remarked ‘to be sure, there were other elements
that went into the construction of the Western identity: Europe was also the product
of internal colonisation and cultural assimilation. Yet the encounter with the Muslim
“other” was elemental to the shaping of the Western world view’. They later observe that
‘the Muslim became, in a sense, a photographic negative of the self-perception of an ideal
Christian self-image’. D. Blanks and M. Frassetto, ‘Introduction’, Western views of Islam
in medieval and early modern Europe: Perception of other (Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1999),
pp. 2–3. Some historians have, like me, expressed concern at this kind of approach.
See, for example, N. Berend, ‘The concept of Christendom: A rhetoric of integration
or disintegration?’, Hybride Kulturen im mittelalterlichen Europa: Vorträge und Workshops
einer internationalen Frühlingsschule, ed. M. Borgolte and B. Schneidmüller, Europa im
Mittelalter XVI (Berlin: Akademie Verlag, 2010), p. 60.
 Introduction 13

distant name for some faraway people; certainly it is stretching credulity

to believe that ‘Saracens’ would have served as their major point of refer-
ence when framing their identity. A broader model of identity is needed.
One area of expansion, discussed in this work, is to explore the role of
alterity on a spiritual level. To date, when academics have applied notions
of self/other to their work, they have done so almost entirely on an earthly
plain. Human identity is formed when defined against other communities,
religious groups, genders, classes, or social cadres, or in some cases
the landscape. Nevertheless, human beings are not solely earthbound;
they are also deeply spiritual. For the citizens of almost any civilisation
in any era the main yardstick against which individuals have measured
their own/their society’s character has not been the hostility of unfriendly
neighbours but the moral ideals of their God/scriptures. Medieval Europe
is a classic example of such a society and the determination to live out the
example of Jesus Christ (operating as a positive ‘other’) was perhaps
the single most commonly held objective for contemporaries. For some,
this was a goal of fundamental importance; for others, it was a labour
that consumed their entire life.29 The underlying driver of identity and
morality here is not ‘I know that I am good because you, my hated Muslim
enemy, are evil’, but rather ‘I know I am fallible because You, Jesus, are
perfect and I aspire to be like You’. One of this work’s most important
contentions will be that the crusaders’ spent far more time seeking to
imitate Christ’s perfection – and failing, even in their own eyes – than
they did preening themselves over the vices – supposed or otherwise –
of their Muslim foes.30 Their depictions of Muslims by contrast will be
shown to be little more than a collateral by-product of the primary engine
of identity: the relationship between medieval Christians and God.
This work will begin (Chapter 1) with a brief overview of relations
between western Christendom and the Muslim world from the seventh
century through to the eve of the crusade. The intention here is to provide
a benchmark against which the events of the crusade and the attitudes
of its participants can be compared. Later sections will then discuss how
the Church and proponents of knightly culture encouraged the peoples of
western Christendom to view and approach both Muslims and other non-
Christians during this central medieval period. The following chapter

29 The concept of God as the ‘other’ is one that historians have only just begun to explore,
but this approach is still not unprecedented. See Classen, ‘The self, the other’, xli–xlii.
See also the edited collection: The otherness of God, ed. O. Summerell (Charlottesville:
University Press of Virginia, 1998).
30 William Purkis has already conducted some ground-breaking work on the important of
imitating Christ within crusader spirituality, see W. Purkis, Crusading spirituality in the
Holy Land and Iberia, c.1095–c.1187 (Woodbridge: Boydell, 2008), passim.
14 Introduction

will then open discussion on the crusade itself, exploring its objectives
and how Muslims were presented during the recruitment phase (Chapter
2). This discussion will then lead into an analysis of the crusaders’ atti-
tudes towards – and interactions with – the various Muslim peoples they
encountered on campaign (Chapter 3). The next phase of this investi-
gation considers the period directly following the crusade, asking how
monastic writers and theologians attempted to make sense of the infor-
mation brought home by the returning crusaders about their enemies
(Chapter 4). This will be succeeded by discussion on the First Crusade’s
impact on Christendom’s long-term relationship with Islam (Chapter 5).
One of the dangers with studies on a theme of this kind is that there
is a temptation for authors to draw a hard line around their chosen sub-
ject material (in this case, attitudes towards Muslims/Islam) and then to
treat this strand as a discreet entity that can be studied in isolation from
the wider matrix of crusading thought. This is problematic because by
segregating a theme in this way, the various links which both contextu-
alise this topic and locate its significance within a wider mesh of ideas are
either impoverished or lost. This work by contrast analyses the crusaders’
approaches to ‘Saracens’, Turks, Arabs, and so on as component parts in
their broader thought-worlds, establishing how this aspect of their expe-
rience related to their wider ideas concerning their objectives and sense
of purpose, eschatology, personal spirituality, theology, miracles, visions,
and geographical awareness. This stance has been adopted because it is
often the interactivities between these linked ideas that draw out their
deeper meaning. There are, however, a few topics which are not analysed
in detail here – even if they formed part of the underlying investigation –
largely because they have been discussed so exhaustively elsewhere. The
various parities between the crusaders’ attitudes towards Muslims and
Jews, for example, represent one important theme which is not fully
examined in this investigation. The crusaders did, on occasion, make
such linkages and Baldric of Bourgueil sums this up clearly when he
wrote of Jews, heretics, and Saracens that ‘everyone calls [them] enemies
of God’.31 Nevertheless, there are many works which discuss this subject
and it is towards the more uncharted regions of the crusader experience
that we shall steer our investigation.32

31 BB, 19.
32 The classic work on this subject is R. I. Moore’s The formation of a persecuting society:
authority and deviance in Western Europe, 950–1250, 2nd ed. (Oxford: Blackwell, 2006).
See also J. Tolan, ‘Introduction’, Sons of Ishmael: Muslims through European eyes in
the Middle Ages (Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 2008), pp. xi–xiii; J. Riley-
Smith, The First Crusade and the idea of crusading (London: Continuum, 2009), p. 54;
J. Riley-Smith, ‘The First Crusade and the persecution of the Jews’, Studies in Church
 Terminology: ‘Saracens’, Turks, and Muslims 15

Terminology: ‘Saracens’, Turks, and Muslims

For the most part, this work will abide in its terminology with the
long-standing conventions of modern historiography. Terms such as
‘Crusade’, ‘western Christendom’, and even ‘Europe’ will be employed
throughout following customary scholarly practice, even if this usage is
not without its objections. It is well known, for example, that the varied
assortment of armed pilgrim groups which set out for the east following
the Council of Clermont definitely did not refer to themselves cumula-
tively as the ‘First Crusade’ or identify participants as ‘crusaders’. These
terms are the inventions of later generations and yet they are ubiquitous
in scholarly works. Their value lies primarily in their concision, in that
they permit authors to communicate a widely understood concept with-
out the tedium of unnecessary circumlocutions. Thus, they will be used
throughout.
A particular problem for this present work lies in defining the various
Muslim groups encountered by the crusaders during their journey to
Jerusalem. Even the terms ‘Muslim’ or ‘Islam’ create issues because, in
an assessment of European perspectives, they are anachronisms. The
name ‘Islam’ entered the French vocabulary in the seventeenth century
and the English lexicon in the nineteenth. ‘Muslims’ are first referred to
in both languages only in the seventeenth century.33 Earlier terms found
commonly in western European sources include ‘Saracens’, ‘Hagerenes’,
and ‘Ishmaelites’. These are all words which have biblical roots. The
term ‘Saracen’ long predated the rise of Islam and was disseminated
across Christendom in large part through the efforts of St Jerome.34
It began as an ethnonym for the nomads of Northern Arabia, but later
acquired specific biblical connotations. Gradually during the patristic era
a consensus emerged among Christian writers that the term ‘Saracens’
related back to the story told in Genesis 16–17 about Abraham and Sarah.
These biblical chapters describe how Abraham and his wife Sarah could

history, ed. W. Sheils, 21 (1984), 51–72; D. Iogna-Prat, Order and exclusion: Cluny and
Christendom face heresy, Judaism, and Islam (1000–1150) (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University
Press, 1998), pp. 275–322; B. Kedar, ‘De Iudeis et Sarracenis: on the categorization of
Muslims in medieval canon law’, The Franks in the Levant (Aldershot: Ashgate, 1993),
pp. 207–213. For a recent summary of the historiography on the anti-Jewish massacres
of 1096, see J. Bronstein, ‘1096 and the Jews: A historiographic approach’, Jerusalem
the golden: The origins and impact of the First Crusade, ed. S. Edgingtonand L. Garcı́a-
Guijarro, Outremer: Studies in the Crusades and the Latin East III (Turnhout: Brepols,
2014), pp. 117–131.
33 J. Tolan, G. Veinstein and H. Laurens, Europe and the Islamic world: A history (Princeton,
NJ: Princeton University Press, 2013), p. 3.
34 K. Scarfe Beckett, Anglo-Saxon perceptions of the Islamic world, Cambridge studies in
Anglo-Saxon England (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003), p. 22.
16 Introduction

have no children, so Sarah suggested to her husband that he should father

a child by his Egyptian slave girl Hagar. Hagar duly conceived, but then
began to treat her mistress with contempt, provoking Sarah to drive her
away. Following the visitation of an angel, Hagar returned to Abraham
and bore him a son named Ishmael. Thirteen years later, God then
blessed Sarah who bore a son named Isaac. The earlier-mentioned names
‘Hagarene’ and ‘Ishmaelite’ – so often applied to medieval Muslims –
reference the belief that these peoples were the descendants of Hagar
and her son Ishmael.35 The term ‘Saracens’ was also deemed to relate
to this story because medieval authors interpreted it as representative of
a false claim made by the ‘Saracens’ that they were actually descended
from Sarah and not from Hagar. There is no evidence to suggest that
Arabs ever actually applied the name ‘Saracens’ to themselves, but this
explanation for the term was widely referenced in western Europe.36
Isidore of Seville, for example, offered two explanations for the term
‘Saracens’. The first was that it derived from the ‘Saracens’ claim to be
descended from Sarah. His other explanation, which he seems to have
rated rather less highly, was that the name alluded to the Saracens’ Syrian
origin and was a garbled form of the word Syriginae.37
For present purposes, although these names have the virtue of being
contemporaneously relevant, they are still generally unsuitable for the
modern historian of the First Crusade. The first crusaders hardly ever
used the terms ‘Hagarene’ or ‘Ishmaelite’, so these words bring us no
closer to their thought worlds. The name ‘Saracen’ is equally objection-
able because it is loaded with the expectations, beliefs, and interpreta-
tions of the medieval and early-modern periods.38 Such polemical freight
is undesirable for a historian, who wishes solely for a term that essen-
tially denotes a medieval Muslim.39 Consequently, the terms ‘Muslim’
and ‘Islam’ will also be used throughout this work, with references to

35 See, for example, Bede’s commentary on Genesis: Bede, Opera pars II: Opera exegetica
1: Libri quatuor in principium Genesis, CCSL CXVIIIa (Turnhout: Brepols, 1967),
p. 201.
36 Scarfe Beckett, Anglo-Saxon perceptions, pp. 93–95, 200–212.
37 Isidore of Seville, The etymologies, trans. S. Barney et al. (Cambridge: Cambridge Uni-
versity Press, 2010), p. 195. A slightly different origin for the name ‘Saracens’ can be
found in the eastern Christian tradition. John of Damascus felt that this name refer-
enced the idea that Sarah had sent Hagar away destitute from her home, see St John of
Damascus, ‘On heresy’, St John of Damascus: Writings, trans. F. Chase jr, The fathers
of the Church XXXVII (Washington, DC: The Catholic University of America Press,
1958), p. 153.
38 Scarfe Beckett has shown that this term had pejorative connotations from as early as the
eighth century in Anglo-Saxon territory. Scarfe Beckett, Anglo-Saxon perceptions, p. 1.
39 For excellent discussion on the problems involved in using this term, see Frakes, The
Muslim other, pp. 39–40.
 Terminology: ‘Saracens’, Turks, and Muslims 17

‘Saracens’ offered in inverted commas; to indicate that whilst this work

will utilise contemporary terminology it does not advocate its polemi-
cal import. It should be reiterated, however, that in today’s lexicon the
term ‘Muslim’ draws a fairly distinct ring around the adherents of a spe-
cific religion: Islam (although this is itself problematic given the various
groups and sects that are encompassed by this term). To medieval writers
the boundaries between the ‘Saracen’ religion and generic paganism were
far more muddied and obscure than the use of the more modern term
‘Islam’ might imply. Typically, writers saw no objection to describing all
non-Christians as ‘pagans’, ‘heathen’, or ‘gentiles’, and all three of these
terms appear frequently with reference to Muslims in chronicles written
throughout the medieval period, including those for the crusade.
Digging deeper, this work will also consider the crusaders’ attitudes
towards various sub-groups found within the Islamic world, specifically
different ethnicities. The discussion will focus in particular upon three
groups. The first of these is the collection of predominantly nomadic
tribes, which under the leadership of the Saljuq family, invaded the Near
Eastern region in the early-mid eleventh century. It is customary – both
for modern and medieval writers – to refer to such peoples as ‘Turks’.
Still, this monolithic term obscures the very real diversity of the many
pastoral peoples who participated in the Turkish-led tidal wave which
broke over the Near East. These invaders were not solely Turkic, nor
were they entirely under Saljuq command. Even twelfth-century medieval
European contemporaries could make distinctions between ‘Turks’ and
‘Turcomans’. Having said this, the chroniclers for the First Crusade –
like the writers from many other Christian and Muslim traditions in the
Near East – were unanimous in their use of a primary all-encompassing
term for all these peoples: ‘the Turks’ (Turci). As we shall see, they could
also use other names such as ‘Parthians’ or ‘Persians’, but these were
generally simply alternative ‘catch-all’ terms which made no attempt to
identify sub-groups. Given that this work is committed to exploring the
crusaders’ attitudes towards the various peoples they encountered, it will
follow their terminology.
Two other peoples encountered by the crusaders to be considered here
are firstly the Egyptian Fatimids and their subjects and secondly the long-
standing Muslim communities of Syria and the Levant. To take the first
of these, Fatimid Egypt was a reasonably cohesive political entity in the
eleventh century and so, in a political sense, it is reasonable to refer to
Egyptian peoples, particularly Egyptian armies and their leaders, as the
‘Fatimids’. Even so, again a note of caution must be added in that the
Fatimid caliphate (and its armies) incorporated many different religious
and ethnic groups. Armenians, Turks, and Sudanese warriors marched in
18 Introduction

their ranks and there were Christians, and Jews who called Egypt home,
albeit under Muslim rule. Thus, when this work refers to ‘Egyptians’ or
‘Fatimids’, these distinctions remain.
The final group is the most problematic. It comprises those Muslims
of Syria and the Jazira who had been subjugated by the Turks during
the eleventh century and who, by the time of the First Crusade, had
either fallen under Turkish control or who maintained an uneasy quasi-
independence. They were generally identified by the crusaders with the
names ‘Saracen’ or ‘Arab’. As stated earlier, the former of these terms is
the most problematic for use in this present work, not least because it was
sometimes applied to the Turks.40 The term ‘Arabs’ is more appealing
as a descriptor for this group (essentially, non-Turkish, Arabic-speaking
Muslims in Syria), although it too must be nuanced and contextualised
before it can be used effectively.41 One of this term’s strengths, for our
present purposes, is that it is relatively unburdened with the same kind
of emotive baggage that surrounds the term ‘Saracen’. Another lies in
the fact that the term ‘Arabs’ was employed extensively by the crusaders
themselves to describe Muslim peoples living in this same area.42 It is
also reasonably historically accurate. Before the advent of the Saljuqs,
the Syria/Jazira region had been dominated by a series of Arab tribes
and ruling families: the Banu Kilab, the Banu Uqayl, the Banu Mazyad,
the Banu Munqidh. Some of these Arab dynasties remained reasonably
cohesive even after the Saljuq invasions, some offering determined resis-
tance to their Turkish overlords that rumbled on long in to the twelfth
century. The crusaders dealt frequently with these tribes and families
and consequently it is not unreasonable to refer to them collectively as
‘Arabs’. Certainly the famous Muslim historian Ibn Khaldun uses this
terminology in this context when he discusses the Turkish conquest of
the Near East, writing:
Then the days of Arab rule were over. The early generations who had cemented
Arab might and founded the realm of the Arabs were gone. Power was seized by
others, by non-Arabs like the Turks in the east.43
These points notwithstanding, the limitation must still be added that
the ethnic and religious map of Muslim communities in this region
was hardly monochrome. There were Sunnis and Shias as well as many

40 Völkl, Muslime – Märtyrer – Militia Christi, p. 219.

41 Tyerman makes a similar differentiation: Tyerman, God’s war, p. 125.
42 Having said this, it has been noted that in the early-medieval Anglo-Saxon sources,
the ‘Arabs’ and ‘Saracens’ were treated very differently from one another creating, as
Scarfe Beckett points out, ‘the almost total distinction between them’. Scarfe Beckett,
Anglo-Saxon perceptions, p. 182 and passim.
43 Ibn Khaldun, The Muqaddimah: An introduction to history, trans. F. Rosenthal (Princeton,
NJ: Princeton University Press, 2005), p. 25.
 Methodologies 19

Islamic minorities, most famously the Nizaris (more commonly known

as the Assassins), in this same area whose distinctiveness is obscured by
a single blanket term. Many centuries had elapsed since the early Arab
conquests and in the interim a variety of peoples from different ethnic
backgrounds had adopted Islam as their faith, who would not necessar-
ily have described themselves as ‘Arabs’. Even so, with these concerns in
mind, and because this study wishes to engage with attitudes of crusaders,
who were generally unaware of these more detailed ethnic/doctrinal dis-
tinctions, the term ‘Arab’ will be retained to define this group, following
their terminology.

Methodologies
Methodologically this work will traverse much thorny ground. Perhaps
the two most controversial issues discussed are those of trans-cultural
borrowing and reality/representation. The first of these is essentially the
process of identifying whether a particular idea, technology, symbol, or
practice was borrowed or copied by an individual from a neighbouring
society, rather than bring the product of their own imagination or tra-
ditions. This issue occurs frequently in this study because it is often
necessary to establish which ideas the crusaders borrowed from the
Byzantines/Armenians/Syrians and which were the product of their own
experiences and background.
The second issue (reality/representation) is the question of whether a
description offered by an individual about a different person or soci-
ety should (a) be interpreted as a fabrication intended for polemi-
cal/apologetic purposes or (b) be accepted simply as a statement of
observed fact, or (c) be presented as an admixture of the two. For exam-
ple, when a crusader describes a Turk, attributing all kinds of behaviours
and qualities to him, can any part of his description be taken seriously as
reflecting reality? or must it simply be assumed to be a hostile represen-
tation? This work’s approach to these themes will now be discussed.

Trans-Cultural Borrowing44
Much of the thinking on this particular methodology has recently been
helpfully unravelled by Kedar and Aslanov and the theoretical approach
employed here follows their recommended framework. Fundamentally,

44 This section draws directly upon the following article: B. Kedar, and C. Aslanov, ‘Prob-
lems in the study of trans-cultural borrowing in the Frankish Levant’, Hybride Kulturen
im mittelalterlichen Europa: Vorträge und Workshops einer internationalen Frühlingsschule,
ed. M. Borgolte and B. Schneidmüller, Europa im Mittelalter XVI (Berlin: Akademie
Verlag, 2010), pp. 277–285.
20 Introduction

they offer four scenarios in which it is possible to conclude that an act of

transcultural borrowing has taken place. The first three are as follows.45
1. If we are explicitly informed that an act of trans-cultural borrowing
has taken place case.
(i.e. Anna Comnena specifically informs us that Alexius Comnenus
warned the crusaders about Turkish military tactics. Thus it is rea-
sonable to assume that the crusaders ‘borrowed’ this knowledge.)
. . . and we are convinced that the author is not trying to lie
(for the sake of argument, Anna could have made this statement,
not because she knew it to be true, but to attempt to underline the
crusaders’ ignorance and their dependence on her father’s guidance).
2. If a distinctively named ‘cultural trait’, which appears in one society,
suddenly appears in another under the same name.
(e.g. several crusading chronicles use the term ‘Azymites’ to
describe Armenians serving the Turks. This is a Byzantine pejorative
term, not used widely in the West, which implies that the crusaders’
borrowed it).
3. If the introduction of a new ‘cultural trait’ follows a recognised pattern
of geographical diffusion.
(e.g. several authors connected to families with strong links to
Byzantium – i.e. the Normans and the counts of Flanders – some-
times used distinctively Byzantine terms when describing the Turks,
such as ‘Persians’. These authors had not visited Byzantium in per-
son, nor is any specific link attested between their works and Byzan-
tine originals, even so, they are located in regions or social circles
where many Byzantine traits are known to have been diffused. On
these grounds it seems likely that they inherited these terms from these
sources).
These approaches are reasonably straightforward and provide strong
grounds for proving transmission. The fourth of Kedar and Aslanov’s
‘rules’ concerns instances where a historian believes that an act of trans-
cultural borrowing has taken place but none of the earlier rules apply (i.e.
the act of borrowing is not stated explicitly; there is no distinctive ‘bor-
rowed term’; and it does not form part of a known pattern of diffusion).
For example, Chapter 3 will discuss how Fulcher of Chartres used the
term ‘Turci Orientales’ in his history. This could mean nothing more than
‘Turks from the east’, but it could also reference the Byzantine practice
of dividing the Turkic peoples into western and eastern halves: East-
ern Turks (i.e. Saljuqs among others), Western Turks (i.e. Hungarians).
The term, however, is not distinctive enough to be sure that this act of
45 The examples are my own.
 Methodologies 21

borrowing has taken place. Fulcher does not state that he has borrowed
it, nor does it appear in any other chronicle (thus none of the earlier
rules apply). In such cases, Kedar and Aslanov offer various grounds
which can strengthen the argument that an act of borrowing has taken
place: if the trait ‘borrowed’ by society A closely ‘resembles’ originals
in society B; if the trait ‘resembles’ the originals on which it was based
in more than one respect; if it can be proven that the borrowed trait
post-dated the creation of the original; if the ‘borrower’ had access to the
culture from which it was borrowed. Ultimately in these circumstances it
is necessary for historians to make their case and arguments (such as the
earlier discussion on Fulcher of Chartres) can often only be advanced
tentatively.

Reality and Representation

The question of whether ‘Western’ Christian descriptions of the Muslim
‘east’ can have any factual basis is contentious territory. It is an issue
that Said returns to time and again in his work Orientalism. Although
his argument on this point is multifaceted, he summarised his view with
the greatest clarity when he wrote: ‘we need not look for correspondence
between the language used to depict the Orient and the Orient itself,
not so much because the language is inaccurate but because it is not
even trying to be accurate’. For him, ‘western’ portrayals of Muslims are
merely artificially constructed caricatures, seeking to amuse, frighten,
or instruct their European audiences, and acquiring currency through
centuries-long repetition. Any moments when they might reflect actuality
are simply coincidental.46
Likewise, historians interested in the transmission of textual tropes
from author to author over the centuries often treat descriptions (e.g.
of Muslims by western Christians) as manifestations of long-standing
polemical or theological discourses, which can be traced back for cen-
turies. In studies of this kind, the significance of such tropes lies in
their long-standing thematic development – handed down from gen-
eration to generation – while the possibility that they might in any way
reflect the author’s actual lived experience is not central or, in some cases,
not even considered. In many instances this is an entirely appropriate
approach. As we shall see later, the widespread conviction among western
European authors that the Turks employed poisoned weapons seems to
have been founded on descriptions of Parthians offered in Virgil’s Aeneid;
certainly this identification has little basis in reality. This example bears

46 Said, Orientalism, p. 71. See also: Frakes, The Muslim other, pp. 13–17, 36.
22 Introduction

out the idea that, in this case at least, it is the discourse that shapes the
perceived reality rather than vice versa.
Still, the crusaders had actually travelled to the east and to believe
that all their descriptions of Muslims contain no empirical reality would
necessitate turning a blind eye to a substantial portion of the evidence.
In the following discussion, it will be shown just how accurate and pre-
cise crusading authors could be on many points. The crusaders learnt a
fair amount about the nature and composition of Turkish weapons and
showed some precision in distinguishing between broad ethnic groups.
They also made some attempt to understand Turkish and Arab dynasties
and their recent history; thus in many cases their observations need to be
taken seriously as genuine attempts to report events faithfully. Even some
of the more hostile-sounding charges levelled against the Turks cannot
be simply batted away as unfounded polemic.
Let us take, for example, the accusation made by Baldric of Bour-
gueil that when the Turks invaded the Byzantine Empire during the
late eleventh century they turned some churches in Asia Minor into
stables for their animals/horses.47 Prima facie this report can be easily dis-
missed. Baldric was writing a long time after a crusade in which he had
not participated. Moreover, this complaint forms part of his version of
Urban’s Clermont address – a sermon often labelled as a self-evident
piece of propaganda. Still worse, the claim that ‘Saracen’ peoples turned
churches into stables appears in earlier apocalyptic sources; a link that
may indicate that Baldric was drawing upon long-standing eschatologi-
cal traditions concerning the Muslim ‘other’.48 A different, but equally
damning, piece of evidence is that this same accusation also appears in
the bella parisiacae urbis concerning Viking depredations; possibly Baldric
manufactured this detail to equate the two.49 There are admittedly other
crusading authors who also report this Turkish practice, but these are
mostly authors who were connected with Baldric and his work in some
way – so they are automatically rendered suspect.50
These are formidable objections. Still there are stronger grounds for
accepting his statement. Writers from several different cultures, or writing
works wholly unconnected to Baldric, describe the Turks acting in this

47 BB, pp. 6, 7.
48 J. Rubenstein, Armies of Heaven: The First Crusade and the quest for the Apocalypse (New
York: Basic Books, 2011), p. 123; Scarfe Beckett, Anglo-Saxon perceptions, p. 157.
49 Abbo of Saint-Germain-des-Prés, Viking attacks on Paris: The bella parisiacae urbis,
ed. and trans. N. Dass (Paris: Peeters, 2007), 62. For discussion: E. Lapina, Warfare
and the miraculous in the chronicles of the First Crusade (University Park: University of
Pennsylvania Press, 2015), 95.
50 GN, p. 101; OV, vol. 5, p. 16.
 Methodologies 23

way. The Georgian History of David, King of Kings, depicting events dur-
ing the reign of Malik-Shah, reports the Turks using churches as stables,
as does the continuator of Frutolf of Michelsberg’s chronicle.51 Another
Syriac chronicle, admittedly discussing later events, offers a similar report
in a description of the events that followed Zangi’s capture of Edessa.52
It might also be added that large buildings might be deemed suitable for
stabling horses by those who were unconcerned about their spiritual sig-
nificance. In light of the cross-cultural agreement on this point it seems
reasonable to take seriously the notion that Baldric’s report was founded
on a factual report. This example serves as both a caution against dismiss-
ing the crusaders’ statements too swiftly as ‘representations’ and it under-
lines the corroborative value of texts from different cultural traditions.
Throughout this work, the observations, allegations, and statements
made by the crusaders will continually be compared against those made
by Armenian, Arab, Coptic, Georgian, Byzantine, and Syriac authors,
on the principle that if two or more authors from different cultural back-
grounds corroborate one another on a point of specific detail then the
possibility has to be entertained that their claims are factual.
The task of distilling reality and representation becomes even more
complex when it is considered that a single story or piece of evidence may
contain blurred shades of both. Let us take, for example, the many sto-
ries told in crusader chronicles about the Turkish commander Karbugha
and his preparations for confronting the Franks at Antioch in 1098. Sev-
eral chroniclers claim that, shortly before his march against the Franks,
Karbugha’s mother visited him in Aleppo, warning him strenuously
against this course of action. She is said to have conducted astrological
observations which showed that his cause was doomed. As with the earlier
piece of evidence, there are strong grounds for rejecting this story – either
partially or completely – as fiction.53 It might be asked, for example, how
a crusading chronicler could possibly have known that a conversation
had taken place between the Turkish general and his mother in a distant

51 ‘The history of David, king of kings’, Rewriting Caucasian history: the medieval Armenian
adaptation of the Georgian chronicles, trans. R. Thomson (Oxford: Oxford University
Press, 1996), p. 311; S. Vryonis, ‘Nomadization and Islamization in Asia Minor’, Dum-
barton Oaks papers 29 (1975), 50–51; FE, p. 132.
52 Anonymi auctoris chronicon ad A.C.1234 pertinens II, trans. A. Abouna, Corpus Scripto-
rum Christianorum Orientalium: Scriptores Syri CLIV (Leuven: Secretariat du Corpus
SCO, 1974), p. 100.
53 Rubenstein, describes it as ‘almost surely wholly fictional’: Rubenstein, Armies of
Heaven, p. 209. Murray takes a similar view: A. Murray, ‘The siege and capture of
Jerusalem in western narrative sources of the First Crusade’, Jerusalem the golden: The
origins and impact of the First Crusade, ed. S. Edgington and L. Garcı́a-Guijarro, Out-
remer: studies in the Crusades and the Latin East III (Turnhout: Brepols, 2014),
p. 201.
24 Introduction

city, let alone how he could have acquired the precise wording of their
dialogue. In addition, as Hodgson has insightfully noted, Karbugha’s
mother is portrayed carrying out several roles commonly associated with
exemplary descriptions of western Christian women, especially those of
an advisor or protector.54 Likewise, as we shall see, the story forms a
component part in a much wider polemical narrative found within these
crusading chronicles which describes a dawning awareness among the
Turks that God was fighting for the crusaders; hardly a point that inspires
confidence in the tale’s basic accuracy.
These factors need to be treated with the utmost seriousness when
weighing the value of this narrative, yet there are also some points that
speak in its favour. For example, there is nothing especially unlikely
about a Turkish commander seeking astrological guidance before bat-
tle. Describing the final phases of Shihab al-Dawla Qutalmish’s rebel-
lion against Sultan Alp Arslan, Ibn al-Athir explained how before the
clinching battle in 1063 Qutalmish sought astrological guidance. Like
Karbugha his observations told him that defeat was at hand; a prediction
he apparently took seriously enough to abandon any hope of a victory.55
Moreover, in the early stages of the Turkish conquest of Persia, the lead-
ers Tughril, Chagri, and Yabghu are said to have consulted an astrologer
who foretold their future conquest of Khurasan.56 More importantly,
Ridwan of Aleppo is known to have employed a court astrologer, raising
the possibility – however remote – that this was the very person consulted
by Karbugha.57 Whilst these points do not specifically corroborate the
crusaders’ claim that Karbugha sought pre-battle astrological guidance,
they at least demonstrate that such an act was entirely in accordance with
standing practices. Consequently, when judging the likelihood that this
tale possesses any factual basis, at least in outline, the only conclusion
that can be drawn is that it is ‘possible’.
To take a final example, the Gesta Francorum, along with several other
chroniclers, describes the Fatimid army marching into battle at Ascalon
(12 August 1099) under a banner surmounted by a golden apple (pomum

54 N. Hodgson, ‘The role of Kerbogha’s mother in the Gesta Francorum and selected
chronicles of the First Crusade’, Gendering the Crusades, ed. S. Edgington and S. Lam-
bert (New York: Columbia University Press, 2002), pp. 168–172. On her subsequent
representation in chansons, see Leclercq, Portraits croisés, p. 107.
55 AST, p. 151.
56 A. Peacock, Early Seljūq history: A new interpretation, RSIT (Abingdon: Routledge,
2010), p. 125. For descriptions of the pre-Islamic Turks’ shamanistic practices see:
Ibn Faqih al-Hamadhani, ‘On the Turks and their lands’, The turkic peoples in medieval
Arabic writings, trans. Y. Frenkel, RSIT (Abingdon: Routledge, 2015), p. 49. See also:
P. Golden, ‘Religion among the Qıpčaqs of Medieval Eurasia’, Central Asiatic Journal,
42.2 (1998), 207–209.
57 AST, p. 294; Kamal al-Din, ‘Extraits de la Chronique d’Alep’, RHC: Historiens Orien-
taux, vol. 3 (Paris, 1884), p. 590.
 Methodologies 25

aureum).58 This seemingly innocuous report of a golden apple may well be

a piece of bland reportage, simply reflecting observed experience; alter-
natively, it might represent an attempt to communicate a strong implicit
message to its reader through the symbology of the ‘golden apple’. To
take the former position, the notion that this account is unadorned fact
is supported by the existence of various banal details about this banner’s
capture. According to various accounts, Robert of Normandy purchased
the banner – complete with its golden apple – after the battle for twenty
marks and donated it to the church of the Holy Sepulchre (such coinci-
dental details often suggest validity).59 Clearly it was a very memorable
banner because Albert of Aachen also reports its capture although he
doesn’t mention a golden apple.60 To take a more sceptical position,
‘golden apples’ were potent symbols with strong inherent meanings; a
point which raises the possibility that this description formed part of the
author’s interpretative framing of his Fatimid enemy. In the German
empire a golden apple was carried by the emperor as a symbol of
authority.61 In ancient Greek literature it was the prize given to the most
beautiful Olympian goddess (Aphrodite).62 According to a much later
legend Melchior (one of the three Magi) offered the baby Jesus a golden
apple as his gift.63 The notion of the ‘apple’ also calls to mind the sinful-
ness of Adam and Eve. Any of these attached meanings may have been
intended, including the association with Aphrodite, who in the Byzantine
tradition was said to have been reverenced by the pre-Islamic ‘Saracens’
(and Anna Comnena writing in the twelfth century described them as
‘slaves’ to Aphrodite).64 Or perhaps he was simply baldly describing a

58 GF, p. 95.
59 RM, p. 108. See also: AA, p. 468.
60 AA, p. 468.
61 M. Stroll, Symbols as power: The papacy following the Investiture Contest, Brill’s Studies in
Intellectual History XXIV (Leiden: Brill, 1991), p. 67.
62 M. S. Cyrino, Aphrodite, Gods and heroes of the ancient world (Abingdon: Routledge,
2010), pp. 83–84.
63 Tolan, Europe and the Islamic world, p. 182. For discussion on the place of the Magi
within the medieval thought world see: B. Hamilton, ‘Prester John and the three kings
of Cologne’, Studies in medieval history presented to R.H.C. Davis, ed. H. Mayr-Harting
and R. I. Moore (London: Hambledon, 1985), pp. 177–192.
64 John of Damascus, ‘On heresy’, p. 153; AC, p. 276. See also G. Hoyland, Seeing Islam
as others saw it: a survey and evaluation of Christian, Jewish and Zoroastrian writings on
early Islam (Princeton, NJ: Darwin Press, 1997), p. 106. Curiously this is not the last
time that a Muslim army is shown marching beneath a golden apple. Centuries later
in 1480 during the siege of Rhodes, the Ottoman attackers are said to have bourne a
similar banner, although in this case, as with the above instance, the significance of this
symbol is not explained. Whether there is any kind of link connecting them is unclear,
but it is interesting that the theme reoccurs. Ademar Dupuis, ‘Le siège du Rhodes’,
Hospitaller piety and crusader propaganda: Guillaume Caoursin’s description of the Ottoman
siege of Rhodes, 1480, ed. T. Vann and D. Kagay (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2015), p. 272.
26 Introduction

physical banner (or both). In such cases, dividing reality from represen-
tation becomes a case of balancing probabilities, or even admitting –
in the postmodern sense – that some symbols cannot be satisfactorily
unravelled.
What is being described here is not a structured ‘methodology,’ rather
a general stance. This approach is characterised by (1) a willingness
to at least consider the possibility that some even of the crusaders’
wildest stories bear some relation to historical reality and (2) a readi-
ness to focus closely on the relationships between sources from multiple
civilisations.
1 Predicates

Latin Christendom on the Eve of the Crusades:

Historical Background
During all that time, the Muslims were gaining control over the largest
part of the high sea [the Mediterranean]. Their fleets kept coming and
going, and the Muslim armies crossed the sea in ships from Sicily
to the great mainland opposite Sicily on the Northern shore. They
fell upon the European Christian rulers and made massacres in their
realms . . . The Christian nations withdrew their fleets to the north-
eastern side of the Mediterranean, to the coastal regions inhabited by
the European Christians and the Slavs, and to the Aegean islands, and
did not go beyond them. The Muslim fleet had pounced upon them as
eagerly as lions upon their prey. They covered most of the surface of
the Mediterranean with their equipment and numbers and travelled its
lanes (on missions both) peaceful and warlike. Not a single Christian
board floated on it.1
Ibn Kaldun, The Muqaddimah

In this passage Ibn Khaldun (d. 1406) muses nostalgically on an

early-medieval world where Islamic states controlled both Sicily and
the Mediterranean. His words contain a fair degree of hyperbole, but
nonetheless they reflect the underlying balance of power that had char-
acterised Islam’s relationship with Christendom for centuries. Certainly,
between the eighth and mid-eleventh centuries, the initiative had almost
always lain with Islam in its dealings with Christendom. Muslim mer-
chants dominated the sea lanes while Islamic fleets could prey with
impunity upon the ports and coastal regions of southern Europe.
This imbalanced relationship had developed very swiftly following the
death of Mohammed (632). Arab forces burst from the Arabian Peninsula
bringing thousands of square miles of territory across the Near East under
their control. Islam’s conquest of the North African littoral progressed
with equal rapidity and by 708 much of the land between Egypt and

1 Translation from Ibn Khaldun, The Muqaddimah, p. 210.

27
28 Predicates

Tangier was under Islamic rule. In 711 their armies invaded Visigothic
Spain where they soon established their authority across much of the
Iberian Peninsula. Meanwhile at sea, Arab fleets made their presence
felt, challenging Byzantine naval hegemony. Their first maritime raid was
launched against the isle of Cyprus in 649; in 655 an Islamic fleet scored
a significant victory over a Byzantine force at the Battle of the Masts; and
in 674 another naval armada proved sufficiently powerful to blockade
the Byzantine capital, Constantinople, for four years.2 Following these
advances, western Christendom suddenly found itself confronted by
the Islamic world on two fronts: the Mediterranean seaboard and Iberia.
Contemporary writers were clearly alarmed by these developments. The
references to Islam found in the Venerable Bede’s (c. 673–735) work
change in tone over time becoming increasingly hostile as he grappled
with the rising ‘Saracen’ threat.3 In later years, Arab forces made some
forays across the Pyrenees, deep into Frankish territory, raiding widely
and assaulting cities such as Barcelona, Narbonne, and Carcassonne. In
c. 732 Abd al-Rahman staged a major invasion of France during which
he sacked Bordeaux, but he was later famously defeated on the road to
Tours by Charles Martel at the battle of Poitiers.4 This incursion marked
the high-water mark of the Arab conquests in Europe and whilst later
waves of invaders broke against the Carolingian Empire, the frontiers
gradually stabilised.
In later centuries the Muslim polities situated on the shores of the
Mediterranean continued to assert their maritime dominance, both in
trade and war. The speed of the Islamic conquests in the mid sev-
enth century had permitted the former administrative and governmental
structures of the Byzantine and Persian empires to be captured virtually
intact and these systems continued to ply wealth into their new masters’
coffers, enabling them to maintain a position of supremacy. Meanwhile,
Arab rulers could draw upon the expertise, intellectual achievements,
and technological experience of the peoples now under their control. The
result was that by the eighth century, the Islamic Empire had become a
world superpower possessed of enormous political, economic, and cul-
tural might.
The same was not true in western Christendom. The collapse of the
Western Roman Empire in the fifth century had been a long drawn-out

2 H. Kennedy, The great Arab conquests: How the spread of Islam changed the world we live in
(London: Phoenix, 2008), pp. 200–224, 324–343.
3 C. Kendall, ‘Bede and Islam’, Bede and the future, ed. P. Darby and F. Wallis (Aldershot:
Ashgate, 2014), pp. 93–114.
4 Kennedy, The great Arab conquests, pp. 319–323.
 The Eve of the Crusades 29

process. The bitter disputes between the various tribal peoples, who had
migrated/invaded across its borders, destroyed much of the remaining
infrastructure and commercial networks. When eventually the tempests
of war subsided, the societies that emerged were a mere shadows of
their classical forbears. Moreover, Europe’s commerce in the Mediter-
ranean declined as international trade routes were drawn east by the
magnetic appeal of the rising Islamic empire. The Muslim world was
in the ascendency while Europe was struggling to recover from a long
period in decline. The few Islamic travellers who set out for Christendom
were not impressed by what they saw and they were generally disdainful
in their descriptions.5 There was little that early-medieval Europe pro-
duced, which the Muslim world wanted. Writing in the ninth century, Ibn
Khurradadhbih listed the valuable goods to be acquired in western lands
as follows: ‘eunuchs, young girls and boys, brocade, beaver pelts, marten
and other furs and swords’.6 Slaves were probably the most important
of these commodities and they were required to work in the great North
African olive-producing estates.7 These slaves could be transported in
large numbers and the pilgrim Bernard the Frank recalled how he had
arrived in Muslim-held Taranto in 870 to find six ships carrying Christian
slaves to North Africa.8 Slaves aside, Europe was commercially marginal.
Islam’s real rivals at this time were Byzantium, India, and China. These
were the powerful civilisations that drew the Muslim world’s attention,
not Christendom.
From the European perspective, the Muslim world was regarded as
one foe among many. In the eighth and ninth centuries, the powerful
Carolingian Empire confronted foes on almost every quarter. Their
armies marched not only against Islamic forces, but also against Sax-
ons, Vikings, Bretons, Avars, Bulgars, Slavs, and Magyars and there is
little to suggest that Muslims were considered to be more dangerous
than any other hostile neighbour.9 Very few writers do more than note
the presence of Islamic polities on their borders and the fact that they
constituted a threat. On this latter point, however, they are very clear

5 A. al-Azmeh, ‘Barbarians in Arab eyes’, Past and present 134 (1992), 7.

6 This section and translation from Ibn Khurradādhbih’s account can be found in Ibn
Fadlān and the land of darkness: Arab travellers in the far north, trans. and intro. by P. Linde
and C. Stone (London: Penguin, 2012), p. 111.
7 Y. Lev, ‘A Mediterranean encounter: The Fatimids and Europe, tenth to twelfth cen-
turies’, Shipping, trade and Crusade in the medieval Mediterranean, studies in honour of John
Pryor, ed. R. Gertwagen and E. Jeffreys (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2012), p. 139.
8 Bernard the Frank, ‘Itinerarium’, Itinera Hierosolymitana et descriptiones Terrae Sanctae,
ed. T. Tobler and A. Molinier (Geneva, 1879), pp. 310–311.
9 Tolan, Europe and the Islamic World, p. 33.
30 Predicates

even if they are brief. In the early eighth century, when the famous mis-
sionary to Germany, Boniface of Mainz, wrote to the Abbess Bugga
concerning her proposed pilgrimage to Rome, he cautioned her to wait
for the threat from the Saracens to pass.10 Clearly, news of the Islamic
advance had penetrated even to the North Atlantic seaboard. The histo-
ries of this period are studded with frontier wars against Muslim forces,
both in Southern France and Italy. Islam clearly remained a threat to the
Carolingians, but the days of the sweeping Islamic advances were over.
Warfare, however, was not the only language of inter-civilisational
discourse. There were also moments of diplomatic activity and trade.
Treaties were occasionally signed between Muslim and Christian rulers.
Even Charlemagne’s famous attack on Spain in 778 (later commemo-
rated in the Chanson de Roland), which ended disastrously with his defeat
at the hands of the Basques, was provoked by a request for assistance from
the Muslim ruler of Barcelona who was in rebellion against his masters
in Cordoba. Arguably the most famous diplomatic exchange between
the Carolingian and Islamic worlds occurred in 801 when envoys from
Caliph Harun al-Rashid sent Charlemagne a series of handsome gifts
including most famously an elephant.
These diplomatic dealings notwithstanding, as the ninth century pro-
gressed, the scale of the threat posed by the Islamic world to Europe
steadily intensified.11 For the most part the Christian territories of North-
ern Spain proved capable of handling the rising tempo of attacks, but the
same was not true of Italy. Here the pressure began to mount, with
the despatch of multiple Muslim naval attacks against its shores. The
most symbolically significant of these sea-borne raids was the sack of
St Peter’s in Rome in 846; an act which struck at the heart of the Catholic
Church. Southern Italy (which by this stage was sparsely populated and
politically divided) offered opportunities for ambitious Muslim warriors
and while some came as mercenaries, others were intent upon plunder
and conquest. In the mid-to-late ninth century many cities and monastic
communities were raided by Arab fleets including Bari (847), Conza (858
and 862), Ascoli (861) to name but few. For the most part these were hit-
and-run affairs, but some commanders were intent on establishing their
own states on Italy’s shores. Among these was the emirate of Bari, which
lasted from 847 to 871. Muslim attacks were launched from a number
of different areas; some from North Africa, some from Iberia, and sev-
eral from Sicily, which by the 840s was almost entirely under Islamic
10 Boniface of Mainz, ‘S. Bonifatii et Lulli epistolae’, MGHES, vol. 1 (Berlin, 1916),
p. 48.
11 This section has drawn upon B. Kreutz, Before the Normans: Southern Italy in the ninth
and tenth centuries (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1991), passim.
 The Eve of the Crusades 31

control.12 These attacks were not part of a formulated policy devised by

the Islamic Empire as a whole but rather the initiatives of North African
potentates. Nevertheless, there was little capacity among the Christians
in this divided region to fend off even limited incursions. Some attempt
was made by the various southern Italian polities to offer resistance and
at times Christian cities banded together for mutual protection. Follow-
ing the sack of Rome, a fleet was assembled under Caesar, son of the
duke of Naples, which won a naval victory at the battle of Ostia in 849.
Nevertheless, greater assistance was needed and by the 860s much of
southern Italy was under Islamic control.
Increasingly the Carolingian rulers of Northern Italy were drawn into
the wars of the south. Chief among these was Louis, great-grandson of
Charlemagne (d. 875). He laboured relentlessly to retake Bari, eventually
succeeding in 871. The Italian theatre entered a new phase in 876 when
the Byzantines despatched a large army to this region, restaking their
claim. Many cities were taken in this invasion and the Byzantines con-
tinued to strengthen their position throughout the 880s. Over the next
few decades they bore the brunt of several Arab attacks. There was con-
siderable friction between the Byzantines and the other Christian rulers
of southern Italy, but at times circumstances compelled them to work
together against the Arabs. In 915, for example, following an Aghlabid
invasion in 902, Pope John X formed a league with the Byzantines and
other Italian cities, which destroyed the major Arab base at Garigliano.
Around this time early reports began to emerge that Iberian Islamic
raiders were operating out of a base in Southern France at La Garde-
Freinet. This fortress would pose a serious threat to travellers in this
region for decades and its garrison frequently blocked the Alpine passes
between France and Italy; on one occasion its raiders are even said to
have reached southern Germany. This base was only destroyed in 972
by Count William of Arles. Islamic incursions into southern Italy contin-
ued throughout the early tenth century and eventually proved sufficiently
destructive to attract the attention of the Ottonian Emperors of Germany.
In 982 Otto II marched into southern Italy at the head of a large imperial
army. This dramatic move had been provoked by a spate of attacks from
Fatimid Egypt which had caused considerable destruction. Otto eventu-
ally encountered a major Egyptian army near Stilo in Calabria where he
suffered a major defeat. Following this encounter, however, such attacks
upon southern Italy began to dwindle. Raids still took place well into the

12 The first known Muslim raid against Sicily took place in c. 652. A. Metcalfe, The
Muslims of medieval Italy, The new Edinburgh Islamic surveys (Edinburgh: Edinburgh
Press, 2009), p. 5.
32 Predicates

eleventh century – Pisa was sacked in 1004 and Salerno was besieged in
1016 – and even into the twelfth but they became more infrequent.
Although the Islamic world continued to pose a threat to Latin Chris-
tendom’s southern flank throughout this period some commerce was
conducted across this frontier of war, particularly between the Italian
cities and Fatimid Egypt. Cities such as Amalfi and later Venice traded
with Islamic ports, especially Alexandria in Egypt. They transported
goods from across the Mediterranean and in many cases, the items they
purchased either in Egypt or Byzantium had already been carried for
great distances by sea from India or overland from China along the
Silk routes.13 These commercial connections brought prosperity to these
cities, but they also rendered their loyalties suspect at times of war. When
the Fatimids sent a major army to besiege Salerno in 871 the Amalfitans
offered support reluctantly to their Italian allies; they are said to have
been concerned that their assistance would jeopardise their relationship
with Egypt.14 This is only one example among many where the Amal-
fitans’ commercial relations with North Africa dictated their policy. In
880 Pope John VIII excommunicated the city after it proved reluctant
to play its part in a mutual defence agreement with several other Italian
cities on the grounds that it did not want to sever its relations with the
Islamic world.15 Such ports walked a dangerous path, balancing the need
to preserve their mercantile interests with the defensive obligation to pre-
vent the complete collapse of southern Italy to the forces of Islam.16 This
was a relationship with tensions at both ends and clearly the presence of
Amalfitans in Egypt caused disquiet within some circles because in 996
Amalfitan merchants were massacred in Cairo.17
Traders and diplomats were not the only travellers to cross the civilisa-
tional divide. The Holy Land may have been under Muslim control, but
it was always a site of enormous spiritual potency for Christians. Many
were prepared to take ship to visit the holy sites and following the conver-
sion of Hungary some pious travellers took the arduous overland route
to the east. Several accounts by these pilgrims have survived, describing
their experiences, and these generally report that the Arab authorities
of this region were fully accustomed to receiving such visitors. Huge-
burc, abbess of Heidenheim, explained how Willibald (later raised to the

13 A. Citarella, ‘The relations of Amalfi with the Arab world before the Crusades’, Speculum
42 (1967), 301; Lev, ‘A Mediterranean encounter’, pp. 140–143.
14 Kreutz, Before the Normans, p. 56. 15 Kreutz, Before the Normans, p. 59.
16 C. Cahen, Orient et Occident au temps des Croisades (Paris: Aubier Montaigne, 1983),
p. 69.
17 Kreutz, Before the Normans, p. 82.
 The Eve of the Crusades 33

office of bishop of Eichstätt) travelled to the Levant in the 720s, enter-

ing Islamic territory by sea at Tortosa. He then set out on the overland
leg of his pilgrimage, but shortly afterwards his party was imprisoned
on suspicion of spying. They were subsequently released after a Muslim
elder observed that the arrival of such pilgrims was not uncommon.18 He
was arrested again almost immediately afterwards, but having secured a
written permit, he was able to travel freely. Later travellers seem to have
had similar experiences and Bernard the Frank was also imprisoned in
Egypt in c. 870, although he was later able to pay his way to freedom. He
then travelled widely and, reflecting upon his journey, commented upon
the peaceful coexistence of the local Christians and Muslims in the lands
which he visited.19 In Jerusalem itself he noted the presence of a Latin
pilgrim hospice, which he claimed was founded by Charlemagne.20
In most cases, pilgrims seem to have been able to travel without hin-
drance through this region. Even so, this began to change over time
and reports of attacks against both pilgrims and indigenous Christians
became steadily more prolific in the tenth and eleventh centuries.21
Threats could take many forms and in the eleventh century particu-
larly there seems to have been an increase in Bedouin raids against the
Jerusalem area. These incursions prompted the Fatimid authorities to
strengthen the city’s walls. The Christian community in Jerusalem also
suffered from outbreaks of persecution, the most important of which
occurred on the orders of the Caliph al-Hakim (d.1021), who destroyed
the Church of the Holy Sepulchre on 28 September 1009.22 Hostility

18 Hugeburc of Heidenheim, ‘Vita Willibaldi’, MGHS, ed. O. Holder-Egger, vol. 15.1

(Hanover, 1887), p. 94.
19 Bernard the Frank, ‘Itinerarium’, pp. 312, 319; R. McKitterick, Charlemagne: The
formation of a European identity (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008),
p. 285.
20 Bernard the Frank, ‘Itinerarium’, p. 314. For discussion on this hospice, see D. Pringle,
The churches of the crusader kingdom of Jerusalem, a corpus: Volume III, the city of Jerusalem
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007), p. 192.
21 A. Jotischky, ‘The Christians of Jerusalem, the Holy Sepulchre and the origins of the
First Crusade’, Crusades 7 (2008), 35–57.
22 The question of how widely news of the destruction of the Holy Sepulchre circulated
in western Christendom has aroused considerable attention. Cahen (1954) felt that
the caliph’s actions made a ‘deep impression’ on western Europe, but this notion was
rebutted by France (1996) who argued that they were not well known. More recently,
Morris (2005) has largely followed this view although he stresses the central importance
of Jerusalem itself in Europe’s thought-world. Jean Flori (1999), however, feels that this
event was better known than France allows. In a related line of argument however,
several historians, most recently Gabriele, have argued that an encyclical purporting to
have been issued by Sergius IV in response to the destruction of the Holy Sepulchre is
genuine and not a forgery (as it often claimed). As Gabriele observes, this contests the
34 Predicates

towards Christian minorities and pilgrims may well have been connected
to the anxiety and hysteria caused by the multiple famines that took place
during this period.23 Year after year the Nile failed to flood between 950
and 1072 causing starvation and disease. The worst of these droughts
lasted for a total of seven years (1065–1072). The persecution of Chris-
tians seems in part to reflect the sad reality that in times of crisis, soci-
eties vent their frustrations on minorities. Meanwhile nomadic tribes
took advantage of the power vacuum left by elites in the Jerusalem area,
who found themselves unable to tax their subjects and provide adequate
defence against their depredations. As a consequence of these changes,
Jerusalem fell into decline. Its population dropped; its aqueducts ran dry;
its new wall encompassed a far smaller area; and the roads to its gates
became increasingly unsafe.24 Even so, this was also a time when the
volume of pilgrim traffic was increasing dramatically and many western
European noblemen departed for the east. Some expeditions could be
very large, including one German group in 1064 which was said to have
been 7000 strong.25
Although Christendom’s thoughts were steadily refocusing on its spir-
itual heart in the Holy Land, it is a notable feature of its engagement with
Islam that so little attempt was made to win converts from among their
ranks in these early years. The hope that Muslims might one day con-
vert to Christianity was occasionally referenced, but few serious efforts
seem to have been made to launch missionary expeditions.26 This stands
in stark contrast to the very vigorous contemporary evangelistic efforts

notion that this event was not well known. See C. Cahen, ‘An introduction to the First
Crusade’, Past and present 6 (1954), 7; J. France, ‘The destruction of Jerusalem and the
First Crusade’, Journal of ecclesiastical history 47 (1996), 1–17; C. Morris, The sepulchre
of Christ and the medieval West, from the beginning to 1600 (Oxford: Oxford University
Press, 2005), pp. 135–136, 138; J. Flori, Pierre l’Ermite et la première croisade (Paris:
Fayard, 1999), p. 94; M. Gabriele, An empire of memory: The legend of Charlemagne, the
Franks, and Jerusalem before the First Crusade (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011),
p. 142.
23 Although the events of 1009 are the most famous persecutions of Christians in Jerusalem
during this period, there had been anti-Christian rioting in 966, during which the
patriarch was killed and the Holy Sepulchre was sacked. Christians were also expelled
from Jerusalem in 1056 on the orders of the Fatimid caliph. History of the patriarchs of the
Egyptian Church, ed. and trans. A. Atiya et al., vol. 2, part 3 (Cairo, 1959), pp. 267–269.
Ellenblum has demonstrated that these were also periods of famine. R. Ellenblum, The
collapse of the eastern Mediterranean: Climate change and the decline of the East, 950–1072
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012), pp. 175, 188.
24 Ellenblum, Collapse of the eastern Mediterranean, pp. 28–29, 53–47, 196–197.
25 This figure is, however, almost certainly too high. For discussion, see J. France, Victory
in the east: A military history of the First Crusade (Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 1994), p. 87; Morris, The sepulchre of Christ, p. 139.
26 See, for example, Theodulf of Orleans’ comments on the subject: Poetry of the Carolin-
gian renaissance, ed. and trans. P. Goodman (London: Duckworth, 1985), p. 152.
 The Eve of the Crusades 35

made in eastern Europe and Scandinavia. The current explanation for

the relative absence of missionary activity is the prohibitive effects of a
ban on such activity within Islamic territory.27
Reflecting on the relations between Christendom and Islam at around
the time of the first millennium, it is clear that for three hundred years
the Muslim world had maintained a position of supremacy. Its attacks
may have been sporadic and generally lacked any true desire for con-
quest, but they were sustained. Europe was a soft target and an easy
source of loot. The major outcome of this imbalanced relationship was
that Europe learnt to fear the ‘Saracens’.28 The menace they posed may
not have been central to European life or identity, but it was consistent.
Only a tiny proportion of its population would ever have seen a Muslim
and their raids rarely penetrated far beyond the Mediterranean coastline.
Moreover, confronted with invasion from Vikings, Slavs, and Magyars,
Islam was only one enemy amongst many. Nevertheless, the annals histo-
ries of this period, even those written hundreds of miles from the frontier,
are punctuated by reports of burning cities or pilgrims harassed as they
crossed the Alps; proof that news of these acts was disseminated.29
During this time, Arab Muslim forces were described in much the same
way as the other major threats to western Christendom. In their accounts
of attacks upon Christendom, authors tended to deal with Muslim attacks
in the same breath as Viking depredations or Magyar raids; little attempt
was made to differentiate them from the others. Consider the following
passage for the year 848 from the Annals of St Bertin:
The Slavs invading aggressively into Louis’ [the German] kingdom were over-
come by him in the name of Christ. Charles [the Bald] attacked a force of
Northmen assailing Bordeaux and manfully defeated them. Lothar’s army fight-
ing against the Saracens holding Benevento were victorious.30

This reference is typical and simply lists the ‘Saracens’ as one of a

number of different foes who encountered Carolingian forces in that
year. Likewise, Richer of St Rémi, described Muslim raiders as ‘barbar-
ians’ (barbari), which was the same term he used for Vikings and other

27 B. Kedar, Crusade and mission: European approaches toward the Muslims (Princeton, NJ:
Princeton University Press, 1988), pp. 9–14.
28 Blanks has rightly observed that ‘fear’ has not received sufficient acknowledgement as a
formative factor in Christendom’s approach to Islam: Blanks, ‘Western views of Islam’,
p. 38.
29 Scarfe Beckett has demonstrated that Aelfric, abbot of Eynsham, writing at the turn
of the tenth century, could write freely about ‘Saracens’ without feeling the need to
explain who they were. She argues that this demonstrates that they were known outside
elite intellectual circles. Scarfe Beckett, Anglo-Saxon perceptions, p. 187.
30 Annales de Saint-Bertin, ed. F. Grat, J. Vielliard, S. Clémencet (Paris, 1964), p. 55.
36 Predicates

attackers.31 For the most part such accounts describe Muslim attacks
relatively briefly, passing over the event in a single line, but there are
some authors who provide a little more detail.
One such writer was Ermoldus Nigellus, whose early-ninth-century
poem celebrated the life of Charlemagne’s son, Louis the Pious, and
provided a detailed description of Louis’ capture of the Muslim-held city
of Barcelona in 801. His account of this engagement draws attention in
particular to the valour of the Frankish people, but it also dwells at length
upon the Muslim defenders. These warriors are portrayed as cruel in their
deeds and stubborn in their determination both to reject Christianity and
continue to follow the ‘orders of the Devil’.32 Those Muslims who fell
in battle were said to have been sent to the Underworld whilst, following
the conquest of Barcelona, Louis is said to have ‘cleansed’ (mundare) the
city that had formerly worshipped demons.33 Ermoldus’ approach then
was both inherently hostile and placed particular stress upon the idea
that this was a people who were under a demonic influence. Strikingly,
however, almost exactly the same types of description can be found in
accounts of Viking attacks. For example, in his tale of the defence of
Paris against the Viking attack of 885, Abbo of Saint Germain-des-Prés
dwelt at length upon these northern aggressors. In a similar vein to
Ermoldus’ descriptions of Muslims, he presented the Norsemen as the
‘offspring of Satan’ (proles Satanae), who were dreadful (dirus) and deadly
(funestus).34 Fallen Vikings, like the Muslims in Ermoldus’ narrative, were
said to have been despatched straight to Hell.35 Comparing the way in
which these enemies are characterised in these texts is instructive and
makes the point that whilst Muslims were approached with considerable
hostility, particularly at times of war, there was no specific terminology
that was reserved for them alone. Moreover, fellow Christians too could
be described as acting under demonic influence. Having told his tale of
the Viking siege of Paris, Abbo went on to warn fellow clerics of the
dangers of being drawn into the Devil’s service. Thus to a contemporary
eye, adherents of foreign religions may have been considered to be in the
service of the Devil, but this was a threat that was common to all people,
Christian or not.36

31 Richer of Saint-Rémi, Histories, ed. J. Lake, Dumbarton Oaks Medieval Library, 2 vols
(Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2011), vol. 1, pp. 22, 26, 28, vol. 2, 224.
For a similar example, see Ralph Glaber’s work, in which he groups Norman and
Muslim attacks under the title, ‘De paganorum plagis’. RG, p. 32.
32 Ermoldus Nigellus, Poème sur Louis le Pieux, ed. E. Faral (Paris, 1932), p. 30.
33 Ermoldus Nigellus, Poème sur Louis, pp. 34, 46.
34 Bella parisiacae urbis, pp. 38, 40. 35 Bella parisiacae urbis, pp. 34, 52, 66.
36 Bella parisiacae urbis, p. 100. For discussion on the contemporary conflation of the threat
from Islam with other external threats, see T. Mastnak, Crusading peace: Christendom, the
Muslim world and western political order (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2002),
 The Eve of the Crusades 37

This phase in the relationship between Catholic Christianity and Islam

ended in the early eleventh century. By this stage the Abbasid Empire
was in long-term decline with many regions asserting degrees of inde-
pendence. In the east, the Turks were carving up swathes of its former
territories, whilst the Shia Fatimid dynasty seized power in Tunisia in 909
and later transferred its rule to Egypt in 969. In the 970s the Fatimids
were able to conquer much of Syria in a series of campaigns. By contrast,
on the northern shores of the Mediterranean, Latin Christendom was
rising quickly in strength. Its population was growing rapidly, while its
missionaries were leading former enemies to Christianity. The Scandi-
navians converted and the Viking raids ended. The Magyars converted
and their invasions also ended. Europe began to draw together; com-
munications improved and monastic innovators and thinkers paved the
way for new approaches to art and architecture. Moreover, the former
Vikings who had settled in Northern France (Normans) were soon to
lead Christendom’s armies against Islam in the Mediterranean. Within
a short space of time then, where it had formerly faced threats on many
fronts, the Islamic world was rapidly becoming Europe’s last remaining
major opponent. True, there were always hostile tribes on Europe’s east-
ern borders who continued to offer resistance, but the trend on this front
was almost always one of expansion and conquest rather than defence.
This shift did not pass unnoticed and Ralph Glaber, writing in Auxerre
in the 1030s, noted that whilst the northern and western parts of the
known world had become Christian, the same was not true of the lands
to the south and east (the Islamic world).37
The conversion of Scandinavia strengthened another channel of com-
munication between Northern Europe and the Islamic world. The
Vikings had well-established trade routes between the Baltic and the
Black Sea. Goods could be transported for much of the distance along
rivers such as the Neva, Oder, and Dnieper, with established portage
ways allowing ships and cargoes to be transported from the headwaters
of one river, which ultimately emptied into the Baltic, to another which
terminated in the Black Sea or Caspian Sea.38 The objectives of these
journeys were to seek glory and wealth, whether through commerce or
with the sword from the Byzantine and Islamic cities to the south. Mil-
itarily the Vikings were a sufficiently powerful presence in these eastern
regions to stage several attacks on Constantinople and in the tenth cen-
tury the Khazar ruler voiced the belief that if he did not restrain these

pp. 96–114; J. Flori, La Guerre Sainte: La formation de l’idee de croisade dans l’Occident
chrétien (Paris: Aubier, 2001), pp. 228–230.
37 RG, p. 42.
38 A. Winroth, The conversion of Scandinavia: Vikings, merchants, and missionaries in the
remaking of Northern Europe (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2012), pp. 92–93.
38 Predicates

adventurers then they would destroy the Islamic world even as far as
Baghdad.39 The hardiest and most successful of these Norse travellers
returned home bearing news, trade goods, and coins to the Baltic and
Northern Europe. The scale of this traffic should not be underestimated
and archaeologists have discovered over 200,000 Dirhams dating from
this period in Scandinavia and a further 207,000 in Russia, Belarus, and
the Ukraine.40 Likewise, the Jewish traveller Ibrahim ibn Ya’qub noted
that in the year 965 Dirhams were accepted as currency in Mainz, deep
in Europe where most foreign coins would have been reminted into local
currency. He was also struck by the availability of Indian spices.41 Of
course, the wide dissemination of Islamic coins and products from east-
ern regions does not constitute proof that detailed information was avail-
able in Scandinavia concerning the Islamic world. Nevertheless, it does
show that this was one potential channel of information about Islamic
territory; or ‘Sarkland’ as it was known.42
Norman bellicosity and aggression combined with Frankish arms, for-
tification techniques, and cavalry tactics proved a potent mix and in the
eleventh century Christian armies began to drive outwards, seeking to
regain the lands lost to Islam in the Mediterranean. The Normans often
spearheaded these campaigns, having inherited their forefathers’ thirst
for travel and adventure. Some fought for the Byzantine Empire in the
Varangian guard. Others arrived in southern Italy where, beginning as
mercenary captains, they eventually seized control over the entire region.
In time they became sufficiently powerful to attempt the re-conquest of
Sicily. The island itself had been conquered by Muslim forces from the
Byzantine Empire between 827 and 902. In 1038 the Byzantines made
an abortive attempt at retaking the island with some Norman support,
but it was only when the Normans began their own conquest in 1061
that the island was successfully restored.43 The conquest of Sicily was
not the first Christian attempt to contest control over the Mediterranean.
In 1015–1016 Genoa and Pisa defended Sardinia from two Islamic inva-
sions, in 1034 the Pisans attacked Annaba, whilst in 1087 they sacked the
North African city of Mahdia.44 These Italian cities were rising rapidly
as the dominant commercial and military powers. Both Genoa in 934

39 P. Golden, ‘The peoples of the south Russian steppes’, The Cambridge history of early
inner Asia, ed. D. Sinor (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990), p. 268.
40 Winroth, The conversion of Scandinavia, pp. 86, 98, 167. For coins found in the British
Isles see: Scarfe Beckett, Anglo-Saxon perceptions, p. 56.
41 This section from Ibrāhı̄m ibn Ya’qūb’s account can be found in Ibn Fadlān and the land
of darkness, pp. 162–163.
42 Winroth, The conversion of Scandinavia, p. 98.
43 The conquest of Sicily was completed in 1091.
44 For discussion see: Metcalfe, The Muslims of medieval Italy, p. 75.
 The Eve of the Crusades 39

and Pisa in 1004 had been plundered by Muslim forces, but by the
mid-eleventh century they along with Venice were firmly in the ascen-
dency. They conducted an immensely profitable trade with all the major
civilisations of the Mediterranean rim and beyond into the Black Sea.
By the early twelfth century, Islamic maritime power was in steep decline
in the face of these energetic city states. This process was driven in part by
the collapse and splintering of the Abbasid Empire along with a series of
famines and epidemics in North Africa. Muslim naval raids upon Chris-
tendom remained a threat into the twelfth century, but these were rare
exceptions in a century characterised by the steady advance of European
hegemony across the Mediterranean. In this changed scenario, Christen-
dom was no longer the passive partner in this civilisational relationship.
It was even able to consider retaliation against acts of aggression con-
ducted against its co-religionists, including those in the Holy Land. The
possibility has even been raised that Pope Sergius IV (1009–1012) did
indeed issue a call to arms following al-Hakim’s destruction of the Holy
Sepulchre; a notion long doubted by historians. If this is true then it
is a striking reflection of Christendom’s growing confidence that such a
scheme was even contemplated.45
The story in Iberia was roughly similar. In the ninth century, the
remaining Christian territories clinging to the northern shores of the
peninsula had begun to form themselves into political entities: the county
of Portugal, the county of Castile, and the kingdom of Asturias. Their
growing cohesion and organisation was enabled by major rebellions
within the Umayyad caliphate. Increasingly, in the north-west Christian
settlers began to head south, establishing outposts and cultivating the
land. In 910 Christian forces under Alfonso III were able to cross the
Cantabrian Mountains and found their capital in Leon. When eventually
the Umayyads, under the caliph Abd al-Rahman, had recovered suffi-
ciently from their internal problems and were ready to challenge this
emerging power, they proved only partially successful in dislodging the
Christians from their frontier settlements and in 939 a major Muslim
45 The debate on this point hinges on the authenticity of a document apparently written by
Sergius calling for a campaign to the east. For a recent strongly-argued case in favour of
this encyclical’s authenticity, see Gabriele, Empire of memory, pp. 141–143. For further
discussion on this source see: H. Schaller, ‘Zur Kreuzzugsenzyklika Papst Sergius’
IV’, Papsttum, Kirche und Recht im Mittelalter: Festschrift für Horst Fuhrmann zum 65.
Geburtstag, ed. H. Mordek (Tübingen: Niemeyer, 1991), pp. 150–153. William Purkis
has recently reflected on the debate surrounding this encyclical and its authenticity
and, although he does not come down decisively on one side or the other, he seems to
tend towards the notion that it was the product of the later eleventh-century. W. Purkis,
‘Rewriting the history books: The First Crusade and the past’, Writing the early Crusades:
Text, transmission and memory, ed. M. Bull and D. Kempf (Woodbridge: Boydell, 2014),
pp. 146–147.
40 Predicates

army was seriously defeated during a major attack on Leon. The next
major challenge to these emergent Christian powers came at the end of
the tenth century when the powerful ruler al-Mansur launched multi-
ple assaults on the north. He scored a series of major victories, sacking
Barcelona in 985, Leon in 988, and Santiago de Compostela in 997.
Nevertheless, the momentum he built up was not to be sustained. In
the years that followed the Umayyad caliphate broke apart into rival
Taifa kingdoms, whose feuding and infighting in time paved the way
for a gradual Christian advance. Even against al-Mansur, the Christian
armies had proved to be formidable opponents, but as the eleventh cen-
tury progressed they were steadily able to take the offensive against the
smaller Taifa successor states. From the middle of the eleventh century,
the Christian reconquest began to gather pace and in 1085 Alfonso,
king of Leon-Castile, was able to retake Toledo, the old Visigothic cap-
ital of Spain. His hold on the city remained precarious for many years
in the face of determined counter-attacks. Still, by the end of the cen-
tury, Latin Christendom was advancing on all fronts against the Islamic
world.46
∗∗∗
Overall, by the time of the First Crusade, western Christendom had
a long history of relations with Islam. The Muslim world had proved
itself to be a long-standing enemy which for centuries posed a danger
in the south, just as the Magyars and Vikings had marched on Europe’s
northern and eastern frontiers. The ‘Saracen’ threat was widely and
consistently referenced in sources from across Christendom and for the
Christian inhabitants of southern Europe it must have been a very real
source of concern. True, it was comparatively rare for these attacks to be
pressed home with much determination and they were often the enter-
prises of individual emirs, rather than the policies of major states. Even
so, the relative stability of Christendom and Islam’s frontiers should not
belie the fact that these powers were almost permanently at war.
Away from the frontline, writers living far to the north of the Pyrenees
or Mediterranean coastline generally referenced the threat of Arab attack
in their histories and even Adam of Bremen – perched on the North
Sea coast – heard news about Otto II’s wars with the Fatimids. Even
so, such references tended to be brief.47 Indeed, the general impression
given by these authors is of a distant danger, existing on the edge of their

46 H. Kennedy, Muslim Spain and Portugal: A political history of al-Andalus (London: Long-
man, 1996), pp. 60–153.
47 Adam of Bremen, ‘Gesta Hammaburgensis Ecclesiae Pontificum’, MGH: SRG, vol. 2,
ed. B. Schmeidler (Hanover, 1917), p. 82.
 Clerical and Knightly Attitudes towards Islam 41

knowledge, but playing little role in their day-to-day concerns.48 More-

over, in such texts, Muslim invaders were often described using precisely
the same terminology as other non-Christian aggressors and there is little
sense that they were viewed as an enemy of special significance. Certainly,
when Urban launched the First Crusade, there is little to suggest that he
was preaching to an audience that radiated an inherent sense of hatred
towards Muslims.49
Still, many of Christendom’s warriors came to focus their gaze on the
Islamic world to the south during the eleventh century. The shift took
place not because Islam was posing a steadily greater danger – in fact as
shown earlier it was increasingly on the defensive – but because it was
the only major enemy left. The conversion both of the Scandinavians
and the Magyars in a relatively short space of time meant that Islam was
Christendom’s last serious remaining rival. The argument has been made
that through the First Crusade, Islam became western Christendom’s
‘normative’ enemy.50 Nevertheless, for centuries these powers had been
normative enemies and there had never been a substantial break in the
fighting, only a shift in the fortunes of war. The evolution through which
Islam became Christendom’s sole major rival was, rather, a process of
elimination, not a dramatic escalation.

The Lenses through Which Western

Christendom Viewed Islam
Attempting to define how one civilisation perceives another is in some
ways a flawed endeavour. Both Latin Christendom and the Islamic world
were civilisations comprising of millions of individuals and thousands
of communities. Within their borders lived many different ethnic groups
and societies. There were differences in wealth, communications with the
wider world, regional identity, and religious observance. Some societies
lived in close proximity to the followers of other religions; others lived
hundreds of miles from the nearest border. Some zones of interaction
were fraught with conflict, others less so. An Iberian noble, for example,
born and raised in a culture of resistance against Muslim al-Andalus,
would not have perceived Islam in the same way as a Venetian trader with

48 See France, ‘destruction of Jerusalem’, 13.

49 J. France, The Crusades and the expansion of Catholic Christendom, 1000–1714 (Abingdon:
Routledge, 2005), p. 31.
50 For discussion see: Mastnak, Crusading peace, pp. 115–117; T. Mastnak, ‘Europe and
the Muslims: The permanent Crusade?’, The new Crusades: Constructing the Muslim
enemy, ed. E. Qureshi and M. Sells (New York: Columbia University Press, 2003),
pp. 206–207.
42 Predicates

experience of Mediterranean commerce, or a Norman landowner on the

Welsh borders. Nevertheless, this endeavour is not hopeless. Despite the
disparities between western Christendom’s various communities, they
still had several shared characteristics which played a vital role in shaping,
what could be described as a general world view.
Latin Christendom’s communities were united in their shared adher-
ence to the Catholic Religion and the traditions of the Church Fathers.
The Church had long-established views about the status of non-Christian
peoples that had been circulated and reinforced for centuries. This estab-
lished a degree of uniformity and it is striking that clerical sources pro-
duced in England, or Southern France, or Italy reference a very similar
theological approach when discussing non-Christians. This period also
saw the evolution of a complex code of knightly behaviour that would later
become known as chivalry. This was a shared culture common to a class
of warriors who were: committed to warcraft and the exhibition of their
masculinity through martial conduct; devoted to God and the pursuance
of the Christian message; and endowed with (or seeking) the rule of great
estates. The resultant value system placed great emphasis on the recom-
mended approach that should be adopted towards non-believers and,
given that it was disseminated widely through chansons and epic verse,
constituted another source of inspiration and guidance in the treatment
of members of other faiths. Both these structures of thought were to
some degree Pan-European. That is not to say they were everywhere the
same, but nonetheless they represented a common rhetoric and frame
of reference which included many shared values and expectations. Dis-
cussion on these ecclesiastical and knightly recommended approaches to
Muslims will be the subject of this section.

Theological
Running through the Christian sources from this period which discuss
Muslims are distinctive terms and phrases, which carry clear theological
associations. Many of these trace their origins back to the Bible itself
and are deeply rooted in exegetical traditions. For the purposes of this
present study, perhaps the most important concept is the notion of error.
Muslims are described in various ways but the idea of them being at error
is common to the vast majority of medieval texts which touch upon their
status.
This term is used consistently through the Bible and communicates
a clear meaning. It appears, for example, in the gospel of Matthew in
a passage describing Jesus’ teaching to his disciples on the Mount of
Olives. Jesus warns them of the events to come, stressing that they must
be wary of those who might lead them astray. In his description of the
 Clerical and Knightly Attitudes towards Islam 43

Second Coming he tells them that ‘false messiahs and false prophets will
appear and produce great signs and omens, to lead astray [literally –
into error/in errorem], if possible, even the elect’ (Matthew 24:24).51 A
similar message is conveyed in 2 Timothy where St Paul describes the
dangers of ‘imposters’ leading others into error (2 Timothy 3:13). Those
in error then are defined in the Bible as those who are entitled to God’s
forgiveness and redemption and yet have been drawn away from the path
to salvation and into corrupted activities and beliefs. The agents who
lead such individuals away from God are depicted in various ways. Paul
in his letter to Timothy, for example, warns his readers that in times to
come people will be led astray by ‘deceitful spirits and the teachings of
demons’ (1 Timothy 4:1).52 Even in an erring state, such individuals are
still fully redeemable, but it is necessary for them to reject their former
ways if they are to receive salvation.
The notion of error effectively divides human beings into two groups,
those that are in relationship with God and those who are in error.
According to 1 John 4:6, ‘We are from God. Whoever knows God lis-
tens to us, and whoever is not from God does not listen to us. From
this we know the spirit of truth and the spirit of error’. This binary struc-
ture underpinned Classical and medieval theology and contextualises the
individual Christian’s duty to lead others out of error. This responsibility
to lead erring people to the Christian faith is the fundamental duty of
all Christians; a point made continually in the New Testament. The spe-
cific dividing line between these groups is the sacrament of baptism.53
Describing the rise of the early Church, for example, Eusebius of Cae-
sarea (d. c. 340) wrote:
In every city and village arose churches crowded with thousands of men, like a
teeming threshing floor. Those who by hereditary succession and original error
had their souls bound by the ancient disease of the superstition of idols were set
free as if from fierce masters and found release from fearful bondage by the power
of Christ.54

Likewise, in May 719 Pope Gregory II commended Boniface of Mainz’s

mission to convert pagans, charging him to spread the ‘divine word’ so
that these people may no longer be ‘restrained by the error of infidelity’.55
51 Biblical quotations in modern English from The new Oxford annotated Bible (Oxford:
Oxford University Press, 1991). Latin text is from the Vulgate.
52 This idea was firmly embedded in medieval theology. See Gregory III’s letter to the
Saxons: Boniface of Mainz, ‘S. Bonifatii et Lulli Epistolae’, p. 35.
53 B. Nilsson, ‘Gratian on pagans and infidels: A short outline’, Cultural encounters during
the Crusades, ed. K. Jensen, K. Salonen, and H. Vogt (Odense: University Press of
Southern Denmark, 2013), pp. 154–155.
54 Translation from Eusebius, The ecclesiastical history, books I–V, ed. and trans. by K. Lake,
Loeb classical library CLIII (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2001), p. 115.
55 Boniface of Mainz, ‘S. Bonifatii et Lulli Epistolae’, p. 17.
44 Predicates

As is clear from these passages, the transition from a state of error into the
service of Christ was often characterised metaphorically. In these cases,
it is presented as a healing from sickness, or a freedom from bondage;
in other sources: a liberation from slavery or a cleansing from pollution.
St Augustine described his own conversion as the movement from mad-
ness to sanity.56
Although those in error were all deemed to share the common quality
of being separated from God, medieval writers advanced the case that
there were different levels of unbelief. Peter the Venerable, for example,
presented Islam as the summit of unbelief, the ‘sum of all heresies’, plac-
ing it above the errors of other faiths.57 This reflects the common practice
of classifying non-Christian religions by the scale of their divergence from
the Christian message: the greater the deviation, the greater the error.
If a medieval Christian’s ongoing duty then was to lead those in error
to a true knowledge of God, this naturally raises the question of how
the faithful were guided to view those still in an erring state, who had
yet to embrace the Christian message. Again, St Augustine offers some
guidance on this point. In his De Civitate Dei contra Paganos he writes:
The man who lives by God’s standards, and not by man’s, must needs be a lover
of the good, and it follows that he must hate what is evil. Further, since no one is
evil by nature, but anyone who is evil is evil because of a perversion of nature, the
man who lives by God’s standards has a duty of ‘perfect hatred’ towards those
who are evil; that is to say, he should not hate the person because of the fault,
nor should he love the fault because of the person. He should hate the fault, but
love the man. And when the fault has been cured there will remain only what he
ought to love, nothing that he should hate.58

Augustine’s message of ‘perfect hatred’ can essentially be rendered as:

‘love the sinner; hate the sin’ and its importance lies in the distinction it
establishes between the individual and his/her sinful behaviour.59 Follow-
ing this view, the faithful are not permitted to hate, or simply denounce
as inherently evil, those who adhere to other faiths because they are
required to accept them as manifestations of God’s creation, who still
have an opportunity to turn away from their sinful behaviour. Crucially,
the same, however, is not true of those beliefs or temptations that have led
56 St Augustine, Confessionum: Libri XIII, ed. L. Verheijen, CCSL XXVII (Turnhout:
Brepols, 1981), p. 137. See also Bede’s ecclesiastical history of the English people, ed. B.
Colgrave and R. Mynors, OMT (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1998), p. 160.
57 Translation from Iogna-Prat, Order & Exclusion, p. 356.
58 Translation from St Augustine, City of God, trans. H. Bettenson (London: Penguin,
2003), p. 556; St Augustine, De civitate Dei, ed. B. Domart and A. Kalb, CCSL XLVIII,
vol. 2 (Turnhout: Brepols, 1955), p. 421. Translation from St Augustine, City of God,
trans. H. Bettenson (London: Penguin, 2003), p. 556.
59 The idea of ‘perfect hatred’ is biblical in origin, appearing in Psalm 139.
 Clerical and Knightly Attitudes towards Islam 45

these individuals astray. These are deemed to be absolutely and inher-

ently evil.60 It is for this reason that, as several historians have noted,
depictions of Mohammed tend to be far harder than those directed at
other Muslims.61 The latter were deemed responsible only for being led
into error, while the former was held up by contemporaries as being
accountable for propagating this error.
The distinction between believer and belief is communicated clearly
in many sources concerning medieval Islam, including the ninth century
verse written by Ermoldus Nigellus. In this account he included a speech
given by Charlemagne ordering an attack on Islamic-held Barcelona in
which the emperor is alleged to have said: ‘if this people honoured God,
was pleasing to Christ, and was anointed with the oil of sacred baptism,
peace would have been established between us, and that peace would
have endured, for it is possible to be united by the religion of God. But
for the moment it remains a cursed people; it refuses our salvation; and
it follows the commands of the Devil’.62 This blunt statement rests on a
series of assumptions that come across clearly and can be reduced to the
following: salvation is available to the Muslims of Barcelona should they
become Christians; complete unity with other Christians is available to
them should they become Christians; but whilst they continue to adhere
to a non-Christian religion they remain under a demonic influence that
separates them from the faithful.
This theological structure created a lens through which Classical and
early-medieval Christians could view their non-Christian neighbours. Its
presence can be detected in many sources, including the history written
by Adam of Bremen (d. c. 1081) concerning the conversion of Northern
Germany and Scandinavia. At the start of his account he offered a
description of the conversion of the Saxons to Christianity in the early
ninth century. He began by explaining that the Saxons had formerly
been living under the ‘darkness of error’ and had been engaged in
the worship of demons.63 He also pointed out their hostility towards
Christianity and the Church. Nevertheless, having described their con-
version he wrote: ‘they are hereby granted their pristine liberties and are

60 Likewise, later theologians, who acquired some understanding of the Islamic religion
(and recognised areas of shared belief between Christianity and Islam), often concluded
that the mixing of truth with error represented an attempt to draw Christians away from
their faith. Daniel, Islam and the West, pp. 186–219.
61 J. Tolan, ‘Veneratio Sarracenorum: shared devotion among Muslims and Christians,
according to Burchard of Strasburg, envoy from Frederic Barbarossa to Saladin
(c.1175)’, Sons of Ishmael: Muslims through European eyes in the Middle Ages (Gainesville:
University Press of Flordia, 2008), p. 101.
62 Ermoldus Nigellus, Poème sur Louis le Pieux, p. 30.
63 Adam of Bremen, ‘Gesta Hammaburgensis Ecclesiae Pontificum’, p. 9.
46 Predicates

absolved from every payment due to us for the love of Him who accorded
us victory, and are tributary and subject to him’.64 Adam’s statements
here are significant. He is describing the movement of a people from error
to salvation. His words also contain a series of implicit judgements; most
importantly the conviction that no entry requirement besides conver-
sion was required for their full integration within Christendom.65 Ralph
Glaber made a similar statement when speculating about the possible
future conversion of the Islamic world. He wrote:
It remains an inviolable tenet of our Catholic faith that, in all places and amongst
all peoples without exception, he who is regenerated by baptism and believes in
the Almighty Father and His Son Jesus Christ and in the Holy Spirit, the one
and only true God, and who performs some good deed through faith, will be
acceptable to God.66

Thus – in theory at least – the only requirement for inclusion with the
Christian community was spiritual conversion. In practice of course sub-
stantial difficulties could arise with the cultural and linguistic integration
of an individual or community, but the Church tended to try and ease
this transition.
Another author, whose work demonstrates a similar approach towards
Muslims is Geoffrey of Malaterra. He wrote a history of the Normans
in Italy and Sicily in c. 1098, offering a vivid account of their activities
in these regions. Describing the conquest of Sicily he outlined many
episodes of holy warfare against Islam and these again reveal the same
approach of drawing a line between Muslim believers and the Islamic
religion. As with the earlier authors, he felt that Muslims live under
a demonic influence. At one point he described a naval confrontation
between the Arab ruler of Syracuse and Roger I of Calabria, during
which he wrote that the Muslim commander was inspired by the Devil.67

64 Adam of Bremen, ‘Gesta Hammaburgensis Ecclesiae Pontificum’, p. 14. Translation

from Adam of Bremen, History of the archbishops of Hamburg-Bremen, trans. F. Tschan
(New York: Columbia University Press, 2002), p. 15.
65 Many studies have demonstrated that countries which declared themselves Christian
during the medieval period often required several centuries to be fully incorporated
into Europe’s dynastic and clerical networks; the practice was always messier than the
theory. Even so, what Adam is pointing out is that once contemporaries were suffi-
ciently convinced that a people-group had set out on the path to become fully Christian
(often following the conversion of the ruling family), a fundamental rubicon had been
crossed which entitled that territory to full inclusion within Christendom. See Win-
roth, The conversion of Scandinavia, pp. 128–129; N. Berend, At the gate of Christendom:
Jews, Muslims and ‘pagans’ in medieval Hungary, c.1000–c.1300 (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 2001).
66 Translation from RG, p. 43.
67 Geoffrey of Malaterra, De Rebus Gestis Rogerii Calabriae et Siciliae Comitis et Roberti Guis-
cardi Ducis fratris eius, ed. E. Pontieri, Rerum Italicarum Scriptores V part1 (Bologna,
1927), p. 86.
 Clerical and Knightly Attitudes towards Islam 47

In this passage, along with later comments about churches being saved
from the ‘jaws of unbelieving heathen’, he demonstrated his conviction
that Islamic belief was a malign influence.68 At an earlier point, however,
in an account of the fall of Messina to the Normans, he told the story of
a Muslim brother and sister who were forced to flee the city. According
to his tale, the two had only travelled a short way when the sister became
unable to run any further and her brother was forced to kill her to prevent
her from being defiled. This story was told with considerable compassion
demonstrating a strong degree of empathy on Geoffrey’s part.69 These
episodes again underline this key distinction in his world view which
could be summarised as follows: foreign religious beliefs are by definition
evil and demonic, but their adherents are simply human beings – part of
God’s creation – who have the misfortune to be living in error and under
an evil influence.70 As Peter the Venerable observed when discussing the
Turks and Arabs: ‘[they are] humans of course, but resistant to their
salvation’.71
Geoffrey of Malaterra is even more explicit on this point in a passage
describing the defence of a fort situated above the river Cerami against a
large Islamic army in 1063. This siege was concluded when the garrison
commander, the future Count Roger I of Sicily, sallied through the gate
with a handful of knights, routing the Muslim force. In his reflection on
this Islamic defeat Geoffrey wrote:
Their God was punishing them and their Lord had shut them up with nails of
His wrath in the depths of their iniquity. I say “their God” not because they
acknowledge him in their worship, but because, although unworthy insofar as
they are ungrateful to their Maker, they are nevertheless His creatures.72

This passage has many qualities, but of particular interest is its insistence
that ‘Saracens’ must be regarded as examples of God’s own creation and,
by implication, that they must be seen as valuable to God. The same ideas

68 Geoffrey of Malaterra, De Rebus Gestis Rogerii, p. 90.

69 Geoffrey of Malaterra, De Rebus Gestis Rogerii, p. 32. See also Baxter Wolf’s comments
on this topic: K. Baxter Wolf, ‘Introduction’, The Deeds of Count Roger of Calabria and
Sicily and of his brother Duke Robert Guiscard by Geoffrey Malaterra (Ann Arbor, 2005),
pp. 24–25.
70 For discussion on this theme see: N. Daniel, ‘The Church and Islam II: The develop-
ment of the Christian attitude to Islam’, The Dublin review 231 (1957), 292. Ducellier
has demonstrated that the Byzantine author Nicetas of Byzantium took a similar stance
in his attitude towards Muslims. See A. Ducellier, Chrétiens d’Orient et Islam au Moyen
Age, VIIe-XVe siècle (Paris: Armand Colin, 1996), p. 155.
71 The letters of Peter the Venerable, ed. G. Constable, vol. 1 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard
University Press, 1967), p. 219.
72 Geoffrey of Malaterra, De Rebus Gestis Rogerii, p. 43. Translation from Geoffrey
Malaterra, The deeds of Count Roger of Calabria and Sicily and of his brother Duke Robert
Guiscard, trans. K. Baxter Wolf (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2005),
p. 108.
48 Predicates

appear in crusading texts including the eyewitness report De expugnatione

Lyxbonensi, which describes of the siege of Lisbon in 1147 by forces of
the Second Crusade. The author reflected on the successful outcome of
the siege, commenting first that the ‘bridle of error’ (frenum erroris) had
been lifted from the people of that area, before reminding his readers that
they too should give thanks to God for their own freedom from this same
‘bridle’.73 His message here is important not only because it speaks both
of Muslim liberation from error and of their shared humanity, but also
because it reminds the Christian reader that they – or their people – had
once been in the same position. Thus, all parties are presented simply as
human beings, co-equal in their dependence on God for their salvation.
Overall, Christianity requires its adherents to view non-Christians as
valued examples of God’s creation. They may be perceived as misguided
or malignly influenced, but they are important nonetheless and capable
of winning salvation.74 This viewpoint imposes a binding restraint on
the impulse to simply hate or dehumanise ‘the other’.75 Nevertheless,
the medieval Christian position towards non-Christian religions is
entirely different. These are entirely alien and represent the spiritual
vehicles that have drawn their adherents into this error, and the theolog-
ical pressure runs in completely the opposite direction, guiding believers
to view such religious systems as demonic and depraved.
The structure of thought outlined here is the starting point for this
analysis and its various manifestations will be referenced in detail in
later sections. This discussion generates a series of additional theological
issues, which will be explored at this point. These can be condensed
into three key questions: (1) How did medieval Christians view non-
Christians who both persisted in rejecting the Christian faith – even
when they had access to it – and who also presented a sustained military
threat? (2) How much interaction was permissible between Christians
and non-Christians living in the same community? (3) Were Christians
prepared to identify virtues in non-Christians?
To take the first question, if all human life is deemed to be God-
created and therefore precious, this naturally raises a whole array of
problems for contemporaries when justifying the perimeter protection

73 De expugnatione Lyxbonensi: The conquest of Lisbon, ed. C. Wendell David (New York:
Columbia University Press, 2001), p. 182.
74 Buc provides some interesting discussion on stereotypes – including madness and fury –
often attributed by Christians throughout the Classical and medieval period to heretics
and members of other religions. See P. Buc, Holy war, martyrdom, and terror: Christianity,
violence, and the West, ca. 70 c.e. to the Iraq war (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania
Press, 2015), pp. 121–133.
75 See Classen’s thought-provoking discussion on Wolfram von Eschenbach: Classen, ‘The
self, the other’, pp. xxv–xxvi.
 Clerical and Knightly Attitudes towards Islam 49

of Christendom’s frontiers. Defensive military action, not to mention

expansionist warfare, requires the use of lethal violence. As many studies
have shown, throughout the medieval period the concept of Christian just
or holy warfare went through a series of evolutions of which the crusade
itself was an advanced form. This section will not delve deeply into
this topic but will reflect upon the ways Christian participants in such
campaigns were encouraged to view their enemies and, by extension,
how theologians spliced the injunctions to value human life with the
perceived need to provide military protection. As several commentators
from this period observed: killing a non-believer would necessarily cut-
short that person’s opportunity to turn to Christ.76 Thus the act of
homicide effectively barred them from entry to heaven because they
would die in a state of non-belief. This thought was not lost on the papacy
and in 1074 Pope Gregory VII specifically ordered Archbishop Arnald
of Acerenza to prevent Count Robert of Apulia from killing Muslims
in recently-conquered Sicily so that they would have an opportunity to
convert.77
Nevertheless, such arguments could have carried little real weight in
Latin Christendom which was governed by military elites who were fully
convinced of the need to provide military protection for the Christian
communities in their care. There is no evidence to suggest that the general
abandonment of lethal violence in frontier defence was ever seriously
contemplated by any major authority. A different approach evolved –
essentially a theological compromise – through which the act of killing a
non-Christian was considered spiritually less reprehensible than killing a
Christian. This conclusion was widely referenced and no lesser personage
than Abbot Suger of St Denis (d.1151) made this point explicitly in his
account of Louis VI’s preparations for a battle against Emperor Henry V
outside Reims. During a pre-battle council, advice was proffered that the
French army should allow their enemy to penetrate deep within Frankish
territory so that it would become cut off from help; only then could
the Germans be ‘slaughtered mercilessly, just like Saracens’.78 He was
evidently operating on the understanding that Saracens’ could be killed
with a clear/clearer conscience than his co-religionists.79 Likewise, the

76 Gratian, ‘Decretum’, Corpus Iuris Canonici, ed. A. Friedberg, vol. 1 (Graz, 1959: reprint
of 1879–1881 edition), col. 195 (D. 50 c. 40).
77 The register of Pope Gregory VII, 1073–1085, ed. and trans. H. Cowdrey (Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 2002), p. 193.
78 Suger, Vie de Louis VI le Gros, ed. H. Waquet, Le Classiques de l’histoire de France au
Moyen Age XI (Paris: Les Belles-Lettres, 1964), p. 222. For a similar statement, see
Otto of Freising, ‘Gesta Friderici I. Imperatoris’, MGH: SRG, ed. G. Waitz, vol. 46
(Hanover and Leipzig, 1912), p. 217.
79 For further discussion, see Flori, La Guerre Sainte, pp. 228–229.
50 Predicates

military orders trained their brethren for war with non-Christians, whilst
demanding that they abstain from killing fellow Christians; again a line
was clearly drawn between the two.
Certainly the notion that ‘pagans’ could be killed in the defence of
Christendom and that this was deemed a good deed in its own right
was widely referenced in earlier sources, often with reference to Old
Testament authority. In 878 Pope John VIII responded to a question
posed by a group of bishops in the Eastern Frankish realm, who had
enquired whether those who died in the military defence of the Church
would gain an indulgence for their sinful behaviour and be permitted
to go to heaven. John answered citing the example of Manasses, king
of Judah (2 Chronicles 33), whose early reign was characterised by a
refusal to serve God, but who then suffered imprisonment during which
he promised to be obedient to God. Manasses then expressed his recom-
mitment to God by fortifying his kingdom and destroying idolatrous
shrines. Through this exemplar, Pope John advanced the case that those
who defend Latin Christendom are committing a holy and sanctifying
act that will ensure their salvation.80 Even so, John VIII was a rather
unusual case and not necessarily representative of his time. For most
writers, until the turn of the first millennium, killing of any kind was
considered a sin for which penance was required. The major shift took
place during eleventh century, particularly in the 1060s.81 At this time,
Pope Alexander II made an interesting distinction on this point when
explaining how non-Christians should be treated in Iberia. He noted that
those (in this case Saracens) who actively attack Christians can be killed
justly, whilst those who are prepared to accept Christian rule should be
unmolested.82 Again, he seems to reference the belief that it is an enemy’s
hostility that qualifies them for destruction because they pose a threat
to Christian communities; their adherence to a non-Christian religion
alone is not in itself sufficient.83 Orosius had made a similar point back
in late antiquity, writing that anyone who is not a Christian is an ‘alien’
(alienus), but he only become a military target (inimicus) if he becomes
hostile.84 Even when enemies were both unbelievers and aggressors,

80 ‘Iohannis VIII. Papae Epistolae’, MGH: Epistolae, vol. 7 (Berlin, 1928), pp. 126–127.
For discussion, see A. L. Bysted, The Crusade indulgence: Spiritual rewards and the theology
of the Crusades, c. 1095–1216, History of warfare CIII (Leiden: Brill, 2014), pp. 54–55.
81 D. Bachrach, Religion and the conduct of war, c.300–c.1215 (Woodbridge: Boydell, 2003),
pp. 100–104.
82 Pope Alexander II, ‘Epistolae et Diplomata’, PL, vol. 146 (1884), cols. 1386–1387.
83 P. Herde, ‘Christians and Saracens at the time of the Crusades: Some comments of
contemporary medieval canonists’, Studia Gratiana, 12 (1969), 365.
84 Paulus Orosius, ‘Historiarum Libri Septem’, PL, vol. 31 (1846), col. 1147. It should
be noted however that the clergy was still required to abstain from violence: Gratian,
 Clerical and Knightly Attitudes towards Islam 51

Christian warriors were expected to approach these foes without enmity.

Gratian’s Decretum specifies that those who fought their enemies, hav-
ing succumbed to feelings of hatred, had sinned and were required to
perform a penance.85 In another line of thought, which may well have
classical roots, predating Christianity, some authors claimed that humans
who had separated themselves from God had reverted to a beast-like state
and, again, could be killed should it be necessary to prevent them from
causing harm.86 This idea was frequently referenced by Pope Gregory
I who repeatedly described ‘pagans’ as requiring redemption from their
animalistic existence.87 Essentially these arguments represent compro-
mises struck by a society attempting to blend its spiritual obligation to
love and, in time, to win converts from its non-Christian neighbours with
a fundamental conviction that warfare was a necessity for the defence of
its territories and could be justified in the eyes of God.
In medieval descriptions of non-believers and their spiritual status,
several personal qualities were frequently associated with the sin of unbe-
lief. These included stubbornness, pride, and arrogance. In this context,
all these vices carry a linked meaning, which is that individuals have
refused to see/accept/follow God’s direction even when they have access
to it in person. In short, they were deemed to be ‘stubborn’ for having
seen the truth, but then refused to acknowledge it. Orosius explains this
idea as a process which runs as follows. He describes how all human
beings instinctively sense the presence of God, but that those who lack
news of Christian teachings will respond to that intuitive recognition by
representing God in different forms and will establish their own distinct
religions. This state of ignorance is accepted as entirely understandable
up to the point at which such societies gain access to the Christian mes-
sage. At this point they are expected to recognise the overriding truth
of the gospel message and convert. Those who fail to make this transfer
are in the position of having seen the truth, but then having rejected
it. This necessarily places them on a pathway to sin through rebellion
against God that will ultimately lead to disaster, both on earth and in

‘Decretum’, vol. 1, col. 179 (D. 50 c. 6); Nilsson, ‘Gratian on pagans’, p. 157. See also
Caffaro, Annali Genovesi di Caffaro e de’ suoi continuatori, ed. L. Belgrano, Fonti per
Storia D’Italia XI (Rome, 1890), pp. 9–10. Völkl offers some interesting reflections on
the crusaders’ abilities to draw distinctions between enemies and ‘strangers’ which run
along similar lines. See: M. Völkl, Muslime – Märtyrer – Militia Christi, pp. 161–166.
85 Gratian, ‘Decretum’, vol. 1, col. 195 (D. 50 c. 40); Nilsson, ‘Gratian on pagans’,
p. 157. See also J. Brundage, ‘The hierarchy of violence in twelfth – and thirteenth-
century canonists’, International History Review 17 (1995), 670–692.
86 This approach is much in evidence during the early/central medieval period and is
referenced by many authors including Gregory I. See Pope Gregory I, ‘Epistolarum
libri quatuordecim’, PL, vol. 77 (1862), cols. 692, 700.
87 See: Pope Gregory I, ‘Epistolarum libri quatuordecim’, cols. 692, 700.
52 Predicates

the afterlife.88 This theological framework is much in evidence across

the medieval period with those who are portrayed as having rejected
God’s commands generally being presented in this way.89 Christians too
were not immune from acquiring qualities, such as stubbornness and
arrogance, and Bernard of Clairvaux described the slippery slope which
might lead one of the faithful into pride. Again, this vice manifests itself
as a turning away from God’s path and onto a new road defined by wilful
self-assertion that will ultimately end in sin and destruction.90
Regarding the second of the earlier questions, it is necessary to consider
the zones of social interaction within which it was deemed theologically
permissible for Christians to encounter unbelievers. Here the bound-
aries were relatively wide. Theologically, a hard line was drawn between
the spiritual status of believers and unbelievers, but this same theology
accepted that there could be considerable social interaction across the
faith boundary. Again, this can be traced back to scripture where there
is a fundamental expectation that Christians should interact with non-
Christians. Pope Gregory I repeatedly emphasised Christians’ obligation
to live among unbelievers, drawing them to Christianity through kindness
and good works; similar arguments were made by Augustine and later
in Gratian’s Decretum.91 As Augustine pointed out, this was the exam-
ple set by Christ. Cross-cultural interactions could take many forms.
To some degree, there had always been trade between these two civil-
isations and, as western Christendom gradually reasserted its position
in the Mediterranean, many Muslim communities fell under Catholic
rule. Likewise, thousands of Christians lived in Muslim states. Each of
these scenarios necessitated cross-cultural interactions and whilst these
were not always friendly, and rarely took place on an equal playing field,
the crucial point is that in principle during the eleventh and twelfth cen-
turies such relations posed no fundamental theological problems for con-
temporary Christians. The sources contain many stories of inter-faith
alliances, personal friendships, diplomacy, and in some cases a shared
reverence for holy sites. To take one example, it is not surprising that
the Arab nobleman Usama Ibn Munqidh included many stories in his

88 Paulus Orosius, ‘Historiarum Libri Septem’, cols. 985–986.

89 For wider discussion see: Kedar, Crusade and mission, pp. 16–17.
90 Bernard of Clairvaux, ‘De Gradibus Humilitatis et Superbiae’, Sancti Bernardi Opera,
ed. J. Leclercq and H. Rochais, vol. 3 (Rome, 1963), pp. 13–59. For context, see
K. Petkov, ‘The cultural career of a ‘minor’ vice: arrogance in the medieval treatise on
sin’, Sin in medieval and early modern culture: The tradition of the seven deadly sins, ed.
R. Newhauser and S. Ridyard (Woodbridge: Boydell, 2012), pp. 43–64.
91 Gratian, ‘Decretum’, vol. 1, col. 905 (C. 23 q. 4 c.17); Nilsson, ‘Gratian on pagans’,
p. 158.
 Clerical and Knightly Attitudes towards Islam 53

Book of Contemplation in which Frankish Christians were presented as

friends. The most famous of these is his account of his trip to worship in
a small mosque on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem where he described
the Templars in this way.92 He also recalled a story where he went to
visit a Frankish knight, who used to refer to him as ‘his brother’, and
who offered to take Usama’s son to be educated in Europe. This lat-
ter story is a remarkable demonstration of the inter-faith relationships
that could develop and many other sources furnish similar examples.
Nevertheless, this latter story also sharply delineates the boundaries of
such interactions. Usama may have been prepared to visit his Christian
friend and to eat with him, just as his friend clearly valued him enough
to make such an invitation, but Usama found the suggestion that his son
should be educated in western Europe to be absurd and indisputable
proof of Frankish stupidity.93 It is not unreasonable to speculate that
he may have been prepared to form friendships with Christians, but he
would not have wanted to expose his son to any experience that would
have challenged his fundamental Muslim identity. A similar pattern can
be seen in reverse in the relationship that emerged between Richard I of
England and Saladin’s brother al-Adil during the Third Crusade. These
men again seem to have enjoyed each other’s company and to have won
one another’s respect, but Richard’s suggestion that al-Adil should marry
his sister Joanna was universally condemned by all parties, including the
lady herself.94
These two examples help to define boundaries of interaction that were
understood by both parties because they both describe moments when
they were in danger of being transgressed. It seems likely that in both
cases an inter-faith relationship was permissible up to, but not including,
the point where the core religious identity of co-religionists might be
placed in jeopardy. Any attempt to breach these social frontiers could
provoke instant condemnation. These boundaries are equally clear in the
crusading narrative produced by Fulcher of Chartres, a first crusader and
chaplain to Baldwin of Boulogne. He described how the other Frankish
settlers in the east had merged with the local population, inter-marrying
with a range of different ethnic groups including Syrians, Armenians,
and baptised ‘Saracens’. The last of these named groups is important
because again, it defines this same boundary. There was no objection to

92 Usama Ibn Munqidh, The book of contemplation: Islam and the Crusades, trans. P. Cobb
(London: Penguin, 2008), p. 147.
93 Translation from Usama Ibn Munqidh, The book of contemplation, p. 144.
94 See also R. Schwinges, Kreuzzugsideologie und Toleranz: Studien zu Wilhelm von Tyrus
(Stuttgart: Hiersemann, 1977), p. 146.
54 Predicates

marrying a ‘Saracen’, but only if he/she had become a Christian.95 All

the other people-groups mentioned were traditionally Christian.
With regard to the third question, Christians were perfectly will-
ing to identify virtues among their non-Christian neighbours – even
among bitter enemies. The theological foundation for this perspective
was grounded in the notion of natural law. It was believed that all human
beings, whether they accepted Christian teaching or not, had an inherent
sense of morality that derived directly from their intuitive awareness of
God (see Romans 2: 12–16). Isidore of Seville (d. 636) defined it as ‘the
instinct of nature’.96 He pointed out that this law represents an inherent
sense of morality – imparted by God – that is common to all mankind.97
Later theologians such as Peter Abelard (d.1142) demonstrated that indi-
viduals, acting on the impulse of natural law alone, could be pleasing to
God. He referenced as evidence the fact that early biblical figures such as
Abel, Noah, Lot, and Melchisedech won divine favour even though they
lived before the New and Old covenants. He himself defined natural law
as the innate desire to love God and one’s neighbour.98 This discussion
has relevance for attitudes towards medieval non-Christians because –
along these lines – it was deemed entirely plausible that they could and
would respond to the promptings of natural law and consequently display
many virtues even without conversion to Christianity.
Speculation on natural law was not confined to ivory towers, but could
play an active role in the perceptions of medieval frontiersmen. This is
evident in St Boniface’s (d. 754) letter to King Ethelbald (Christian king
of Mercia) in 746–747. In this correspondence he expressed his concern
that the king was neither married nor chaste and that he had committed
several crimes of a sexual nature. Having warned him of the spiritual
consequences of these sins, he described how even pagan Saxons would
be appalled by his actions. He observed that whilst they do not know
the law of the gospels they respect the institution of marriage because
they adhere to natural law.99 Writing in the ninth century, Rudolf of
Fulda100 made this same point and his work was later incorporated into

95 FC, pp. 748–749. For thought-provoking discussion on the issue of inter-faith marriage
and procreation, see L. Ramey, ‘Medieval miscegenation: Hybridity and the anxiety
of inheritance’, Contextualizing the Muslim other in medieval Christian discourse, ed.
J. Frakes (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2011), pp. 1–19.
96 Translation from Isidore of Seville, The etymologies, p. 117.
97 See also St Augustine, ‘De Praedestinatione Sanctorum’, PL, vol. 44 (1865), col. 968.
98 Peter Abelard, Collationes, ed. and trans. J. Marenbon and G. Orlandi, OMT (Oxford:
Clarendon Press, 2001), p. 24.
99 Boniface of Mainz, ‘S. Bonifatii et Lulli Epistolae’, p. 150.
100 Rudulf of Fulda, ‘Translatio S. Alexandri’, MGHS, ed. G. Pertz, vol. 2 (Hanover,
1829), p. 675.
 Clerical and Knightly Attitudes towards Islam 55

the history of Adam of Bremen.101 Clearly these frontier churchmen had

no difficulty accepting Saxon/non-Christian virtue on the basis that they
were responding to natural law.
One important aspect of Boniface’s letter is his use of the morality of
unbelievers to highlight the immorality of Christians. This was an impor-
tant trope that can be found throughout the medieval period, often in
sources describing Islam. It occurs, for example, in the earlier-mentioned
De expugnatione Lyxbonensi in an almost certainly fictional conversation
between the Muslim defenders of Lisbon and the Christian besiegers. In
this exchange, the Muslim leader criticised the crusaders for their avarice
and their lack of pure spiritual motivation.102 It is worth pondering the
implications of this tale. In essence it is an example of a Christian author
describing an imagined Muslim who in turn is lecturing Christian cru-
saders about their sinful behaviour. Gregory VII used a similar device
in his letter to the Christian faithful in 1084. He decried the sufferings
of the western Christendom, claiming that Christian law was so widely
ignored by its adherents that it had become an object of derision for
Jews, Saracens, and Pagans. He went on to point out that whilst the non-
Christian laws of unbelievers will not lead their followers to salvation,
they are nonetheless followed with a diligence that was conspicuously
lacking among Christians.103 The underlying point communicated by
both authors is clear and could be given as the following statement: how
shameful it is that you, with the benefits and advantages of God’s love
and teaching, should fail and sin to such a degree that your immorality
falls below the standards even of a non-Christian people?104 Such a mes-
sage seems to be founded on three expectations: (1) That non-Christians
are capable of virtue through natural law; (2) that Christians are capable
of conduct more depraved than that of non-Christians; (3) that typically
Christians should maintain a higher level of morality. Broadly speaking the
logic undergirding all these examples seems to be that all human beings
feel the presence of God and have an intrinsic sense of morality; thus they
are all capable of possessing positive qualities. Nevertheless, those who

101 Adam of Bremen, ‘Gesta Hammaburgensis Ecclesiae Pontificum’, p. 8.

102 De expugnatione Lyxbonensi, p. 120.
103 The Epistolae Vagantes of Pope Gregory VII, ed. and trans. by H. Cowdrey, OMT (Oxford:
Clarendon Press, 1972), pp. 128–134. See also Register of Pope Gregory VII, p. 139.
For similar examples: Alcuin of York’s letter to Archbishop Ethelhard of Canterbury:
Alcuin of York, ‘Epistolae’, MGH: Epistolae Karolini Aevi, ed. E. Duemmler, vol. 2
(Berlin, 1895), p. 47; Gregory I, ‘Epistolarum libri quatuordecim’, cols. 766, 941.
104 This structure (holding up the positive behaviour of the non-believer as a mark of
shame for the faithful) is also much in evidence in Muslim sources, see IAA, vol. 1,
pp. 155, 163. M. Barber, The crusader states (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press,
2012), pp. 101, 102. See also Tolan, Saracens, pp. xiii–xiv.
56 Predicates

have accepted Jesus’ teaching and have been baptised are both saved and
protected by God’s guidance, teaching, and forgiveness (although they
like all humans are still vulnerable to sinful temptation). Non-Christians
can also have innate good qualities, but that natural goodness is imper-
illed by their spiritual affiliations, which renders them more susceptible
to the influence of the Devil.
Reflecting upon these theological issues it might be observed that whilst
intellectuals may have had the time and resources to engage with ideas
of this complexity, they would have been among the exalted few. Such
an argument could go on to point out that theologising notions and dis-
courses on non-Christians of this kind could have had little relevance
for the rank-and-file crusader, whose intellectual horizons would gener-
ally have been far narrower. This is an important question for a study
on crusading attitudes, one which will reoccur in many of the follow-
ing chapters. Even so, there are two points that can be made from the
outset. Firstly, the theological perspective described earlier is frequently
referenced in the crusader sources for this period. True, such works
were often written by churchmen so they do not constitute proof of lay
religious attitudes, but many authors were clerics of intermediate rank,
rather than senior clergy, and these were the very people from whom the
crusaders sought guidance. Secondly, whilst the full logic underpinning
this theological perspective is both complex and intellectual, its funda-
mental elements are simple. An individual who understands that his/her
enemy is a human being, who is: beloved by God, capable of conversion,
but tainted by adherence to an ‘evil’ religion, has already grasped its
essentials. This perspective is not beyond the reach of even the simplest
crusader and this may explain why it is so widely referenced.

Chansons and the Voice of Knightly Culture

King Alderufe was very bravely bred,
A worthy knight, a man of mighty strength –
But he shunned God and so his soul was dead;
He served Beelzebub, Pilate the wretch,
And Antichrist, Bagot and Tartaren.
And Astarut the old who dwells in Hell.
La Chanson de Guillaume105

For an aspiring knight in Northern France, who had recently taken the
cross, there were perhaps two dominant and interlinked discourses that
105 Translation from ‘The song of William’, Heroes of the French epic, ed. and trans.
M. Newth (Woodbridge: Boydell, 2005), p. 105. Chanson de Guillaume, ed. P. Bennett,
vol. 2 (London: Grant and Cutler, 2000), p. 135.
 Clerical and Knightly Attitudes towards Islam 57

would have moulded his preconceptions and foreknowledge of Islam

(or more broadly hostile non-Christians). The first was the theologically
approved view of ‘Saracens’ propounded by the Church, discussed ear-
lier. Certainly, our knight would have had many opportunities to famil-
iarise himself with the broad trajectory of theological thinking; perhaps
through sermons, or during his education, or possibly in conversation
with members of the clergy, or at second hand through his peers. If he
had been particularly diligent in his studies he may even have ventured
into some of the monastic chronicles that touch upon this subject. There
was however another discourse in circulation – dependent in part upon
the first – which may also have guided his attitudes and, later, his actions.
At high days and feast days it is probable that our hypothetical knight
would have attended banquets or other events at which chansons were
performed. These chansons almost invariably tell tall stories of pious
warriors and their mighty deeds of arms against tyrannous kings and
unruly barons. They also include many stories of war conducted against
non-Christians, especially Iberian and North African Muslims. Charle-
magne’s expedition to Spain, or more specifically the deeds of Roland at
Roncesvalles, were particular sources of inspiration.
These epic poems dwell at length upon the ‘Saracens’ and for the
most part they describe a reasonably coherent attitude towards them.
Their shared approach has some parities with the theological model out-
lined earlier; indeed, the Church endeavoured vigorously to steer the
knightly classes towards an idealised form of behaviour of its own defin-
ing. This agenda manifests itself frequently in the chansons, many of
which were written or performed by churchmen.106 Still, these sources
are not merely dumbed-down versions of high theology. They also reflect
the preferences and bellicose jocularity of the knightly classes. Moreover,
they reveal a class of arms bearers who accepted the Church’s guidance
on their own terms and, as Kaeuper usefully puts it, ‘wherever ecclesi-
astical restraints . . . cut into chivalric flesh, the knights simply refused to
comply’.107
At the heart of many of these chansons is the classic set piece encounter
between Christian knights – generally wildly outnumbered – and the
‘Saracen’ or ‘Moorish’ horde. Rather than dealing in theological niceties
and biblical exegesis, the bulk of these narratives dwell upon gory sword-
thrusts and well-handled lances. Beautiful ladies, whether Christian or
Islamic, swoon over the pious victors while enemy commanders are forced

106 R. Kaeuper, Holy warriors: The religious ideology of chivalry (Philadelphia: University of
Pennsylvania Press, 2009), pp. 52–65.
107 Kaeuper, Holy warriors, p. 57.
58 Predicates

to witness the destruction of the mighty hosts in which they had placed
such faith. The stage-set then for the bulk of such sources’ reflections on
themes of inter-faith relations is generally the battlefield and the discourse
is militant in the extreme. This then is very much the theology of war.
The Christian knights described in these chansons are often presented
as self-consciously seeking to imitate Christ. This commitment is mani-
fested through: their humble suffering for the defence of the faith, their
ostentatious acts of piety, and their willingness to serve God – just as
a knight might serve his lord or king. The worthy knights succeed in
achieving these goals, whether through their victories or their martyr-
dom; the unworthy fall or flee in disgrace. Their contests of arms against
non-Christians are given as quasi-judicial duels in which the rectitude
of the faiths propounded by the two combatant parties is gauged on
the field of battle. This is very literally the case in Le Couronnement de
Louis where the pope and the Muslim king Galafré arrange a contest of
arms between their champions. During the ensuing encounter William
of Orange faces and exchanges retorts with the ‘Saracen’ champion Cor-
solt. They both manifest the belief that their God will grant them victory,
whilst deriding the other’s faith as hollow. Corsolt, for example, is given
berating William and saying: ‘you believe in a God who is of no use.
From beyond the firmament what can he do? . . . Christianity is only for
fools’.108 Naturally, William then defeats Corsolt, symbolically disprov-
ing both his arguments and his faith, whilst proving the veracity of his
own.109 Following the encounter, King Galafré declares himself to be
impressed by William’s God and, following the subsequent defeat of his
army, he chooses to convert. This again is very typical of this genre where
martial victory and spiritual truth are presented as inextricably linked.
Such tales may seem far removed from the erudite theology of
Christendom’s senior churchmen, but they bear similar hallmarks. The
dichotomy between believer and belief is maintained. These chansons
consistently reference the conviction that the Saracen religion is both
false and even demonic. This is stated very bluntly in the Chanson de
Roland: ‘Pagans are wrong and Christians are right’.110 No explanation is
supplied for this statement, presumably because it simply name-checked
what to contemporaries would have been a self-evident fact. Neverthe-
less, the ‘Saracen’ peoples themselves are depicted very differently. Some

108 Translation from ‘The coronation of Louis’, Guillaume d’Orange: Four twelfth century
epics, trans. J. Ferrante (New York: Columbia University Press, 2001), p. 87. Le Couron-
nement de Louis: Chanson de Geste du XIIe Siècle, ed. E. Langlois, 2nd ed. (Paris: Honoré
Champion, 1984), p. 27.
109 Le Couronnement de Louis, pp. 14–40. 110 Translation from SR, p. 64.
 Clerical and Knightly Attitudes towards Islam 59

are presented as hideous malformed monsters who conduct dastardly

acts of villainy. Such figures are shown performing acts of sexual deprav-
ity, extreme brutality, and evil trickery; manifestations of the belief that
erroneous faith leads directly to sin. There are however other ‘Saracen’
knights who are depicted more favourably. They are shown as courte-
ous, brave, valiant, and even virtuous. In the ‘Saracen’ king Marsile’s
horde, for example, the handsome, noble, and strong Balaguer (‘were he
a Christian’!) fights alongside the evil and ill-favoured Falsaron.111 The
‘Saracen’ King Fierabras in his eponymous poem is likewise accorded
almost the complete spectrum of knightly virtues, excepting of course a
belief in Christ:
If you had leisure to look at Fierabras
You couldn’t but remember how fine he was and grand.
If only he’d believed in the Son of God and Man,
No better knight or fighter the Christians would have had.112

These two very different kinds of ‘Saracen’ march side by side into
battle against the Christians, revealing that contemporaries did not
believe Muslims to be homogenous, but anticipated considerable diver-
sity – moral and physical – within their ranks. These distinctions seem-
ingly reflect the underlying presence of the earlier-mentioned theological
model. Muslims are presented very differently to their religion. They are
not given as inherently evil but are shown as human beings who have
either been degenerated by their beliefs into beastlike savages or in some
cases have still maintained their virtue; a belief that may distantly recall
notions of natural law.113 In many cases, those Saracens who eventually
convert are often – although not always – amongst those who had pre-
viously received the greatest praise for their virtue, whilst those enemies
accorded monstrous qualities are almost inevitably killed. Again there
seems to be an expectation that the more virtuous Muslims will have a
natural predisposition towards Christianity.114 Thus, the chansons resem-
ble works of theology in the same way that a sledge hammer resembles a
surgical laser, but the similarities remain.
Depictions of the ‘Saracen’ religion in the chansons are, for the most
part, simplistic and inaccurate. Islam is almost always presented as an
111 Translation from SR, pp. 60, 72. For discussion see Akbari, Idols in the East, pp.
155–199.
112 Translation from Fierabras and Floripas: A French epic allegory, ed. and trans. M. Newth
(New York: Italica Press, 2010), p. 63. (Newth’s primary text for his translation was
Fierabras: Chanson de geste, ed. A. Kroeber and G. Servois, Les Anciens Poetes de la
France (Paris, 1860), p. 20).
113 See also Akbari, Idols in the east, p. 166. 114 See: Daniel, Heroes and Saracens, 39.
60 Predicates

idolatrous and polytheistic faith which reverences a range of Gods includ-

ing: Apollo, Mohammed, and Tervagant.115 Often these ‘Saracen’ gods
form a trinity, which was almost certainly intended to represent an ‘evil
opposite’ to the Christian Holy Trinity. Only rarely do the narrators of
these chansons provide any further detail – presumably it was not deemed
to be of interest to a knightly audience, for whom it was sufficient to
know that the enemy was enslaved to a demonic faith. Such representa-
tions in chansons persist throughout the twelfth and thirteenth centuries
and show little variation. From the writers’ perspective, it probably was
not considered particularly important to be specific about the nature of a
serious religious error: after all, an error is an error. Indeed, in many cases
(including the Chanson d’Antioche) the Slavs are listed as Saracen allies,
an association which suggests that all Christendom’s non-Christian foes
were deemed to be in league.116
With regard to wider ‘Saracen’ culture, these narrators generally have
little to say. Saracen buildings and cities are often portrayed, dripping
with gold and filled with bizarre curiosities, but in many cases these
authors simply filled in the blanks by assuming that their social hierar-
chies, religious structures, and culture were much the same as those in
western Christendom.117 The Muslim ruler, King Aragon, in La Prise
d’Orange is depicted drinking wine, whilst possessing fiefs and marches.
His nobles are described as barons, while the gender norms within his
great palace are roughly comparable to those in medieval Europe.118 In a
similar vein, ‘Saracen’ rulers are often presented as adhering to the same
(or similar) codes of martial conduct.119 In La Destruction de Rome, for
example, when the pope is unseated from his horse whilst jousting with a
Moorish knight, his opponent permits him to escape because it would be
shameful to kill a cleric.120 Likewise in Fierabras the Muslim champion
Fierabras is shown to be unwilling to fight a duel against a man of inferior
birth; again a conceit that smacks of Frankish warrior culture.121

115 Leclercq, Portraits croisés, pp. 190–201.

116 ‘La Chanson d’Antioche’, The old French Crusade cycle: Volume IV, ed. J. Nelson
(Tuscaloosa, AL: University of Alabama Press, 2003), pp. 65 and passim.
117 C. Meredith Jones, ‘The conventional Saracen of the songs of geste’, Speculum 17.2
(1942), 206–210; Daniel, Heroes and Saracens, pp. 47–68.
118 Les Rédactions en vers de La Prise d’Orange, ed. C. Régnier (Paris: Klincksieck, 1966),
passim.
119 M. Jubb, ‘Enemies in the holy war, but brothers in chivalry: the crusaders’ view of their
Saracen opponents’, Aspects de l’épopee romane: Mentalités, idéologies, intertextualités, ed.
H. van Dijk and W. Noomen (Groningen: E. Forsten, 1995), pp. 251–259.
120 ‘La Destruction de Rome: Première Branche de La Chanson de Geste de Fierabras’,
ed. G. Goeber, Romania 2 (1873), 28.
121 Fierabras: chanson de geste, p. 15.
 Clerical and Knightly Attitudes towards Islam 61

One topic, which seems to have attracted endless attention in the

chansons, but which hardly ever appears in theological works is ‘Saracen’
women. It might well be imagined – given the contemporary conviction
that ‘Saracen’ society was riddled with impassioned sexual promiscuity
conducted in opulent surroundings bedecked with gold and silk – that
knights might have given more than a little thought to the character
of Saracen women. Certainly the various Saracen heroines described in
these tales are the very essence of knightly fantasy. For example, the
Saracen Queen Orable in the La Prise d’Orange is described as follows:
There is none so lovely from here to the East,
a beautiful body, slender and fine;
her skin is white, like a flower on a stem.

She is not, however, shown to be without defect because:

God, what good is her body or her youth,
She doesn’t know God, our father almighty!122

Through this presentation, Orable is situated among her fellow unbe-

lievers, but in her physical attributes she is characterised as distinct and
alien from her countrymen and family, conforming rather to Frankish
ideals of beauty. A reader or listener is consequently encouraged to see
her as incomplete and out of place in her ‘Saracen’ homeland, requiring
to be saved and converted by the knightly hero William before her virtues
can be fully realised. Again one might well imagine how the notion of
a mysterious and beautiful Saracen woman, eager to be carried off by
a worthy knight, might have played on the imaginations of a knightly
elite.123
An area where the monastic authors and the troubadours are in full
agreement, however, is in their conviction that it is possible to slay ‘Sara-
cens’ with a much clearer conscience than their co-religionists.124 Here
the knightly and the theological flowed together in close accord but whilst
the theologians described earlier might carefully work through the theol-
ogy/philosophy underlying such conclusions, the chansons put this theory
into practice describing, often with lavish detail, the righteous killing
of non-Christian invaders. In the mid-twelfth-century chanson Aliscans a
virtue is made of the hero’s refusal either to imprison or ransom his
‘pagan’ enemies. His approach was always to kill them immediately.
No explanation is given for this approach, although it is wreathed in

122 Translation from ‘The conquest of Orange’, Guillaume d’Orange: Four twelfth century
epics, trans. J. Ferrante (New York: Columbia University Press, 2001), p. 147. La Prise
d’Orange, p. 103.
123 See: Akbari, Idols in the East, pp. 173–189. 124 Kaeuper, Holy warriors, p. 104.
62 Predicates

exemplars underlining his piety, suggesting that the author believed this
approach to be a self-evidently virtuous stance.125
One dimension where these works of epic verse differ from more the-
ological texts is their intense curiosity about the lands of the ‘Saracen’,
lying to the south and east. Many warriors embarking on the Crusades
would have had little knowledge of Saracen territory, but they would not
have been entirely ignorant. A handful of trade goods, either from the
Islamic world or beyond, were available as luxury items during this time.
Pepper and spices are perhaps the most famous of these and they were
available in the kingdom of England from at least the eighth century.126
Silks and other fabrics could also be obtained at exorbitant price in
European markets. Clearly troubadours built upon what little they knew
about ‘Saracen’ culture when writing their chansons because Muslim
potentates are often described draped in silk cloth and eating eastern
delicacies. Their warriors are also equipped with Damascene hauberks
and mounted on Arab mares – items of sufficiently high quality that they
had penetrated into the aspirational worlds of European elites. Muslim
territory is also presented as fabulously wealthy; one has only to think
of descriptions of Marsile’s horde marching to fight Roland, dripping
with gold and gems, or the palace of King Aragon, crested with gold
and filled with strange beasts, exotic foods, and other wonders.127 Again
these are not solely fabricated representations. They are exaggerated cer-
tainly, but they also reflect a common geopolitical perception. By the
time of the First Crusade, the Islamic world had maintained a position
of economic dominance over its northern neighbours for centuries and
its great metropolises dwarfed western European cities whilst the quality
of its craftsmen was proverbial. Legends had long circulated in western
Christendom about this extraordinary wealth including the long remem-
bered gifts made by Harun al-Rashid to Charlemagne. It is also possible
that stories of magnificent ancient civilisations from the classical period
about Ancient Greece and the campaigns of Alexander the Great would
have dilated this effect. Evidently, the vague awareness that somewhere
to the south/south-east lay great civilisations of unimaginable wealth had
been fully internalised within contemporary culture; a knowledge mani-
fested clearly in these chansons.
The chansons were in most cases designed to entertain and propound
masculine warrior ideals; relating acts of incredible bravery and prowess.
Deep down within their tales there is occasionally the kernel of a genuine
historic event – often dating back to the Carolingian era – but for the

125 Aliscans, ed. C. Régnier, vol. 1 (Paris, 1990), p. 65.

126 Scarfe Beckett, Anglo-Saxon perceptions, p. 61.
127 SR, p. 65; La Prise d’Orange, pp. 111–112.
 Clerical and Knightly Attitudes towards Islam 63

most part they are the stuff of knightly dreams. This should not obscure,
however, the influence of their heroes as role models for the martial elite
whose deeds many sought to emulate. These works need to be taken
seriously as formative influences in knightly behaviour and expectations.
This influence can be seen manifested in many instances. Usama ibn
Munqidh, for example, tells the tale of a small cavalry skirmish near
Apamea in 1119. During this encounter, he fought with a Frankish knight
called Philip who was mounted on a black horse. Usama ended the
contest when he skewered Philip with his lance, even though he was
wearing double-thickness chainmail. Shortly afterwards Usama received
a visit from another Frankish knight who wished to meet the Muslim
warrior who had dealt Philip so vigorous a blow and he had travelled
into Islamic territory specifically for this purpose.128 This is a fascinating
story which betrays a number of expectations held by both parties. The
Frankish knight clearly saw no contradiction in fighting Muslims one day
and then visiting them on the next to compare notes about their very
bloody encounter. This conduct, which is reminiscent of the tournament
field and the world of the jongleur, also reveals the knight’s confidence
that his non-Christian enemies would both welcome him and refrain from
taking advantage of him whilst he was in their company. This incident
calls to mind an episode in the epic poem Fierabras where Oliver (the
Christian champion) and Fierabras (the Muslim champion) discuss their
lineages and equipment – Oliver even assisting his opponent to arm
himself – before immediately springing into bitter combat.129 It also
suggests that, in a similar vein, this knight felt that his enemy (Usama)
would be willing to discuss a brutal moment of hand-to-hand combat in
the spirit of shared warrior values. This was not some attempt at cross-
cultural reconciliation – the knight wanted after all to discuss a mighty
lance thrust inflicted in battle – but he clearly expected that his enemy
would be guided by a code of conduct not dissimilar to his own; a point
that mirrors the expectations of the chansons.
Parities between the deeds of other Frankish warriors/crusaders and
behaviour typically found in chansons have been identified elsewhere.
Loutschitskaja and Kostick have both observed that the duel between
Christian and Turkish champions proposed by Peter the Hermit during
his embassage to Karbugha at siege of Antioch during the First Crusade
bears a marked resemblance to common set-piece contests of this kind
found in the chansons.130

128 Usama ibn Munqidh, The book of contemplation, pp. 50–52.

129 Fierabras: Chanson de geste, p. 20.
130 C. Kostick, The social structure of the First Crusade, The medieval Mediterranen
LXXVI (Leiden: Brill, 2008), p. 127; S. Loutchitskaja, ‘L’idée de conversion dans
64 Predicates

Reviewing both the knightly and ecclesiastical sources, two linked dis-
courses emerge. Both situate Christ and personal piety at the heart of
their thought-worlds. Both view the Islamic religion as unvaryingly evil.
Both view Muslims rather differently to their faith, perceiving them as
God-created human beings who nonetheless will have been tainted to
varying degrees through their adherence to a non-Christian religion.
There are however, significant dissimilarities which reflect their specific
audiences and milieu. The theological texts encapsulate the mentali-
ties of the cloister and the ecclesiastical court. They accord closely with
canon law, exemplifying the qualities of dogmatic uniformity, consistent
biblical exegesis, and the traditions of the Church fathers. The chan-
sons by contrast speak of the battlefield, of straight-talking fighting men,
whose sincere and pragmatic faith was meshed both with their prickly
sense of personal honour and their more earthy desires. Their questions
and concerns were not the same as those of the Church and the Bible is
only one of their points of reference. They tend to be far freer in their
acceptance of killing, often communicating the idea that the value of
human life – Christian or pagan – is held to be far cheaper than in the-
ological sources. The chansons also tend to focus their attention almost
solely on heroic characters. The hundreds of thousands of ordinary war-
riors who fall on all sides during their belligerent narratives are passed
over in an eye-blink; what matters is the conduct of the handful of leading
warriors, Christian or Muslim.
Consequently, marked dissimilarities distinguish these two discourses,
clerical and knightly; reflecting the roles, views, and backgrounds of
their audiences.131 Still they should not be approached as two entirely
distinct identities. The noble families which staffed the cloister and the
chapterhouse also filled the ranks of the martial host. Clerics listened
to chansons and dreamed of their Carolingian ancestors, whilst secu-
lar nobles attended sermons and supported their local religious houses.
These worlds were inextricably linked and these connections manifest
themselves in the sources. To take a few examples, the great monastic
historian Orderic Vitalis was ready to attest the reliability of chansons
as sources for his great Historia Ecclesiastica; whilst many of the judge-
ments made in the verse-narratives bear the hallmarks of contempo-
rary theology.132 Many clerical-authored Crusading chronicles contain

les chroniques de la première croisade’, Cahiers de civilisation médiévale 45 (2001), 39–

53. Flori has similarly stressed the influence of the chansons on the crusaders’ attitudes
towards Islam: Flori, Pierre l’Ermite, pp. 221–225.
131 For further discussion on the discourses emerging from western Christendom and
the extent to which they were independent entities see: Akbari, Idols in the East,
pp. 221–235.
132 OV, vol. 3, p. 218.
 Clerical and Knightly Attitudes towards Islam 65

set-piece dialogues between Christians and Muslims which are almost

indistinguishable in their essence from those contained in Aliscans or Le
Couronnement de Louis, whilst several chansons demand that their readers
recognise them as authentic works of history, just like the monastic chron-
icles. These sources overlap with one another and, as we shall see, the
crusading chronicles are often the very embodiment of this confluence.

Experiential Factors
It is not the purpose of this chapter to attempt to identify every pressure,
trend, or guiding principle that helped to shape European Christians’
attitudes towards Islam. Rather, this section seeks to identify some of
the major attitudinal building blocks that would have been common
to many peoples’ perceptions. Thus far, the values of knightly conduct
have been explored, along with the theological lens propounded by the
Church. Nevertheless, human beings do not simply regurgitate wholesale
the values – chivalric or religious – to which they are exposed. The earlier-
mentioned theological or knightly approaches represent perhaps (draw-
ing upon Foucault) ‘a set of values and rules of action that are recom-
mended to individuals through the intermediary of various prescriptive
agencies such as the family (in one of its roles), educational institutions,
churches, and so forth’.133 Thus these may have been the ‘recommended’
approaches, but it was up to the individual to accept/reject these struc-
tures or at least to decide how to respond to them.
To be translated into action then, these ‘recommended’ approaches –
theological or chivalric – had to pass through an individual’s cognitive
apparatus, which in turn would have been a product of their: family
history, personality, experiences, and learnt knowledge etc.134 Thus, to
take an imagined example, two individuals might hear a preacher outline
a theological approach towards Muslims but each might interpret it in
very different ways according to their background.
This section serves primarily as a reminder that none of the authors dis-
cussed in this work were detached cold-blooded observers who perfectly
reproduced any ‘approved’ discourse concerning Islam. They might have
felt some need to signpost their adherence to such norms in their writ-
ings, but these same works often reveal a much more complex perspective
which bears the hallmarks of their own distinct experience. For example,
many of them had either lived through the cut and thrust of a crusading
campaign or had served personally on a Latin Eastern frontier. Some
133 M. Foucault, The use of pleasure: The history of sexuality, volume 2, trans. R. Hurley
(London: Penguin, 1985), p. 25.
134 For discussion on the influence of lived experience upon the crusaders’ portrayals of
Muslims see: Völkl, Muslime – Märtyrer – Militia Christi, pp. 15–19 and passim.
66 Predicates

had suffered a personal loss at Muslim hands. William of Tyre lost a

brother in battle against Saladin in 1179.135 Walter the Chancellor was
taken prisoner after witnessing the defeat of the Antiochene army at the
Field of Blood in 1119. Peter Tudebode’s references to the deaths of two
knights called Arnald and Arvedus Tudebode seem to refer to the loss of
two family members.136 Many other writers suffered the deprivations and
horrors of marching for months in a crusader column across Asia Minor.
So when characterising a writer’s viewpoint their theological framework
needs to be spliced with the impact of their experiences.
In some cases there is an obvious tension between an individual’s the-
ology/inherited values and their personal inclinations. This is particularly
apparent with the issue of hatred. The Church’s general position was that
while a non-Christian’s beliefs might be considered as evil, unbelievers
could not simply be hated because they were manifestations of God’s cre-
ation and subject to natural law. Even so, several sources for this period
manifest a tension between loving and hating one’s enemies. As the
tenth-century writer Liudprand of Cremona (d.972) shrewdly observed,
‘man, formed in the likeness and image of God, conscious of the law of
God, capable of reason, not only strives not to love his neighbour, but
sets out vigorously to hate him’.137 The conflict between the Christian
injunction to love and the instinctive urge to hate – within the context
of crusader campaigns (where these two emotions were often deeply
muddled) is much in evidence throughout the sources for this period.
There is also the question of distance. Some crusading authors lived
and breathed the events and milieu of the Near East, others wrote their
accounts without having ever seen the Mediterranean, let alone a Mus-
lim, but relied rather upon the reports of others. Thus their proxim-
ity to events could play a profound role in shaping their writing. With
these points in mind, this analysis will proceed on no assumption beyond
the broad notion that most of Christendom’s Catholic inhabitants will
have developed an attitude towards Islam that to varying degrees shows
the hallmarks of: theological teaching, knightly role models, and the
moulding power of their own instincts and experiences.

135 WT, vol. 2, p. 1002. 136 PT, pp. 97, 116.

137 Liudprand of Cremona, ‘Antapodosis’, Liudprandi Cremonensis Opera Omnia, ed.
P. Chiesa, CCCM CLVI (Turnhout: Brepols, 1998), p. 17.
2 The Launch of the First Crusade

“A nerve was touched of exquisite feeling; and the sensation vibrated to

the heart of Europe.”
Edward Gibbon, The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire1

Historical Background
At the council of Clermont on 27 November 1095, Pope Urban II did the
same thing that rulers across the Near East and Southern Asia (whether
Islamic, Hindu, or Christian) had been doing for over a century: he
launched a campaign against the Turks.
The Turks had long been a major force on the inner Asian steppe.
The Chinese began to view them as a serious threat back in the sixth
century (although fleeting references to their existence can be traced
back as far as the first century ce).2 Under the Tang dynasty (618–907)
increasing Turkish pressure on the empire’s western frontiers spawned
an uneasy relationship between the emperors and their Turkish steppe
neighbours, known to the Chinese as the ‘Tujue’.3 During the seventh
and eighth centuries, periods of peace, tribute, and diplomatic marriages
were punctuated by invasions and brutal confrontations. This phase of
warfare and diplomacy came to an end in 744 with the collapse of the
Second Turkish Kaghanate. Their place was taken by the Uighurs, again
a people of Turkic origins, whose kaghanate lasted until 840 AD.4
Moving south, the Arabs had known about the Turks since the seventh
century. Their forces encountered them after crossing the river Oxus
during the rapid expansion of Islam. In later years an uneasy relationship

1 Edward Gibbon, The history of the decline and fall of the Roman Empire (Ware, 1998),
p. 918.
2 D. Sinor, ‘The establishment and dissolution of the Türk empire’, The Cambridge history
of early inner Asia, ed. D. Sinor (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990), p. 285.
3 C. Findley, The Turks in world history (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005), p. 21.
4 D. C. Wright, ‘The northern frontier’, A military history of China (Lexington: University
Press of Kentucky, 2012), pp. 57–80.

67
68 The Launch of the First Crusade

existed between the two peoples, punctuated by wars and raids, but
for the most part the Turks’ military incursions were generally kept at
bay. Arab travellers journeyed among the steppe peoples at times and
sent home reports about the Turks and their various tribes.5 Many Turks
travelled south, occasionally as settlers, but often having been sold as mil-
itary slaves intended for Arab masters.6 Frequently, these slave soldiers
‘Ghulams’ rose to positions of prominence and formed an elite core within
Abbasid armies.
By the late tenth century the relatively stable frontier between the
nomadic lands of Inner Asia and Islamic Persia began to collapse.7 For
decades the Turkic peoples had been in the process of migrating west-
wards from their homelands in Mongolia into Central Asia; a movement
that brought them increasingly into contact with the Islamic world to the
south. At the same time, changing climatic conditions on the Central
Asian Steppe may have incited the Turks to move south, away from their
frozen winter pastures. They were joined in this movement by thousands
of fellow nomads, some travelling from as far afield as Tibet.8 The threat
posed by their incursions steadily increased, stretching frontline Muslim
rulers to breaking point. The Iranian Samanids of Transoxiana, whose
lands were already riven by famine and infighting, were the first to buckle.
The Samanids’ most dangerous Turkish neighbours, the Qarakhanids,
came to exert an irresistible pressure on their borders that was only
exacerbated by disaffection amongst their own Turkish slave soldiers.
After a bitter struggle, the Samanid capital of Bukhara fell in 999 and a
Turkish mamluk named Sebuktigin took power, founding the Ghaznavid

5 See the account written by Ibn Fadlan: Ibn Fadlān and the land of darkness, passim.
6 C. Bosworth, ‘Introduction’, The Turks in the early Islamic world, ed. C. Bosworth, The
formation of the classical Islamic world IX (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2007), pp. xxxix–xli.
See also R. Frye and A. Sayili, ‘Turks in the Middle East before the Saljuqs’, The Turks
in the early Islamic world, ed. C. Bosworth, The formation of the classical Islamic world
IX (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2007), pp. 179–212.
7 This section has drawn extensively upon: E. Bosworth, ‘The steppe peoples in the Islamic
World’, The new Cambridge history of Islam: volume 3: The eastern Islamic world, eleventh to
eighteenth centuries, ed. D. O. Morgan and A. Reid (Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 2010), pp. 21–49; Peacock, Early Seljūq History.
8 Ellenblum, Collapse of the eastern Mediterranean, pp. 61–62, 82. The extent to which the
changing climate caused the Turks to migrate is contested. Peacock has recently cast
doubt on the importance of this argument commenting that ‘it usually takes more than
one single factor to spark a migration’: A. Peacock, The Great Seljuk Empire, Edinburgh
history of the Islamic empires (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2015), pp. 24–
25, 288 (quote: p. 35). Ellenblum’s thesis has also been reviewed by Preiser-Kapeller in:
J. Preiser-Kapeller, ‘A collapse of the eastern Mediterranean? New results and theories
on the interplay between climate and societies in Byzantium and the Near East, ca. 1000–
1200 AD’. I am indebted to Johannes Preiser-Kapeller for sending me an advanced draft
of this article which will hopefully be published soon.
 Historical Background 69

Empire.9 The Qarakhanids’ victories over the settled peoples to the south
encouraged other Turkic groups to launch their own campaigns into the
area. Among these was a tribal confederation known as the Oghuz Turks,
led by the Saljuq family. They initially began to assert themselves in this
region as allies of the Qarakhanids and Ghaznavids. Even so it was not
long before they were acting independently and threatening their erst-
while allies. In the first decades of the eleventh century they started to
drive south, encroaching on Ghaznavid territory. The Ghaznavid ruler
Mas’ud marched out to meet the Saljuqs and their armies met with vic-
tory and defeat. Even so, the tide was turning against the Ghaznavids
and in 1035, and again in 1040 at Dandanqan, the Saljuq Turks won
two significant victories against Mas’ud and they subsequently pressed
home their advantage. Soon afterwards the Ghaznavids were swept aside
by the Saljuqs, who unseated them from power in much of their west-
ern territory. Freed from all restraint, the Saljuqs continued to drive
west encountering only limited resistance, conquering and devastating
much of Persia.10 They discovered that many regional Arab and Kurdish
potentates were all too ready to come to terms, while those who offered
resistance were crushed. In 1055 the Saljuq leader Tughril seized Bagh-
dad, assuming the title of sultan. In the decades that followed the Saljuqs
continued to consolidate their control, whilst expanding west into: Iraq,
the Jazira and eventually Syria and the Byzantine Empire.
Despite the defeats they received at the hands of the Saljuqs, the Ghaz-
navid Turks began to make substantial inroads to the east into Northern
India during the eleventh century. By this stage the Ghaznavids had aban-
doned much of their steppe way of life and assumed many of the practices
and beliefs of the agricultural societies of the south.11 Ghaznavid raiding
into Hind began in the early eleventh century and it was not long before
their newly won conquests were consolidated through the erection of
new settlements. By the 1030s, operating out of the city of Lahore, they
were able to assert control over much of the Punjab. These advances
marked the extent of the Ghaznavid conquests but in later years there
9 C. Bosworth, ‘The Turks in the Islamic lands up to the mid-11th century’, The Turks
in the early Islamic world, ed. C. Bosworth, The formation of the classical Islamic world
IX (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2007), pp. 193–212.
10 For discussion on this see: O. Safi, The politics of knowledge in premodern Islam: Negotiating
ideology and religious inquiry (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2006),
pp. 22–33.
11 A. Wink, ‘The early expansion of Islam in India’, The new Cambridge history of Islam:
volume 3: The eastern Islamic world, eleventh to eighteenth centuries, ed. D. O. Morgan
and A. Reid (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010), p. 90. The point has
also been made that many people groups who are generally labelled as nomadic include
communities who pursue a more sedentary lifestyle. H. Kim, The Huns, Rome and the
birth of Europe (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013), p. 42.
70 The Launch of the First Crusade

was considerable raiding beyond their frontiers. Their objectives in these

endeavours were plunder and captives and, to this end, many important
Hindu sites were looted.12
The Byzantines had long been aware of the Turks, who had been
both allies and antagonists in earlier periods. The first major diplomatic
contacts between the two occurred in 563 and later the Turks provided
much needed auxiliaries for Emperor Heraclius in his struggle with the
Persians.13 The Turks’ empire in Central Asia, however, fell into decline
in the eighth century and, as their power waned, they lost touch with Con-
stantinople. Byzantine writers and commentators turned their attention
instead to new threats and knowledge of the Turks faded. The empire’s
military strategists followed suit and where Maurice’s Strategikon, writ-
ten c. 592–610, offered advice upon Turkish tactics and warcraft, later
manuals produced in the tenth century had very little to say.14 They
were more preoccupied with the Arabs to the south or the danger of an
Avar invasion and their advice focused upon these strategic priorities.
On the rare occasion that the word ‘Turk’ was used at all, it referred
to the Hungarians and not to the Turks of inner Asia.15 The Byzan-
tines still encountered the Turks at times on the battlefield because they
often served as mercenaries or auxiliaries to the Arab armies of northern
Syria.16 Even so, the memory of Turkish tactics had evidently dwindled
because when a Byzantine army suddenly encountered a large Turkish
contingent supporting an Arab force invading Anatolia in July 838 they
were badly defeated and John Skylitzes recalled their shock at experienc-
ing the Turkish archery barrage that would become so familiar in later
years.17
The Turkish incursions into the Byzantine Empire during the eleventh
century dramatically reacquainted the Byzantines with the Turks. The
first Turkish raid upon Byzantine Asia Minor took place in c.1029 and
12 Wink, ‘The early expansion of Islam in India’, pp. 94–96.
13 Golden, ‘The peoples of the south Russian steppes’, p. 260; Sinor, ‘The establishment
and dissolution of the Türk empire’, p. 302. See also Nikephoros, patriarch of Con-
stantinople, Short history, trans. C. Mango, Corpus Fontium Historiae Byzantinae XIII
(Washington, DC: Dumbarton Oaks, 1990), p. 56; G. Leiser, ‘The Turks in Anatolia
before the Ottomans’, The new Cambridge history of Islam: volume 2: The Western Islamic
World, eleventh to eighteenth centuries, ed. M. Fierro (Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 2010), pp. 301–307.
14 Maurice’s Strategikon: Handbook of Byzantine military strategy, trans. G. Dennis
(Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1984), pp. xvi, 23, 116.
15 Three Byzantine military treatises, ed. and trans. G. Dennis (Washington, DC: Dumbar-
ton Oaks, 1985), pp. 280, 292.
16 The Byzantines also employed Turkish warriors and by 855 they formed an elite unit
within the Third Hctaeria of the imperial bodyguard: W. Treadgold, Byzantium and its
army: 284–1081 (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1995), p. 110.
17 JS, pp. 78–79.
 Historical Background 71

their attacks intensified in later years.18 Their incursions during the

1050s and 1060s affected much of Eastern Anatolia and many cities were
destroyed. In 1071 the Byzantine Emperor Romanus Diogenes marched
out in an attempt to stem the Turkish advance but on 19 August he
was heavily defeated at Manzikert. The Turkish commander, Sultan Alp
Arslan, did not follow up this victory, but news of the battle, linked to
political unrest within the Byzantine Empire, drew attention to the vul-
nerabilities of this region, encouraging multiple attacks by Turcoman
tribal groups. The defeat at Manzikert also provoked the Byzantines to
appeal to Rome for aid and Pope Gregory VII attempted to assemble an
army to help them. Even so, the pontiff was locked in conflict with the
German emperor and little was achieved.
Meanwhile, Turkish depredations were affecting the pilgrim routes to
Jerusalem and the Norman chronicler William of Apulia expressed his
concern about the effects of the Turkish onslaught on those wishing to
reach the Holy Land.19 He was not the only contemporary to recog-
nise this problem and Michael the Syrian (Jacobite patriarch, d. 1199)
reported that such pious visitors were often mistreated and heavily taxed;
a point also noted by the Muslim writer al-Azimi and later by Bar
Hebraeus.20
By 1095 the Byzantines’ need for reinforcements remained acute. The
important city of Nicaea was in Turkish hands and its loss meant that the
frontier with Turkish-held territory was only 60 miles from Constantino-
ple. Meanwhile, news of Turkish atrocities continued to proliferate across
the Near East. The Armenian and Byzantine histories of this period

18 Peacock, Early Seljūq History, p. 139.

19 William of Apulia, ‘Gesta Roberti Wiscardi’, MGHS, ed. R. Wilmans, vol. 9 (Hanover,
1851), p. 267. See also Frutolf of Michelsberg, ‘Chronicon’, MGHS, ed. G. Waitz, vol. 6
(Hanover, 1844), p. 208. The continuator to Frutolf’s chronicle – who participated in
the 1101 crusade – noted that the Turks had destroyed many monasteries and other
buildings around Jerusalem to provide stone for rebuilding the city walls. FE, p. 134.
See also ‘Gesta Adhemari, Episcopi Podiensis’, RHC: Oc, vol. 5 (Paris, 1895), p. 354.
20 MS, vol. 3, p. 182; C. Hillenbrand, The Crusades: Islamic perspectives (Edinburgh: Edin-
burgh University Press, 2006), p. 50. The History of the patriarchs of the Egyptian Church
describing the events of 1092–1093, explains how, after an initial period of persecu-
tion, the Turks appointed a Jacobite Christian to look after Christian visitors arriving
in the city, either from Egypt or from ‘other countries’. Exactly what conclusion should
be drawn from this statement concerning the Turks’ general treatment of pilgrims is
unclear, but it helps to build a more nuanced picture of their policies in the holy city:
History of the patriarchs, p. 364. See also GN, p. 16; Caffaro, De Liberatione Civitatum
Orientis, ed. L. Belgrano, Fonti per Storia D’Italia XI (Rome, 1890), pp. 99–100; Bar
Hebraeus, The chronography of Gregory Abû’l Faraj: The son of Aaron, the Hebrew physi-
cian commonly known as Bar Hebraeus, trans. E. Wallis Budge, vol. 1 (Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 1932), p. 234; BB, p. 5; ‘Chronicon monasterii Sancti Petri Anicien-
sis’, Cartulaire de L’abbaye de St Chaffre du Monastier, ed. U. Chevalier (Paris, 1891),
p. 162.
72 The Launch of the First Crusade

are filled with accounts of Turkish attacks while Norman mercenaries

returning to western Christendom likewise reported Turkish advances
and Byzantine defeat.
With warfare raging in Anatolia, the Fatimid rulers of Egypt were also
struggling for survival against the Turks. The Egyptians had long been
accustomed to recruiting Turkish warriors in large numbers, but in the
late 1060s feuding between these Turkic troops and the army’s Sudanese
contingents escalated into a protracted conflict that lasted for many years
(1062–1073). The Fatimids themselves were in no position to stem the
fighting. Egypt as a whole was in the grip of a protracted famine; the Nile
failed to rise between 1065 and 1072 with massive socio-economic reper-
cussions. The Fatimids’ inability to pay their troops had been one of the
major factors in sparking this confrontation.21 This disruption became
so serious that it posed an existential threat to the dynasty. These inter-
nal problems were soon exacerbated by the arrival of Turcoman forces
under Atsiz into Syria from the east. They had originally been called
in as Fatimid allies against Bedouin depredations but any notion of co-
operation was soon dispelled and their objectives swiftly morphed into
regional conquest. Jerusalem fell to the Turks in June/July 1073, and Tyre
and Damascus in 1075.22 Vast swaths of Fatimid territory were lost,
but some semblance of control was restored by the commander Badr
al-Jamali (Fatimid vizier from 1073) who firmly reimposed order and
defeated the rebellious Turks. He later defeated an invasion force led by
Atsiz outside the gates of Cairo in February 1077. Soon afterwards Badr
attempted to retake Syria, whose inhabitants were sufficiently encour-
aged by his progress to rise against their Turkish overlords. Jerusalem
was briefly retaken, but Badr was unable to restore Fatimid control to
Damascus. The struggle between the Fatimids and Turks rumbled on
up to the time of the First Crusade with neither party gaining ascen-
dency. When the Franks reached this area in early 1099 they found that
the Turks ruled the inland areas, operating out of Aleppo and Damascus,
whilst many of the coastal cities were still under Arab rule and maintained
some connection with the Fatimids.23
This history of the Turkish conquests of the eleventh century places
Urban’s call for a crusade in a broad historical context. By recruiting

21 Ellenblum, Collapse of the eastern Mediterranean, pp. 151–153.

22 AST, pp. 172, 190; M. Gil, A history of Palestine, 634–1099, trans. by E. Broido (Cam-
bridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992), pp. 409–410. This date is disputed see:
S. Gat, ‘The Seljuks in Jerusalem’, Towns and material culture in the medieval Middle East,
ed. Y. Lev (Leiden: Brill, 2002), 5–6.
23 L. al-Imad, The Fatimid vizierate, Islamkundliche Untersuchungen CXXXIII (Berlin:
Schwarz, 1990), pp. 99–119.
 Objectives 73

forces to combat this threat he was very far from unique; rather he was
acting in precisely the same way as almost every other major civilisation
within striking distance of the Eurasian steppe. This is an important point
because the First Crusade is often treated as a unique phenomenon; a
classic case study for the conflict between east and west. From this per-
spective, however, the First Crusade was simply the latest in a long line
of counter-offenses launched against Turkic groups by multiple civili-
sations whether Islamic, Christian, or Hindu from across Eurasia and
Northern Africa. It was perhaps the most successful of these ventures,
but it had only a localised impact on the Saljuq sultanate, which showed
little interest in its arrival, and several later Muslim authors of Turkish
histories did not bother to report the fact that either the First Crusade
or the subsequent Frankish settlement had ever taken place.24

Objectives
Having established the major predicates for our discussion, we now turn
to our main issue: the first crusaders’ attitude towards Islam. Here we
immediately enter deep water. The First Crusade can be constructed
in many different ways. Even the question of whether it was conceived
as an offensive or a defensive campaign raises many problems.25 On this
issue, arguments might be raised to support a variety of conclusions. To
take the offensive position in this debate, it might be pointed out that
the crusade set out to conquer much of the Levantine littoral and, most
importantly, the holy city of Jerusalem. These were frontier regions con-
tested between the Saljuq Turks and the Fatimid rulers of Egypt, which
posed no immediate threat to western Europe; so their actions here were
by definition offensive, not retaliatory. Jerusalem itself had not been in
Christian hands since 638AD – over four hundred years previously – so
the crusade was hardly a knee-jerk reaction to its loss. Likewise, if the cru-
sade had been intended as a defensive response to the centuries of Islamic
aggression against Europe (described in Chapter 1) then Spain or North
Africa would have been more appropriate targets. The counter-argument
could be made that the crusade set out to defend Byzantium from the

24 The history of the Seljuq state: A translation with commentary of the Akhbār al-dawla al-
saljūquiyya, trans. C. Bosworth, RSIT (Abingdon: Routledge, 2011); The History of the
Seljuq Turks, ed. C. Bosworth, trans. K. Luther (Richmond: Curzon, 2001). S. Mecit,
The Rum Seljuqs: Evolution of a dynasty, RSIT (Abingdon: Routledge, 2014), p. 140;
W. Montgomery Watt, The influence of Islam on medieval Europe (Edinburgh: Edinburgh
University Press, 1972), p. 57; Peacock, The great Seljuk Empire, pp. 82–83.
25 See also Asbridge, The Crusades, pp. 26–29.
74 The Launch of the First Crusade

Turks but this point could be headed off by pointing out that, especially
in the latter stages of the crusade, the pilgrims showed little interest in
providing protection for Greeks against Turkish attack. On these grounds
then the crusade could be constructed as a war of aggression.26
To take the defensive position, others might argue that Urban could
not possibly have anticipated the huge response that – in the event – he
provoked through his call for a crusade and that all he and Alexius had
ever really expected was to raise a force of knights to defend Byzantium.27
If true, then the crusade was initially conceived as a small and entirely
defensive expedition against the Turks, who were a new, not an old threat.
Even if a grander scheme had been intended, recent Turkish attacks on
pilgrims travelling to the east and their treatment of the local Christian
populace provide a defensive explanation for crusaders’ later acts and
choice of targets (especially Jerusalem). Thus they were guided by the
defensive desire to protect pilgrims, eastern Christians, and the holy places
of the east. In addition, viewed from a wider perspective, having suffered
centuries of Muslim aggression, the crusade could be seen as part of
a general counter-offensive against Islam including campaigns such as
the reconquest of Sicily and Toledo. Consequently, the crusade was a
defensive – or at least a retaliatory – action.
Alternatively, it is plausible to advance the idea that the crusade was
neither. According to this line of thought, some of its participants may
have been armed, but theirs was fundamentally a pilgrimage; an act of
penitential devotion that was all but irrelevant to the cut and thrust of
Christian and Islamic frontier politics. The participants were consumed
by an overriding desire to reach the holy city and were not particularly
interested in who defended it. Moreover, the papacy had launched the
campaign to provide western Christendom’s military elites with a spiritual
line of escape from a sinful life of disruptive infighting. The fact that
so many returned to western Christendom having reached Jerusalem
in 1099 demonstrates that these returnees at least were more concerned
with their own spirituality than conquering land from the ‘gentiles’. From
this perspective, the crusade was neither offensive nor defensive, but was
focused solely on Jerusalem and did not define itself in relation to the
Islamic world. The enemies they encountered were merely obstacles on
a spiritual journey to the east.

26 To an older school of thought, the Crusades were perceived as an act of colonisation.

See, for example: N. Daniel, The Arabs and mediaeval Europe (London: Longman, 1975),
p. 138.
27 For discussion on Urban and Alexius’ expectations see: France, ‘The First Crusade
and Islam’, 247; S. Runciman, A history of the Crusades, vol. 1 (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 1951), pp. 116–117; Cahen, Orient et Occident, pp. 57–58.
 Urban II 75

This issue of offense or defence is a significant question in its own

right, but it is also the issue that underpins the question of the first cru-
saders’ initial approach towards Islam. The crusaders’ objectives and the
significance of their Turkish opponents within those intentions contex-
tualise the question of the crusaders’ attitudes towards their opponents.
Were the crusaders recruited in an environment of hate-filled anti-Islamic
rhetoric, determined to seize or retake what they saw as their own? Did
they set out on a war of conquest, determined to expand the frontiers of
Christendom against the ‘infidel’? Or did they take the cross with their
minds focused squarely on Jerusalem and with barely a thought for the
enemy they would meet along the way? These are important questions
and this section will draw upon the materials produced in advance of
the crusade to define the role played by Turks/Arabs/Muslims within the
crusade’s initial objectives.

Urban II
Over the past nine centuries, commentators of every kind have specu-
lated about Pope Urban II’s motives in launching the First Crusade. For
historians in the twenty-first century (particularly those lecturers who
set this topic as an essay question) there is a well-worn portfolio of factors
that can be attributed to the pontiff ’s decision to instigate the campaign.
These include: the determination to respond to the Turkish threat; the
desire to seek reconciliation with the Byzantine Church; and an attempt
to end infighting amongst Frankish knightly families. Some also cite the
crusade’s relevance to the struggle between papacy and empire. These
themes have been discussed so exhaustively elsewhere that there is little
need to advance a new thesis consisting of a slightly-different flavoured
cocktail of motives. It will only be noted that doubtlessly many of these
considerations were at the front of the pope’s mind when he stood to
give his address at Clermont. What is of greater interest here however
is the question of what Pope Urban sent the crusade out to achieve.
This will be the focus of this present section because it is of the first
importance for this present study to ascertain both the role played by
the Turks/Arabs/Muslims within these initial intentions and the way in
which Urban presented them to his audiences.

Sources
One of the great temptations when investigating Urban II’s ambitions
for the crusade is to draw upon the accounts of his Clermont sermon,
which were written up in crusade narratives produced in the expedition’s
76 The Launch of the First Crusade

aftermath. The vehement and electric rhetoric found in these chronicles’

accounts is emotive and highly quotable. As has been pointed out, sev-
eral of these accounts were written by eyewitnesses who were present at
Clermont and the argument is often made that (making allowance for the
fact that they were written many years later) they probably convey at least
the gist of Urban’s original message. In a similar vein, it has also long been
claimed that because there are themes common to the various versions
of Urban’s address that these ideas must at least have been referenced
in his original sermon, even if the author may not have remembered the
exact wording of the actual oration.28 Marcus Bull, however, has cast
doubt on this approach, describing it as ‘methodological naivety’.29 Bull
stresses that it cannot be guaranteed that authors were self-consciously
attempting to recreate Urban’s actual words and therefore it is not
possible simply to cross-reference common topics. He convincingly
argues instead that their descriptions of Clermont, ‘amount to analyses of
the crusaders’ ideas and motivations, chronologically positioned before
the event as a matter of narrative cohesion’.30 Thus these accounts better
reflect the internalised memory and experience of their authors and are
not reliable as genuine attempts at reconstruction.
It is not the purpose of this discussion to pronounce judgement on
the general trustworthiness of the different versions of Urban’s address,
rather to consider their value as a guide to the way that Urban presented
his Turkish/Islamic enemies. On this point, Bull offers the thesis that
some elements of Urban’s original message can be wrung from these
narratives via an innovative methodology (even though their authors may
not have intended to recreate the exact wording of the original address).
His thesis can be reduced to the following logical argumentative progres-
sion:
r At Clermont, Urban presented his audience with a powerful and emo-
tive message, which was uniquely relevant to their thought-world.
r This message was then internalised by each member of the audience,
passing through their interpretative apparatus.

28 D. Munro, ‘The speech of Pope Urban II. at Clermont, 1095’, The American historical
review, 11.2 (1906), 231–242. For further discussion see: P. Cole, The preaching of the
Crusades to the Holy Land, 1095–1270 (Cambridge, MA: Medieval Academy of America,
1991), pp. 2–3; T. Asbridge, The First Crusade: A new history (Oxford: Oxford University
Press, 2004), p. 32; Flori, Pierre l’Ermite, p. 159.
29 M. Bull, ‘Views of Muslims and of Jerusalem in miracle stories, c.1000-c.1200: reflec-
tions on the study of the first crusaders’ motivations’, The experience of crusading: Volume
one, western approaches, ed. M. Bull and N. Housley (Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 2003), p. 22.
30 Bull, ‘Views of Muslims’, pp. 22–23.
 Urban II 77
r Many listeners were profoundly affected by the pope’s descriptions
of the crusade’s enemies and absorbed his chosen motifs into their
thought-world.
r The various crusade writers then produced their versions of Urban’s
speech, using it as a device for advancing their own ideas and moti-
vations rather than self-consciously attempting to reproduce Urban’s
exact words.
r Nevertheless, because their ideas surrounding the crusade had been
moulded by Urban’s original address and their perceptions still bore
the impact-craters created by his words, they still, to some extent,
reproduced the ideas in later texts that he had originally advanced.31
Consequently, Bull recognises that these sources still retain some value
for historians seeking to understand and recreate elements of Urban’s
actual message (and its description of the crusade’s enemies).
There is however a problem with his analysis in so far as it relates to the
pope’s presentation of the campaign’s enemy. If we accept Bull’s premise
that the various accounts of Urban’s sermon reflect the crusaders’ ideas
and are not genuine attempts to reproduce the pontiff’s language, then
it is necessary to incorporate into this analysis the indisputable fact that
the crusaders’ attitudes towards their enemies had not remained static in
the years between Clermont and the moment when they committed their
memories to writing following the campaign. In the intervening period,
participants encountered Turks and Arabs at first hand whether through:
battle, imprisonment, the reports of others, trade, diplomacy, or torture.
These often traumatic experiences will presumably have played a decisive
role in shaping their views; possibly altering them altogether. Even those
authors who are thought to have attended Clermont and yet did not
take part in the crusade will have been influenced by the reports carried
home by returning pilgrims. Thus, when these authors came to back-
project their ideas concerning Arabs/Turks onto their versions of the
Clermont address, it is stretching credulity to believe that their viewpoints
will still have carried the identifiable hallmarks of Urban’s words given the
powerful experiences they had undergone in the meantime. To take one
example, many of these narrative accounts of the Clermont sermon report
Urban’s condemnation of Turkish atrocities in Asia Minor. If we were
to follow the earlier methodology, then some of the pope’s emotive ideas
communicated at Clermont may have found their way into the crusade
narratives because of the impact they had on their listener. Even so, the
crusaders had passed through this region themselves and witnessed at
first-hand what had taken place. Presumably their lived-experience would

31 Bull, ‘Views of Muslims’, pp. 22–25.

78 The Launch of the First Crusade

have moulded their post-crusade perceptions in a way that Urban’s words

could never have achieved. Bull is correct to note that some of the themes
used in these later narratives occur in the more contemporary sources for
Urban’s preaching, nevertheless, as shall be shown in the next section,
there are also substantial discrepancies.
More reliable are the group of papal letters written between 1096 and
1097 which touch upon the crusade.32 These are briefer than the chron-
iclers’ accounts of the pontiff ’s sermon at Clermont, but they have the
advantage of being both contemporary and the product either of Urban
himself or his curia.33 In addition, there are other sources produced in
these years (1095–1097) which are also of value.34 The most numerous of
these are the charters, written by or for participants. These charters take
different forms, but frequently they are legal documents detailing trans-
actions concluded between a crusader busying himself with his imminent
departure and a religious institution. They concern matters ranging from
the sale of land to raise money for the campaign, to the purchase of mules.
They generally open with a brief statement of the individual’s objectives
for taking part and a small minority of such texts then describe the enemy
they intended to face. These documents can supply an insight into the
way that Urban presented the campaign’s enemy because many of them
were produced in monastic houses that the pontiff had either visited in
person during his four-month preaching tour or which lay close to his
route. Riley-Smith has demonstrated that many of the ideas and phrases
used in such documents reflect themes that were propounded in papal
crusading propaganda and so it seems reasonable to suggest that they
would have followed his nomenclature when describing the campaign’s
enemy.35

32 Bysted has similarly concluded that the letters are a better guide to Urban’s ideas than
the other post-crusade sources: Bysted, Crusade indulgence, p. 50. For later reports of
the decrees promulgated at the Council of Clermont, see: R. Somerville, The councils of
Urban II (Amsterdam: Adolf M. Hakkert, 1972), pp. 74, 108, 124.
33 These consist of letters written to: a group of Catalonian counts (Papsturkunden in
Spanien: Vorarbeiten zur Hispania Pontificia: I Katalanien, ed. P. Kehr (Berlin, 1926), pp.
287–288), the congregation of Vallombrosa (‘Papsturkunden in Florenz’, Nachrichten
von der Gesellschaft der Wissenschaften zu Göttingen philologisch-historische klasse, ed.
Wiederhold (Göttingen, 1901), pp. 313–314), the people of Flanders (Kb, pp. 136–
137); the people of Bologna (Kb, pp. 137–138), Bishop Peter of Huesca (Pope Urban
II, ‘Epistolae et Privilegia’, PL, vol. 151 (1853), col. 504), and the abbey of St Gilles,
(Pope Urban II,‘Epistolae et Privilegia’, cols. 477–478).
34 These include: a short chronicle written by Count Fulk Le Réchin of Anjou, ‘Fragmen-
tum historiae Andegavensis’, Chroniques des comtes d’Anjou et des seigneurs d’Amboise, ed.
L. Halphen and R. Poupardin (Paris, 1913), pp. 233–238 and a letter written by the
Countess Clemence of Flanders in 1097, Kb, pp. 142–143.
35 Riley-Smith has noted that whilst the charters reference many themes employed in the
papal preaching, there were some that do not seem to have resonated with his audience.
 Urban II 79

Who Was the Crusade Launched Against?

Drawing upon this source-base, it is necessary first to identify who Urban
II named as the crusade’s opponent. The most striking finding on this
question is that not one of the earlier sources – papal letters, chronicles,
charters – produced before 1098 mentions the ‘Turks’. Of the three
papal letters to name any enemy, two describe that enemy as ‘Saracens’36
and a third speaks more broadly of a ‘barbaric rage’ (barbarica rabies)
destroying the churches of the east.37 It is only in 1098, with the crusade
armies already en route to Jerusalem, that the ‘Turks’ were specifically
identified in papal correspondence.38 The chronicles and charters follow
a similar pattern. Count Fulk Le Réchin’s chronicle, written in 1096,
includes an account of Urban’s attempt to raise support for the crusade
in Angers. Here, the pontiff incited them to set out for Jerusalem and to
defeat the machinations of the ‘gentiles’ who had seized Christian land.39
Bernold, a monk at All Saints in Schaffhausen, likewise described how
Alexius’ envoys arrived at the council of Piacenza requesting aid against
the ‘pagans’.40
The charters are equally vague in their terminology. From a group
of sixty-nine charters that were produced in advance of the campaign,
fourteen (20%) name an enemy of some kind.41 To take one example,
Guy and Geoffrey of Signes stated their intention of ‘seeking Jerusalem,
both for the grace of pilgrimage and to destroy, with God’s protection, the

He points out that the idea of ‘fraternal love’, which was found in the preaching, was not
referenced in the charters. J. Riley-Smith, The first crusaders, 1095–1131 (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1997), pp. 61–66; J. Riley-Smith, ‘The idea of crusading in
the charters of the early Crusaders, 1095–1102’, Le Concile de Clermont de 1095 et l’Appel
à la Croisade (Rome: Ecole française de Rome, Palais Farnèse, 1997), pp. 155–166.
36 Papsturkunden in Spanien, pp. 287–288; ‘Papsturkunden in Florenz’, p. 313.
37 Kb, p. 136. See also Gabriele, Empire of memory, p. 152. Incidentally, he may be borrow-
ing here from Ammianus Marcellinus who uses this same phrase to describe troubles
occurring in Africa at the time of Valentinian: Ammianus Marcellinus, ed. and trans. J. C.
Rolfe, vol. 3, Loeb Classical Library CCCXXXI (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University
Press, 1939), p. 56 (book/chapter ref.: xxvii, 9, 1).
38 Pope Urban II, ‘Epistolae et Privilegia’, col. 504.
39 ‘Fragmentum historiae Andegavensis’, p. 238.
40 ‘Bernoldi chronicon’, MGHS, ed. G. Pertz, vol. 5 (Hanover, 1844), p. 462.
41 This group of sources has been formed by drawing together all identified First Crusade
charters (the vast majority of which were drawn from the appendices of Riley-Smith’s
The first crusaders) and then working through them in an attempt to identify which were
written in advance of the campaign and which were produced subsequently. Such a
division was generally possible because many charters state that they were written by
a crusader who was either on the point of departure or when he had just returned.
Charters have only been considered here if individuals almost certainly took part in
the crusade. As Riley-Smith points out, there are many charters which seem to indicate
that an individual took part, but which are not entirely clear. See: Riley-Smith, The first
crusaders, appendix I.
80 The Launch of the First Crusade

Table 1. Terms used to define the First Crusade’s opponents found in

charters produced in advance of the campaign

Name Frequency

Pagans 8
Saracens 2
Barbarians (or variants on this theme) 3
Wild Peoples 1
Enemies of Christianity 1

Please note that although only fourteen charters name an enemy, there are fifteen entries
here because one charter describes the intention of fighting ‘pagans and Saracens’.

pollution of the pagans and the excessive madness through which already
countless Christian people have been oppressed, taken captive and killed
with barbaric fury’.42
Describing the crusade’s enemy as ‘pagans’ was by far the most com-
mon term utilised in these documents as demonstrated in Table 1.
Moreover, ‘pagans’ appear in many of the charters that were pro-
duced in the religious houses which Urban II visited in person during his
preaching tour; a point that raises the possibility that they were guided
by him in their choice of language. The abbey of Marmoutier, for exam-
ple, where Urban stayed in March 1096, issued three documents for the
crusade which identified the expedition’s enemy as ‘pagans’.43 Among
these, Stephen of Blois declared his wish ‘to go to Jerusalem with the
Christian army, advancing against the pagans by the order of the Roman
Pope, namely Urban II’.44 Given the frequent reference made to ‘pagans’
in the charters and their authors’ proximity to Urban himself it is likely
that this name was favoured in papal propaganda. Certainly, a chronicle
written in the monastery of Chaize-le-Vicomte also speaks of the pope
preaching the crusade against ‘pagans’.45 Synthesising the earlier infor-
mation, it is probable that the papacy defined the crusade’s opponents
using a range of different terms. Of these, the name ‘Saracens’ appears
with the greatest frequency in the papal letters; the term ‘pagans’ in the
charters.

42 Cartulaire de l’abbaye de Saint-Victor de Marseille, ed. M. Guérard, vol. 1 (Paris, 1857),

no. 143.
43 Cartulaire de Marmoutier pour le Dunois, ed. E. Mabille (Châteaudun, 1874), nos. 64,
92, 151.
44 Cartulaire de Marmoutier pour le Dunois, no. 92.
45 G. Beech, ‘The abbey of Saint-Florent of Saumur, and the First Crusade’, Autour de
la Première Croisade: Actes du Colloque de la Society for the Study of the Crusades and the
Latin East, ed. M. Balard (Paris: Publications de la Sorbonne, 1996), p. 61.
 Urban II 81

Urban II’s use of such rather general and imprecise terminology is

significant; nevertheless, it is in complete accord with the language
employed by both his pontifical predecessors and successors in their
efforts to raise forces against the Turks in the east. The surviving papal
letters, which describe Gregory VII’s failed attempt to recruit an army
for the east, following the Turkish victory at Manzikert in 1071, use sim-
ilar terms. The vast majority describe the depredations of ‘pagans’, while
one speaks of ‘Saracens’; others speak more generally of the Devil being
at work.46 Similar terminology appears in Eugenius III’s bull Quantum
Praedecessores (issued in 1145/6). Here, the crusade encyclical states its
opposition to ‘pagans’, ‘enemies of the cross of Christ’ and ‘infidels’.47
Likewise, the Third Crusade bull Audita Tremendi (issued in 1187) speaks
of ‘barbarians’ and ‘pagans’.48 In each of these campaigns, the papacy
was fully aware that the Turks were the crusade’s primary enemy. Gregory
VII launched his campaign against the Turks in Asia Minor; Eugenius
III instigated the Second Crusade following the fall of the city of Edessa
(1144) to the Turkish ruler Zangi; and the Third Crusade was instigated
after the battle of Hattin against the largely Turkish forces under Kurdish
(Saladin’s) command (1187). We can be equally sure that when Urban
used the earlier-mentioned terms that he was referring to the Turks, even
if he did not name them explicitly. In many of his letters he spoke of the
wide-scale destruction taking place in the east; references which can only
apply to the advancing Turks.
Thus it is probable that Urban II, like other pontiffs, was adhering
to a topological norm in his preaching. The most striking aspect of all
these descriptors is that they are all spiritual classifications. Of these, the
most general is ‘pagans’. In contemporary parlance, it can be translated
as ‘non-Christians’ or ‘unbaptised’.49 In the sources from the tenth and
eleventh centuries it was applied regularly to a huge variety of neigh-
bouring peoples, including Normans, Hungarians, Vikings (before their
conversion), and Muslims. The only quality these peoples had in com-
mon was their adherence to a different religion. Thus, it seems likely
that the papacy was accustomed to classifying its opponents by belief

46 Register of Pope Gregory VII, pp. 50–51, 54–55, 94–95, 122–124, 128; Epistolae Vagantes,
p. 12.
47 Eugenius III, ‘Epistolae et privilegia’, PL, vol. 180 (1855), cols. 1064–6.
48 Gregory VIII, ‘Epistolae et privilegia’, PL, vol. 202 (1855), cols. 1539–1542.
49 For discussion see: M. Campopiano, ‘La culture pisane et le monde arabo-musulman:
entre connaissance réelle et héritage livresque’, Bien Dire et Bien Aprandre: Revue de
Médiévistique, Un exotisme littéraire médiéval?, ed. C. Gaullier-Bougassas, Actes du col-
loque du Centre d’Études Médiévales et Dialectales de Lille III (Lille: Université Lille,
2008), pp. 88–89. Nilsson points out that Christians could also be described as pagans
if they failed in their obedience to God and the Church: Nilsson, ‘Gratian on pagans’,
pp. 154, 160.
82 The Launch of the First Crusade

and not by using specifically ethnonyms, such as Turk. As mentioned

earlier, there was one letter in 1098 in which the papacy did allude to
Turks. This was in a letter to Bishop Peter of Huesca where he described
how God was fighting through the Christians against the ‘Turks in Asia
and the Moors in Europe’. He then went on to describe how Huesca
needed to be freed from the ‘Saracens’.50 In this correspondence, how-
ever, Urban was alluding to the threats posed by various groups from
within Islam and he appears to have used the name ‘Turks’ simply to
distinguish one sub-group from another. Drawing these points together,
it is reasonable to conclude that when Urban II launched the crusade, his
intended enemy may have been the Turks, but his stated enemy was given
either as ‘Saracens’ or as a ‘non-Christian people’ (pagans/gentiles). His
lack of consistency on this point implies that the specific religious identity
of his enemy was hardly important beyond the plain fact that they were
non-Christian.
Incidentally, the terms used both by Urban in his letters and by par-
ticipants in their charters underscore the earlier-mentioned problems
involved in using the First Crusade chroniclers’ narrative accounts of
Urban’s Clermont sermon. The most commonly discussed versions
of Urban’s speech are those written by Robert the Monk, Fulcher
of Chartres, Guibert of Nogent, and Baldric of Bourgueil. They
describe their intended opponents as: ‘a race from the kingdom of the
Persians’ (Robert the Monk),51 ‘Turks, a Persian people’ (Fulcher
of Chartres),52 ‘gentiles’ and ‘paganism’ (Guibert of Nogent),53 and
‘Turks’, ‘gentiles’, ‘Saracens’, and ‘pagans’ (Baldric of Bourgueil, bishop
of Dol).54 As shown earlier, the name ‘Turk’ does not appear in any con-
text pre-1098 and we shall see the name ‘Persians’ appears only once in
a letter written by the countess of Flanders.55 The terms used by these
chroniclers reflects rather the terminology that the crusaders learnt to
use during the campaign itself (much of which derived from a Byzan-
tine origin – see later) and bears little relation to the language employed
during its recruitment phase. The name ‘gentile’ occurs only in one
narrative contemporary to the crusade’s recruitment.56 Only Guibert of
Nogent and Baldric of Bourgueil use terms that were employed routinely
in papal sources and the crusade charters pre-1098, but these are mixed
among names which did not proliferate until much later. Thus, there are
substantial differences in nomenclature between the contemporary mate-
rials for the launch of the crusade and later narratives. These findings

50 Pope Urban II, ‘Epistolae et Privilegia’, col. 504. 51 RM, p.5.

52 FC, p. 133. 53 GN, pp. 112, 114. 54 BB, pp. 6–10.
55 Kb, p. 142–143. 56 ‘Fragmentum historiae Andegavensis’, p. 238.
 Urban II 83

cast further doubt on even the most nuanced attempts to identify how
Urban actually described the campaign’s foe using these later narrative
sources.
Having established how Urban defined his foe, it is necessary to con-
sider what he sought to achieve through the crusade (and his enemies’
role within these objectives).

What Was the Stated Purpose of the Campaign?

The argument has been advanced that Urban could not have anticipated
the huge response he provoked through his call for a crusade. It is more
reasonable to conclude that he anticipated raising a smaller professional
force with the limited goal of supplementing the Byzantine army. Prima
facie this argument has the ring of truth to it because it stretches credulity
to believe that Urban could genuinely have foreseen that he would muster
a horde strong enough to: cross much of Europe; carve a path across over
a 1000 miles of enemy territory; and then take and hold a city without
immediate access to maritime supply routes. On so many grounds, it
seems fair to reject the notion that such goals could ever have been
seriously contemplated.
And yet, the papal letters issued during the preparations for the cru-
sade are entirely consistent on this point. Among those written before
the departure of the main armies, all but one gives Jerusalem as at least
one of the main goals. For example, in October 1096 Urban wrote to the
monks of Vallombrosa, in an attempt to dissuade any of the monks from
taking part:
We have heard that some of you want to set out with the knights who are making
for Jerusalem with the good intention of liberating Christianity. This is the right
kind of sacrifice, but is planned by the wrong kind of person. For we were
stimulating the minds of knights to go on this expedition, since they might be able
to restrain the savagery of the Saracens by their arms and restore the Christians
to their former freedom: we do not want those who have abandoned the world
and vowed themselves to spiritual warfare either to bear arms or to go on this
journey.57

Whilst this letter was intended to prevent these monks from taking part,
it laid out clearly the campaign’s objectives: the need to offer resistance
to those who threaten Christianity; the desire to free the Christians of
the Near East; and in particular the determination to regain Jerusalem.

57 ‘Papsturkunden in Florenz’, p. 313. Translation from L. and J. Riley-Smith (eds and

trans), The Crusades: idea and reality, 1095–1274 (London: Edward Arnold, 1981),
p. 39.
84 The Launch of the First Crusade

Two of the other letters – to the people of Flanders and Bologna – are
largely consistent on each of these objectives. In each case they speak of:
Jerusalem, the desire to secure the ‘liberation’ (liberatio) of the Christians
and churches of the east, and the need to offer some defence against
their persecutors.58 A further letter is more concise. It confirms Count
Raymond of Toulouse’s renunciation of his rights to the abbey of Saint-
Gilles during the council of Nimes. It mentions the crusade only in
passing, referencing that the count was about to go on the ‘expedition
to Jerusalem’.59 Clearly, in this passage Urban reduced the campaign to
its barest essentials and it is significant to note that it is Jerusalem itself,
rather than any other motive, that he selected to define the campaign.
In this case, the Turks, ‘Saracens’, ‘pagans’ were not even mentioned.
The prioritisation of this objective above the others is also communicated
through the various ecclesiastical sources purporting to enumerate the
Clermont degrees. Of these, three mention the crusade and each identi-
fied the liberation of Jerusalem as at least one of its objectives. Only one
names another goal, which is to liberate the churches of Asia from the
‘Saracens’.60
Consequently, it is necessary to reaffirm that Urban felt that a cam-
paign to Jerusalem was a plausible and realisable ambition.61 The bold-
ness of this decision is astonishing and highly suggestive. The fact that
the crusade did capture Jerusalem should not belie the fact that, at
the outset, such a goal was implausible in the extreme; the military

58 Riley-Smith, The First Crusade and the idea of crusading, pp. 18, 22–23. Kb, pp. 136–138.
59 Pope Urban II, ‘Epistolae et Privilegia’, col. 478.
60 Somerville, The councils of Urban II, pp. 74, 108, 124.
61 For a sample of the discussion on the centrality of Jerusalem as the objective for the
crusade see: J. Riley-Smith, The First Crusade and the idea of crusading, pp. 20–25;
Morris, The sepulchre of Christ, p. 177; A. Jotischky, ‘Pilgrimage, procession and ritual
encounters between Christians and Muslims in the Crusader States’, Cultural encounters
during the Crusades, ed. K. Jensen, K. Salonen and H. Vogt (Odense: University Press
of Southern Denmark, 2013), p. 245; Riley-Smith, ‘The idea of crusading’, p. 156;
S. Schein, Gateway to the heavenly city: Crusader Jerusalem and the Catholic west (1099–
1187), Church, faith and culture in the medieval west (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2005),
pp. 9–20; J. Flori, ‘Première croisades et conversion des ⬍⬍paı̈ens⬎⬎’, Migrations et
Diasporas Méditerranéennes (Xe–XVIe siècles), ed. M. Balard and A. Ducellier (Paris:
Publications de la Sorbonne, 2002), p. 449; B. McGinn, ‘Iter Sancti Sepulchri: the piety
of the first crusaders’, The Walter Prescott Webb lectures: Essays in medieval civilization, ed.
R. Sullivan (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1978), p. 44; Flori, Pierre l’Ermit, p. 165.
The older orthodoxy that the crusade was launched in defence of eastern Christians
advanced by Erdmann has now been widely discredited. See: France, ‘destruction
of Jerusalem’, 2. More recently Berend has commented, using Fulcher of Chartres’
chronicle as evidence ‘the possibility remains, however, that Jerusalem did not feature
as a significant part of Urban’s message’. Nevertheless, the above evidence and the
contemporary charters (see later) are consistent on this point. Berend, ‘The concept of
Christendom’, 58.
 Urban II 85

objections were formidable. The risks involved in launching the cru-

sade for the pope himself would have been compounded by the fact that
his own position was precarious. In 1095 he was confronted by both an
anti-pope and his ongoing struggle with the German emperor; a failure
on this scale would have cost him dearly. The only possibility that remains
is that Urban was driven by a sense of spiritual purpose so overwhelming
that it could overcome all objections.
He may have had other ends in mind. Frankopan has recently drawn
attention to the close interaction between Urban and Emperor Alexius
on the eve of the crusade and stressed the importance of the expedi-
tion for Latin/Greek relations.62 By extension, Urban would presumably
have been aware that the successful outcome of the crusade would have
strengthened the papacy’s position across the board. Even so, his primary
stated goal was Jerusalem.63 Liberating eastern Christians from ‘pagans’
and ‘Saracens’ was clearly important, but within the papacy’s published
goals it emerges as a distinctly secondary initiative.

How did Urban Present His Enemy?

Having discussed the terminology Urban used to identify his Turkish
enemies and the significance of those foes (or lack of it) in his wider objec-
tives, it is necessary to explore the wider language he used to describe
the Turks’ general character and their actions in Anatolia.
The sources which have been discussed with the greatest frequency on
this point are the accounts of Urban’s speech at Clermont which were
produced by crusade chroniclers following the conquest of Jerusalem.
These contain lengthy denunciations of the Turks, drawing especial atten-
tion to their depredations in Anatolia. Fulcher of Chartres, for example,
describes how:
The Turks, a Persian people . . . have seized more and more of the lands of the
Christians, have defeated them in seven times as many battles, killed or cap-
tured many people, have destroyed churches and have devastated the kingdom
of God.64

62 P. Frankopan, The First Crusade: The call from the East (London: Bodley Head, 2012),
passim.
63 Mayer offers a contrasting view, arguing that Jerusalem was not the crusade’s initial
stated aim, but that it became so in the years following Clermont. H. Mayer, The
Crusades, trans. J. Gillingham, 2nd ed. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1990), pp. 9–
10. MacEvitt challenges the notion that there was a ‘single goal’ that represented the
‘essence’ of Urban’s plan: C. MacEvitt, The Crusades and the Christian world of the East:
Rough tolerance (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2008), p. 48.
64 Translation from Chronicles of the First Crusade: 1096–1099, ed. C. Tyerman (London:
Penguin, 2012), pp. 9–10. FC, pp. 133–134.
86 The Launch of the First Crusade

For the reasons given earlier, it is difficult to trust that these narra-
tive accounts can provide any real guidance on Urban’s actual words at
Clermont. Even so, it is not unlikely that Urban described the Turks’
destructive wars of Anatolia with considerable enmity. In three of his
letters (produced between 1095 and 1097), he denounced the savagery,
barbaric fury, and tyranny of his foe and it seems reasonable to speculate
that he touched on this point in his sermons.
Contemplating the aggressive character that Urban II ascribed to the
Turks it is tempting to conclude that his words were mere propaganda;
simply emotive language designed to enrage the crowds and drive recruit-
ment. Viewed from one perspective, it is not especially important whether
Urban delivered an exaggerated or fabricated account of the Turks’ deeds.
Factual or not, his audience was still informed that a cruel and barbaric
enemy awaited them in the east. Even so, in a discussion on Urban’s
objectives and general posture this issue acquires greater significance.
There is a considerable difference in stance between a pope acting vig-
orously to protect co-religionists in the east who were actually suffering
intensely and a pontiff cynically constructing unfounded tales of cruelty
and slaughter in a premeditated effort to incite hatred. If the former sce-
nario is the more accurate then the pope may simply have been acting as
a leader diligently intent on protecting his fellow Christians; if the latter,
then he was deliberately constructing horrific accusations in an attempt
to provoke a sense of fury among his co-religionists. The only way to
determine which of these two interpretations is the more likely is to turn
to the actual events which took place in Asia Minor during this period.
Certainly Urban would have been aware of the real state of affairs in
that region through the reports of papal embassies, Byzantine envoys,
returning pilgrims, and warriors.
The destructiveness of the Turkish conquest of Anatolia during the
eleventh century is a theme that contemporary authors from a wide range
of ethnic and religious backgrounds dwelt upon at length.65 Accounts of
this invasion were produced by Arab Muslims and Christians, Arme-
nians, Georgians, Byzantines, and Latins. In many cases they inter-
preted the event very differently. In the Akhbār al-dawla al-saljūquiyya
the Turkish incursions into Anatolia are offered as a potent exam-
ple of the Turks’ role in securing a significant advance for the Islamic

65 There has been considerable discussion on the impact of the Turkish invasions. For
a recent survey which tends to play down their overall impact see: Peacock, Early
Seljūq History, pp. 128–164. Nevertheless, Ellenblum paints a rather darker picture of
Turkish forces ranging across wide regions having been forced south by climatic changes.
Ellenblum, Collapse of the eastern Mediterranean, passim.
 Urban II 87

religion.66 For the Armenian monk, Matthew of Edessa, their arrival

was presented as a tragic but inevitable period of suffering in a chain
of events that would ultimately culminate with the apocalypse.67 The
Frankish monk, Guillermus, mentioned Turkish depredations only as
a preface to a tale explaining how he managed to gain possession of an
important relic – the head of Saint James the Persian – during his sojourn
in Byzantine service.68 St Christodoulos (d.1093) mentioned their incur-
sions in the early sections of the monastic rule he wrote in 1091 for the
monastery of St John the Theologian on Patmos; an institution founded
in 1088 with financial assistance from Emperor Alexius.69 The agendas
advanced by each of these authors add a distinct flavour to their ver-
sions of events but on one point there is a general consensus: that the
Turkish conquest was an exceptionally destructive process. Anna Com-
nena, eldest daughter of Alexius I (d. c. 1153) describes it as follows:
Since the accession of Diogenes, the barbarians had invaded the Roman Empire,
at which point he had taken the first step to deal with them by launching a
disastrous expedition against them. From that time until the reign of my father
[Emperor Alexius], the barbarian terror had gone unchecked: swords and spears
had been sharpened against the Christians; there had been battles and wars and
massacres. Towns were wiped out, lands ravaged, all the territories of Rome
stained with Christian blood. Some died miserably, pierced by arrow or lance;
others were driven from their homes and carried off as prisoners of war to the
towns of Persia.70

Tales of this kind abound in many surviving sources. The Aleppan chroni-
cler Kamal al-Din (d. 1262), speaking of Turkish depredations in North-
ern Syria in the 1070s, said that they were the worst the region had
ever encountered (and, as Zakkar points out, he was writing following
the Mongol invasions).71 Other reports speak of the flight of Anatolian
refugees away from the fighting, seeking refuge in Constantinople, the
66 The history of the Seljuq state, pp. 34–35. See also C. Hillenbrand, Turkish myth and
Muslim symbol: The battle of Manzikert (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2007),
pp. 52–58.
67 C. MacEvitt, ‘The chronicle of Matthew of Edessa: apocalypse, the First Crusade, and
the Armenian diaspora’, Dumbarton Oaks papers 61 (2007), 158.
68 J. Shepard, ‘⬎⬎How St James the Persian’s head was brought to Cormery⬍⬍. A relic
collector around the time of the First Crusade’, Zwischen Polis, Provinz und Periph-
erie: Beiträge zur byzantinischen Geschichte und Kultur, ed. L. Hoffmann (Wiesbaden:
Harrassowitz, 2005), p. 298.
69 ‘Christodoulos: rule, testament and codicil of Christodoulos for the monastery of St.
John the Theologian on Patmos’, Byzantine monastic foundation documents, ed. J. Thomas
and A. Hero, trans. P. Karlin-Hayter, vol. 2 (Washington, DC: Dumbarton Oaks
Research Library, 2000), pp. 579–580.
70 Translation taken from AC, p. 463.
71 S. Zakkar, The emirate of Aleppo, 1004–1094 (Beirut: Dar Al-Amanah & El-Risalah
Publishing House, 1971), p. 200. See also Gil, A History of Palestine, p. 420.
88 The Launch of the First Crusade

Aegean or the western tip of Asia Minor.72 To take one example, the
monastic community at Mt Latmus was forced to flee to the coastal
city of Strobilos, but even there they did not feel safe because shortly
afterwards they withdrew to the isle of Cos.73
More recently archaeological studies have been able to add extra layers
of detail to this picture. The ongoing investigations into the city of Amo-
rium have revealed a settlement that: was destroyed in 838 by an Arab
invasion; recovered steadily during the tenth and early eleventh centuries;
and then went into steep decline following the Turkish advance.74 This
is merely one of a large number of Anatolian cities that was sacked or
destroyed by the Turks during this period and Vryonis has assembled a
long and sobering list of settlements which met this fate at around this
time.75
Naturally, such devastation would have had a significant effect on the
rural economy and agriculture and this is revealed in analyses of pollen
data drawn from samples of lake sediment taken from a selection of
Anatolian lakes. Using such palynological analyses it is possible to chart
the changing vegetation of the area surrounding the lakes in question
and recent studies have shown that there was a marked decline in cereal
pollen in several key regions during the late eleventh century; a clear
indicator of a rapid fall in organised agriculture.76 It is only in the late
twelfth century that the pollen data shows that cereal agriculture staged a
slight recovery.77 This would chime with the image of a society suffering
the turmoil of relentless raiding and dislocation evoked so clearly by the
late-eleventh-century Armenian writer Aristakes, although it may also
have been exacerbated by changing regional climatic conditions.78 The

72 S. Vryonis, The decline of medieval hellenism in Asia Minor and the process of Islamization
from the eleventh through the fifteenth century (Berkeley: University of California Press,
1971), p. 169.
73 C. Foss, ‘Strobilos and related sites’, Anatolian studies 38 (1998), 149. Jotischky has
similarly concluded that the destructiveness of the Saljuq invasions into Anatolia needs
to be taken seriously. He draws heavily upon accounts produced by local Christians
during the late eleventh-century: Jotischky, ‘The Christians of Jerusalem’, 47–48.
74 C. Lightfoot and E. Ivison, ‘The Amorium project: The 1995 excavation season’, Dum-
barton Oaks papers 51 (1997), 300.
75 Vryonis, The decline of medieval hellenism, pp. 166–167.
76 For discussion see: A. Izdebski, ‘The changing landscapes of Byzantine Anatolia’,
Archaeologia Bulgarica 16.1 (2012), 59.
77 W. Eastwood et al., ‘Integrating palaeoecological and archaeo-historical records: Land
use and landscape change in Cappadocia (central Turkey) since late Antiquity’, Archae-
ology of the countryside in medieval Anatolia, ed. T. Vorderstrasse and J. Roodenberg
(Leiden: Nederlands Instituut voor het Nabije Oosten, 2009), p. 58.
78 Aristakēs Lastivertc ‘I’s history, trans. R. Bedrosian (New York: Sources of the Arme-
nian Tradition, 1985), pp. 121–122; Ellenblum, Collapse of the eastern Mediterranean,
passim. Preiser-Kapeller certainly underlines the importance of a wider array of factors
(including climatic issues) beyond simply Turkish attacks. He also offers a useful survey
 Urban II 89

Georgian chronicle History of David, King of Kings explains this problem

clearly:
Such affliction for the Christians continued long. For in the springtime the Turks
would come and carry out (depredations) like those first ones. In the winter they
would leave. In those times there was neither sowing nor harvest. The land was
ruined and turned into forest; in place of men, beasts and animals of the field
made their dwelling there.79

Likewise, Michael Attaleiates made explicit reference to shortages in var-

ious foodstuffs experienced in Constantinople during the 1070s as well
as the crowds of refugees seeking shelter in the capital from the Turks.80
In addition to the decline of rural agriculture in parts of Eastern Anato-
lia, many commercial cities either went into decline or were destroyed. In
1049, for example, Artze – a major terminus for goods from Persia, India,
and Asia – was sacked, again a major blow to the Anatolian economy.81
Still the picture of collapse is not universal. The palynological analyses
are not consistent but reveal a decline of cereal pollen (and therefore
local agriculture) in some areas but not in others.82 Some international
commerce evidently survived Turkish occupation. The Venetians and
Amalfitans are both known to have continued trading in Antioch follow-
ing its fall to the Turks in 1084. In 1087, they were apparently still able
to purchase high-value goods there, such as gems, silk, and carpets.83
Even so, merchants from Bari had a rather different experience. When
they attempted to reach Antioch in the same year, they put in at Myra
(s. coast Anatolia) and were dissuaded from continuing to their destina-
tion on the strength of reports that the Turks had devastated that area.84
Consequently, although the invading Turks clearly caused considerable
disruption, it is necessary to note that their impact could vary consider-
ably across different regional zones.

of the palynological surveys conducted to date, see: Preiser-Kapeller, ‘A collapse of the

eastern Mediterranean?’
79 Translation from ‘The history of David’, p. 311. 80 MA, p. 384.
81 A. Laiou, ‘Economic and noneconomic exchange’, The economic history of Byzantium,
ed. A. Laiou, vol. 2, Dumbarton Oaks studies XXXIX (Washington, DC: Dumbarton
Oaks Research Library, 2002), p. 748.
82 See: Preiser-Kapeller, ‘A collapse of the eastern Mediterranean?’
83 D. Jacoby, ‘Venetian commercial expansion in the eastern Mediterranean, 8th–11th
centuries’, Byzantine trade, 4th–12th centuries: the archaeology of local, regional and inter-
national exchange, ed. M. M. Mango, Studies for the promotion of Byzantine studies
XIV (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2009), p. 388; M. Carr, ‘Between Byzantium, Egypt and the
Holy Land: the Italian maritime republics and the First Crusade’, Jerusalem the golden:
The origins and impact of the First Crusade, ed. S. Edgington and L. Garcı́a-Guijarro,
Outremer: studies in the Crusades and the Latin East III (Turnhout: Brepols, 2014),
pp. 76–77.
84 Hugh of Fleury, ‘Liber qui modernorum regum Francorum continet actus’, MGHS,
vol. 9 (Hanover, 1851), p. 392.
90 The Launch of the First Crusade

Another group of sources that bear upon this matter are the accounts of
Urban’s speech at Clermont produced following the crusade. As shown
earlier, these provide a poor guide for Urban’s actual words at Clermont,
but on this present subject (the actual impact of the Turkish invasions
into Anatolia) they are of value. This study – following Marcus Bull –
will approach them as the manifestations of their authors’ own ideas
and lived experience, rather than genuine attempts at reconstructing the
pope’s sermon. On this basis, their descriptions of the Turks’ behaviour
in Anatolia are relevant to this discussion.85
These authors had either crossed Asia Minor in person or they were
at least drawing upon the accounts of those who had. The crusaders
had passed through many devastated regions and, to take one example,
when the crusaders fought their famous battle at Dorylaeum (1 July
1097), they did so next to the abandoned ruins of this once great city
which had been destroyed by the Turks in c. 1080.86 Stephen of Blois
commented in a letter to his wife that the army had passed the city of
Nicomedia, which had been looted by the Turks.87 The continuator of
Frutolf’s chronicle (participant in the 1101 crusade) described his horror
at the damage inflicted upon the chapels in Asia Minor and in particular
the desecration of images of Jesus, the Virgin Mary, and the saints. He
observed in particular that it was their appendages, noses, ears, hands,
or feet that had been violated.88 Having visited these sites in person, this
writer’s description is plausible, but even the nature of these described
assaults provides further corroboration. The Turks are widely reported
to have shamed their victims (whether human or in this case depictions
of religious figures) by deforming their noses or ears. They are said to
have acted in this way by Albert of Aachen in assaults against Armenian
women in Tarsus, while a poem by Solomon ha-Kohen describing the
Turks’ wars in the Levant in the 1070s also bears witness to this same
practice.89 Alexius I’s general Tatikios was famously said to have had his
nose cut off.90

85 Asbridge, by contrast, argues that accusations of this kind had ‘little or no basis in fact’:
Asbridge, The First Crusade, p. 34.
86 Deeds of John and Manuel Comnenus by John Kinnamos, trans. C. Brand (New York:
Columbia University Press, 1976), p. 220. The Byzantines did not return to Dorylaeum
until 1175 when Manuel Comnenus reconquered the area.
87 Kb, p. 139. 88 FE, p. 134.
89 AA, p. 158; Gil, A History of Palestine, p. 416. J. H. Greenstone, ‘The Turkoman defeat
at Cairo by Solomon ben Joseph Ha-Kohen’, The American journal of semitic languages
and literatures 22:2 (1906), 165.
90 For an example, see MA, p. 278. See also J. Haldon, ‘Humour and the everyday in
Byzantium’, Humour, history and politics in Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages, ed.
G. Halsall (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004), pp. 65–66. The crusaders
also acted in this way at times (see: AA, p. 458; ‘Anonymous Syriac chronicle’, trans.
 Urban II 91

Consequently, statements about the nature of these invasions made

either by the crusaders themselves or based on information received from
returning pilgrims (albeit back-projected into their versions of Urban’s
speech) should not be so lightly laid aside. Jotischky has recently shown
that the charge contained in Baldric of Bourgueil’s version of Urban’s
speech, concerning goods stolen by the Turks from the Holy Sepulchre,
seems to derive from either a pilgrim account or a Greek source and not
from his imagination.91 To take another example, let us look at the alle-
gations made by Robert the Monk in his version of Urban’s speech. His
accusations against the Turks can be reduced to the following charges:
the destruction and conversion of churches, widespread destruction of
property, slave-taking, the forcible circumcision of Christians and the
torture and, by implication, rape of Christians. He also claims that the
Turks executed Christians by tying them to stakes and shooting them
with arrows.92 Often these are presented by historians as hostile repre-
sentations and certainly Robert imbues his descriptions with a gruelling
level of detail clearly intended to provoke a powerful emotional reaction
from his audience. Yet there is nothing implausible about many of his
basic charges.93 Slave-taking, forced conversion / circumcision and the
destruction of churches are widely referenced by sources, including Mus-
lim and Georgian chronicles.94 Ibn al-Athir reports that during the 1048–
1049 Turkish attack upon Anatolia, the invaders took 100,000 prisoners

A. Tritton, Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society 65 (1933), 85.) and such practices were
not entirely unknown in western Christendom. See, for example, H. Cowdrey, ‘New
dimensions of reform: war as a path to salvation’, Jerusalem the golden: the origins and
impact of the First Crusade, ed. S. Edgington and L. Garcı́a-Guijarro, Outremer: studies
in the Crusades and the Latin East III (Turnhout: Brepols, 2014), p. 14. See also
J. Frembgen, ‘Honour, shame, and bodily mutilation: Cutting off the nose among tribal
societies in Pakistan’, Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society 16 (2006), 243–260.
91 In this article Jotischky also begins to consider whether the accusations levelled against
the Turks in other chronicles have some basis in reality: Jotischky, ‘The Christians of
Jerusalem’, 49–52.
92 RM, p. 5.
93 Housley, ‘The Crusades and Islam’, 201. For further discussion on the question of
reality/representation in Robert’s account of these acts see: B. Catlos, Infidel kings and
unholy warriors: Faith, power and violence in the age of Crusade and Jihad (New York:
Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2014), p. 244; Völkl, Muslime – Märtyrer – Militia Christi,
pp. 164–165, 181–84.
94 Raymond of Aguilers’ chronicle includes accounts of Christian communities near Tyre
being subjected to forced circumcision. He also seemingly describes forced conversions
taking place after the Turks’ conquest of Antioch. See: RA, pp. 64, 129. A Georgian
chronicle makes the same charge: ‘The history of David’, p. 311. Ellenblum has also
drawn attention to references to forced conversion in the Danishmendnameh, which
describes the deeds of the Danishmendeds in Anatolia and the Jazira during the late
eleventh century. This account also describes the destruction of churches. Ellenblum,
The Decline of the eastern Mediterranean, pp. 245–246. See also A. Beihammer, ‘Defection
across the border of Islam and Christianity: apostasy and cross-cultural interaction
92 The Launch of the First Crusade

along with a vast haul of plunder.95 This figure is presumably inflated,

but it is clear that large numbers were taken into captivity. Widespread
raiding across many parts of Byzantine Anatolia is also well attested in
the texts discussed earlier, including Ibn al-Athir’s chronicle.96 Likewise,
the tenth-century Iranian author Ibn Faqih al-Hamadhani described
how the Turks were accustomed to launch slave-taking expeditions,
searching particularly for women and children.97 In a similar vein, the
Akhbār al-dawla al-saljūquiyya recalls the destruction of churches in towns
near to Ani (which fell in 1064) and their replacement with mosques.98
Michael the Syrian also described the transformation of the church of
Cassianus in Antioch into a mosque by Suleiman ibn Qutalmish follow-
ing its conquest in 1084. The crusaders later observed that the Turks had
covered the church’s statues of the saints with cement.99
The suggestion that the Turks executed their victims by shooting
them with arrows is also referenced in both Armenian and other Frank-
ish sources. Orderic Vitalis describes the Turkish ruler Balak execut-
ing his prisoners in this way. Walter the Chancellor’s history contains
similar reports describing the treatment of prisoners held in Aleppo by
Il-ghazi.100 In addition, Gervase of Bazoches, ruler of Tiberias, met a sim-
ilar fate in 1108 at the hands of the Damascene ruler Tughtegin. Having
been taken captive and with the failure of ransom negotiations, Tughtegin
took him to the centre of Damascus and executed him by this means. His
scalp was then cut off and his skull was turned into a cup.101 Moreover,

in Byzantine-Seljuk relations’, Speculum 86 (2011), 616. See also A. Mallett, Popular

Muslim reactions to the Franks in the Levant, 1097–1291 (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2014),
pp. 72–74.
95 AST, p. 68 (see also pp. 153–155). References to slave taking abound in the sources
for this period. See: ‘Anonymous Syriac chronicle’, 71.
96 AST, p. 178. 97 Ibn Faqih al-Hamadhani, ‘On the Turks and their lands’, p. 50.
98 The history of the Seljuq state, p. 31. See also ME, p. 104.
99 MS, vol. 3, p. 173; AA, p. 338; HAI, p. 61. This church under crusader rule became
the cathedral of St Peter, see: H. Kennedy, ‘Medieval Antioch’, The city in late antiquity,
ed. J. Rich (London: Routledge, 1992), p. 188.
100 OV, vol. 6, p. 112; Walter the Chancellor, Bella Antiochena, ed. H. Hagenmeyer (Inns-
bruck, 1896), p. 110.
101 AA, p. 770. GN, p. 350. It may be relevant to note that Aristakēs reports prisoners
being shot for target practice: Aristakēs Lastivertc ‘I’s History, p. 138. Peter Tudebode
and Guibert also observe that the Turks executed their victims in this way during the
First Crusade, see: PT, p. 35; GN, p. 126. William of Malmesbury tells a similar story
about the execution of a captive by the Fatimids: WM, vol. 1, p. 466. See also WT,
vol. 1, 570. Walter the Chancellor also reports Tughtakin of Damascus ordering Robert
Fitz-Fulk’s decapitated head to be turned into a goblet: Walter the Chancellor, Bella
Antiochena, pp. 108–109. For further discussion on this episode see: C. Hillenbrand,
‘What’s in a name? Tughtegin – the ‘minister of the Antichrist’?’, Fortresses of the intellect:
Ismaili and other Islamic studies in honour of Farhad Daftary, ed. Omar Ali-de-Onzaga
 Urban II 93

ritual and judicial actions involving bows, bowstrings, and arrows were
certainly commonplace in Turkish culture; for example, rulers were often
assassinated by strangulation with a bowstring.102 Bar Hebraeus likewise
described how Sultan Alp Arslan once planned to kill a rebel leader by
tying him to posts and shooting him. According to this tale the rebel
protested that he deserved a more noble death and so Alp Arslan freed
him, tried to shoot him, missed, and was then fatally wounded by this
vengeful rebel.103
In this way, Robert’s account needs to be taken seriously, not perhaps
as an accurate rendition of Urban’s oration, but as a piece of highly
emotionally-charged reportage based on eye witness accounts concerning
Turkish practices during the Anatolian wars.104
Overall, the conquest of Asia Minor was a prolonged affair that took
many decades to complete. It was also uneven in its impact. Some regions
were thoroughly despoiled whilst others were relatively lightly affected.
Even so, the textual and non-textual sources tell the story of a Byzantine
society in full retreat. They report abandoned settlements, sacked cities,
widespread raiding and plundering, and refugees fleeing to the west;
classic hallmarks of steppe invasions throughout history. Thus, it is not
difficult to imagine the anxiety and concern that the reports of refugees
and emissaries would have provoked in Rome as the papacy became
aware of the full extent of the chaos engulfing the region. Placed within
this context, Urban’s calls for a campaign to the east take on a new
character. It seems very unlikely that his deep hostility towards the Turks
was merely a fabricated expression of a long-standing hatred towards the
Muslim ‘other’.105 Instead the terminology in his letters communicates
a genuine sense of alarm at the actions of a fundamentally new enemy.

(London: I.B. Tauris, 2011), pp. 463–475; O. Turan, ‘The ideal of world domination
among the medieval Turks’, Studia Islamica 4 (1955), 78.
102 For an example see: AC, p. 178. See also Bar Hebraeus, The chronography, vol. 1,
p. 201. For wider discussion see: C. Cahen, Pre-Ottoman Turkey: A general survey of the
material and spiritual culture and history c.1071–1330, trans. J. Jones-Williams (London:
Sidgwick & Jackson, 1968), p. 36; C. Bosworth, ‘The origins of the Seljuqs’, The
Seljuqs: politics, society and culture, ed. C. Lange and S. Mecit (Edinburgh: Edinburgh
University Press, 2011), p. 18; A. Başan, The great Seljuqs: A history, RSIT (Abingdon:
Routledge, 2010); Peacock, The great Seljuk empire, p. 126. They were not the only
steppe people to use arrow-based symbology. The Avars, for example, buried their
warriors with arrows, see: S. Szádeczky-Kardoss, ‘The Avars’, The Cambridge history
of early inner Asia (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990), p. 226.
103 Bar Hebraeus, The chronography, vol. 1, p. 224.
104 Frankopan has performed a similar analysis on the accusations levelled against the
Turks in a letter which purports to have been sent form the Emperor Alexius to Count
Robert of Flanders prior to the crusade. Frankopan, The First Crusade, pp. 60–61.
105 A view advanced by Mastnak: Mastnak, Crusading peace, pp. 115–117.
94 The Launch of the First Crusade

Participants: Intentions
For Urban, seated at Christendom’s helm and possessed of detailed infor-
mation from across the Mediterranean, the need to buttress Byzantium
was an obvious priority. The same cannot be said, however, for the
knightly families he approached for support. These were communities
with far more restricted horizons whose knowledge of the tumultuous
events taking place in Anatolia would, for the most part, have been
limited.106 By appealing to this audience Urban faced the challenge of
persuading warriors to leave their homes and families for a prolonged
period and to risk their lives in a war that – hitherto – may have been
entirely unknown to them. Urban was evidently successful in this aim,
but it is necessary to identify which components of his preaching moti-
vated his audience to take the cross. It is especially significant to establish
the importance participants attached to the idea of fighting pagans. This
is a fundamental question because it helps to contextualise the crusaders’
initial posture towards their future foe.
In some cases, Urban was highly successful in communicating his mes-
sage. Writing in 1096, Count Fulk Le Réchin, who had attended Urban’s
sermon at Angers, recalled that the pontiff had incited his audience to
take part in an expedition that was intended to: (a) reach Jerusalem, (b)
protect the Christians in that region, and (c) defeat the invaders who
threatened the Christian people.107 These objectives tally exactly with
those enumerated in Urban’s letters, suggesting that Fulk had fully under-
stood what Urban was trying to achieve. Many of the charters demon-
strate a similar correlation. For example, in December 1095 Urban wrote
to the people of Flanders, writing:

Your brotherhood, we believe, has long since learned from many accounts that a
barbaric fury has deplorably afflicted and laid waste the churches of God in the
regions of the Orient. More than this, blasphemous to say, it has even grasped
in intolerable servitude its churches and the holy city of Christ, glorified by his
Passion and Resurrection. Grieving with pious concern at this calamity, we visited
the regions of Gaul and devoted ourselves largely to urging the princes of the
land and their subjects to free the churches of the east.108

106 As John France commented, ‘the papacy of the eleventh century had a wide view of the
world a remarkable grasp of history which differentiated its outlook sharply from that
of the generality of the European elites’. J. France, ‘Byzantium in western chronicles
before the First Crusade’, Knighthoods of Christ: Essays on the history of the Crusades and
the Knights Templar presented to Malcolm Barber (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2007), p. 8.
107 ‘Fragmentum historiae Andegavensis’, pp. 233–238.
108 Translation from ‘Urban to the faithful in Flanders, December 1095’ in: Chronicles
of the First Crusade, pp. 24–25; Kb, p. 136; Papsturkunden in Spanien, pp. 287–288;
‘Papsturkunden in Florenz’, p. 313.
 Urban II 95

The following year in October 1096, Count Robert II of Flanders, when

on the point of setting out for the east, made the following declaration in
a document settling local affairs in Flanders:

I, therefore, by the inspiration of divine admonition, promulgated by the authority

of the apostolic seat, travelling to Jerusalem for the liberation of the church of
God, which is continually oppressed by wild peoples . . . have determined on this
decree.109

This charter resonates with the language of Urban’s letter: referencing

the same goals; speaking of the campaign as a ‘liberation’ and describ-
ing the savagery of the campaign’s enemy.110 Consequently, in Robert’s
case at least, Urban’s ambitions and objectives had been received, inter-
nalised, and translated into action with little blurring. As Riley-Smith has
shown, other charters mirrored Urban’s language, using terms that reflect
the penitential nature of this journey and its status as a pilgrimage.111
In many cases, the participants seem to have understood and retained
the main messages communicated through Urban’s propaganda. Even so,
whilst the charters reference the pope’s major objectives and language,
there is a change in emphasis. For Urban, the desire to reach Jerusalem
appears to have been his main goal, but it was listed among a number of
stated aims which included: defending fellow Christians and fighting the
‘Saracens’/‘pagans’. For the crusaders, by contrast, the desire to reach
Jerusalem is overwhelming. It appears with an almost 100 per cent con-
sistency across all the charters and the centrality of this desire is accentu-
ated by the fact that many participants referred to themselves explicitly
as ‘Jerusalemites’.112 Other objectives are referenced only sporadically.
The desire to protect eastern Christians appears very rarely whilst the
intention of confronting any enemy appears in only 20 per cent of these
documents.113 Given that these charters were produced in a range of
institutions – for the most part spread across the kingdom of France –
their unanimity in defining solely the holy city (or a least the Holy

109 Actes des comtes de Flandre, 1071–1128, ed. F. Vercauteren (Brussels, 1938), no. 20.
110 Riley-Smith, The first crusaders, p. 62; Riley-Smith, ‘The idea of crusading’, p. 156.
111 Riley-Smith, The first crusaders, pp. 61–66.
112 Godfrey of Bouillon even had coins minted for himself before his departure which
seem to have borne the inscription ‘Ierosolimitanus’, see: V. Tourneur, ‘Un Denier
de Godefroid de Bouillon Frappé en 1096’, Revue Belge de Numismatique 83 (1931),
pp. 27–30.
113 Charters that reference this objective include: Cartulaire de l’abbaye de Saint-Victor de
Marseille, no. 143; Cartulaire de Sauxillanges, ed. M. Doniol (Clermont, 1864), no. 697.
See also J. Riley-Smith, The First Crusade and the idea of crusading, p. 22. G. Constable,
‘Medieval charters as a source for the history of the Crusades’, Crusaders and crusading
in the twelfth century (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2008), p. 112.
96 The Launch of the First Crusade

Sepulchre) as the goal of the campaign demands serious attention. Evi-

dently, it was this objective more than any other which inspired indi-
viduals to take the cross. The charter evidence chimes well both with
wider sources and the later events of the crusade, which similarly con-
firm an intense desire to reach the holy city. The mere presence of non-
combatants on the campaign shows that for them their involvement in the
crusade was primarily spiritual and – by definition – not military. Follow-
ing the siege of Antioch, several chroniclers report the pressure placed
upon the expedition’s leaders to proceed immediately to Jerusalem –
again confirming its overriding importance. Moreover, with only a hand-
ful of exceptions – the most significant being the conquest of Nicaea the
bulk of the crusader army did not purposefully seek out the strongpoints
of Turkish authority (as one would expect had their ambition been to
destroy Turkish hegemony in Anatolia and Syria). Indeed, Aleppo and
Damascus were purposefully avoided precisely because they possessed
significant Turkish garrisons.114 As Barber notes, ‘Urban’s wish to res-
cue the eastern Christians from infidel oppression had never inspired the
crusaders in the way that his call for an armed pilgrimage to liberate
Jerusalem had done’.115
Overall, the sources build a picture of a pope besieged by tidings
of defeat in the east, yet aware of a widely felt longing for the holy
city, who then spliced these various imperatives into an overall call for
holy war. His message was then received by an audience which had
only a limited understanding of the tactical situation in Anatolia, but
which had heard tales of Jerusalem from birth. Some nobles, such as
the count of Flanders, who had strong links to the Byzantine court,
would have understood the imperative to defend Asia Minor, but for
the vast majority it was Jerusalem itself that defined their participation
in the crusade. The incredible unanimity across the charters makes the
point that among the various messages propounded by Urban it was this
notion more than any other that penetrated furthest into his audience’s
minds. This is important for this present analysis because it suggests
that, for the majority, fighting ‘pagans’ or ‘Saracens’ was a decidedly sec-
ondary endeavour; indeed these foes may only ever have been perceived
as little more than hurdles straddling the road to their main objective:
Jerusalem.116

114 AA, p. 394. 115 Barber, The Crusader states, p. 24.

116 For discussion on this and related points see: N. Housley, Fighting for the cross: Crusading
to the Holy Land (Yale: Yale University Press, 2008), p. 221; Housley, ‘The Crusades
and Islam’, 195.
 Urban II 97

Participants: Foreknowledge of the Turks

Whatever the crusaders’ initial intentions may have been, the Turks lay
directly on their line of march. They were not a long-standing enemy,
either of Byzantium or western Christendom, and had only begun to
make their presence felt in the Near East at around the turn of the first
millennium. As shown earlier, the Greeks and Arabs had long been aware
of the Turks as a group of nomadic peoples migrating across the Eurasian
steppe. The rapid Turkish advance, however, was a new phenomenon;
one that redefined their relationship. Their first foray into Byzantine lands
occurred in c. 1029, yet by 1090 much of Anatolia was in their hands.117
For the Arabs too the Saljuq invasions were as unwelcome as they were
unprecedented and in the late eleventh and early twelfth centuries, many
leading Arab dynasties across Syria fell beneath the rising tide of Turkish
dominance. By contrast, western Christendom was insulated to some
degree from these upheavals. It was separated from the conflict in Syria
and Asia Minor by the intervening bulk of the Byzantine Empire and
the wide expanse of the Mediterranean. Thus, as an enemy that was
both distant and new, it is likely that many crusaders would never have
heard of the Turks. This lack of knowledge was not alleviated by papal
preaching which, as noted earlier, did not name them explicitly. Urban
indicated only that the pilgrims would encounter a ‘pagan’ (or in some
cases ‘Saracen’) enemy of barbaric character in Asia Minor.
It is unclear precisely how widely information about the Turks had
disseminated across western Europe before 1095.118 One source of infor-
mation, which prima facie seems to suggest a widespread ignorance of this
people group, is the crusade charters. There is no reference to ‘Turks’ in
any of these documents. Certainly, their unanimity is striking, but these
documents alone are not incontrovertible proof on this point. The pos-
sibility has to be entertained that, as shown earlier, the charters’ authors
were merely mimicking the terminology used in papal preaching and cor-
respondence (which also did not name the Turks). Thus their choice of
such imprecise language may also not mark the extent of their knowledge.
Moreover, in one case at least we can be sure that a religious house which
named ‘pagans’ in its charters had direct access to specific and recent

117 Peacock, Early Seljūq History, p. 139.

118 For my early study on this subject see: N. Morton, ‘Encountering the Turks: The
first crusaders’ foreknowledge of their enemy: some preliminary findings’, Crusading
and warfare in the Middle Ages: Realities and representations. Essays in honour of John
France, ed. S. John and N. Morton, Crusades subsidia VII (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2014),
pp. 47–68.
98 The Launch of the First Crusade

information concerning the Turks. This was the abbey of Marmoutier. In

c. 1090, a monk named Goibertus returned to Marmoutier after a period
of service with Emperor Alexius. He later appears in Marmoutier charters
as the prior of Saint-Martin de Chamars (the earliest reference occurring
in 1092). Goibertus is significant for this present matter because, hav-
ing spent time in Constantinople in the late eleventh century, he would
surely have understood the threat posed by the Turks.119 Even so, when
Stephen of Blois made a donation to Marmoutier during his preparations
for crusade – a gift which Goibertus had personally encouraged him to
make – he still described his enemy as ‘pagans’. Clearly Goibertus was
present and possessed more precise information, yet the more generic
term ‘pagans’ was still employed.120 This example serves as a warning
against using the terminology in the charters as a gauge of the author’s
knowledge. It seems likely instead that their usage derived from stylistic
norms and the imperative to imitate papal preaching. This conclusion
is only confirmed by the fact that the charters produced for crusaders
between 1099 and the time of the Second Crusade continue to define
their enemies as either ‘pagans’ or ‘Saracens’ rather than Turks. By this
stage or course – with the return of the first crusaders – the Turks would
have been widely known across Christendom and yet they are still not
mentioned in any charter. The only identified western European charter
to reference the Turks in any context during this period is not specifically
concerned with crusading. It is a charter defining a donation made to
the abbey of Charroux, which was dated to the second year after the
conquest of Jerusalem from the ‘Turks and pagans’.121
A stronger indication that the Turks were not well known in 1095–1097
is the paucity of information available upon them in western Christen-
dom’s archives at this time. ‘Turks’ make only infrequent appearances in
sources produced in Christendom before the First Crusade. Some Clas-
sical Roman authors may possibly have heard of them and Pomponius
Mela (first century) identified Turcae living in forests bordering Amazon
territory, while Pliny the Elder (d. 79 ce) located them near the Sea of
Azov.122 After this point, the Turks seem to have largely dropped below

119 Shepard, ‘How St James the Persian’s head was brought to Cormery’, pp. 298, 314–
317.
120 Cartulaire de Marmoutier pour le Dunois, no. 92.
121 Chartes et Documents pour servir à l’histoire de l’abbaye de Charroux, ed. P. de Monsabert,
Archives Historiques du Poitou XXXIX (Poitiers, 1910), no. 22; Constable, ‘Medieval
charters’, p. 114.
122 Bosworth, ‘Introduction’, p. xiv; Pomponius Mela’s description of the world, ed. and trans.
F. Romer (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2001), pp. 66–67; Pliny (the
Elder), Natural history II, Libri III-VII, ed. H. Rackham, vol. 2 (London: Heinemann,
1942), p. 350.
 Urban II 99

the knowledge horizon for nearly a millennium, only to be revived follow-

ing the First Crusade. The sources produced in the intervening period
are almost silent.
Among the few texts that do refer to ‘Turks’ in any context is the
seventh-century Chronicle of Fredegar, which contains references to peo-
ple called the ‘Turks’ (Turchi/gens Turquorum).123 These ‘Turks’ appear in
a legend describing the origins of the Frankish people. Fredegar explains
how the Frankish people began as refugees fleeing from the fall of Troy
who, after long wandering, found themselves on the banks of the Danube.
At this point they broke into two parties with one setting out west (later
establishing the Frankish kingdom) and the other remaining where they
were and electing a king called Torcoth, who gave his name to his peo-
ple: the ‘Turks’.124 The question of how widely this story had circulated
by the time of the First Crusade and whether it played a role in shap-
ing medieval approaches to the Turks has attracted a fair amount of
attention.125 At the centre of this debate is a statement made by the
Gesta Francorum’s author that he had encountered some Turks who had
claimed that they shared a common descent with the Franks.126 Exactly
what can be inferred from this statement has been the subject of much
debate.
Runciman’s view was that the Gesta’s author was clearly aware of the
Fredegar legend. He argues that whilst Fredegar’s tale had been forgot-
ten in western Christendom, it had long been remembered in Iceland.
He then suggests that the story may have been carried south by Vikings
serving in the Byzantine Varangian guard, who might then have been cap-
tured by the Turks, who might then have told their Turkish captors, who
might then have told the crusaders.127 Runciman’s argument consists of

123 ‘Fredegarii et aliorum chronica’, MGH: Scriptores rerum Merovingicarum, ed.

B. Krusch, vol. 2 (Hanover, 1888), pp. 46, 93.
124 ‘Fredegarii et aliorum chronica’ Several historians have attempted to identify Frede-
gar’s Turchi. Meserve discusses the historiography surrounding this question, conclud-
ing that it is difficult to draw any firm conclusions on this point. M. Meserve, Empires
of Islam in Renaissance historical thought (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press,
2008), p. 50. Kim has more recently drawn the conclusion, following Cahen, that
Fredegar was describing the Torcilingi ‘a Turkic-speaking tribe under Hunnic rule’.
Kim, The Huns, Rome and the Birth of Europe, pp. 100–102.
125 For discussion on the inclusion of this episode from Fredegar’s chronicle in later
chronicles see, Meserve, Empires of Islam, p. 51.
126 GF, p. 21.
127 S. Runciman, ‘Teucri and Turci’, Medieval and Middle Eastern studies: In honor of Aziz
Suryal Atiya, ed. S. Hanna (Leiden: Brill, 1972), pp. 347–348. Snorri Sturluson is the
main source for Runciman’s assertion. He wrote many decades after the crusade, but
Runciman points out that his work was based on earlier traditions. Snorri Sturluson,
Edda, trans. A. Faulkes (London: J.M Dent, 2004), pp. 64–65. Jubb, ‘The Crusaders’
Perceptions of their Opponents’, pp. 234.
100 The Launch of the First Crusade

a rather speculative chain of transmission which, as Murray points out,

‘strains credulity’. Murray suggests instead that whilst it is not impossible
that the Gesta’s author knew of the legend from the Western tradition, it is
more probable that his conviction that there was a relationship between
their peoples was based rather on their shared competence in war.128
Meserve has drawn a similar conclusion.129
On this point it is impossible to be sure. All the aforementioned authors
agree that the Fredegar legend of a Turkish-Frankish common ances-
try is absent from the western tradition in the centuries between the
completion of Fredegar’s chronicle and the eleventh century and yet, as
Meserve points out, it does seem to reappear soon after the time of the
First Crusade. Hugh of St Victor reproduced this legend in his Priorum
Excerptionum libri decem (wr.c. 1130), noting immediately afterwards that
‘today’ the Turks are known as ‘Turci’, thereby recognising a link between
Fredegar’s legend and contemporary Turks.130 His was not an isolated
reference and this legend would reappear in later centuries.131 Evidently,
it remained known in some circles.
There is another possible explanation for the Gesta Francorum’s report
which warrants attention. In the late-medieval period, the Mamluk histo-
rian Badr al-Din Mahmud (d. 1451) – drawing upon far earlier sources –
traced the racial origins of mankind back to the time of Noah (and
ultimately Adam). He made the point that all the world’s peoples are
descended from Noah’s sons Shem, Ham, and Japheth. Crucially, he
explained that the Turks and the Franks share a common descent from
Japheth’s eldest son Gomer. Gomer himself fathered three further sons,
Riphath (father of the Franks), Ashikiyan (father of the Slavs), and Toga-
rmah (father of the Turks).132 Consequently, according to this narrative,
and following an entirely different explanatory pathway to the Latin tra-
dition, the Turks may also have believed that they were ultimately related

128 A. Murray, ‘William of Tyre and the origin of the Turks: observations on possible
sources of the Gesta orientalium principum’, Dei Gesta per Francos: Etudes sur les
croisades dédiés à Jean Richard: Crusade studies in honour of Jean Richard, ed. M. Balard,
B. Kedar and J. Riley-Smith (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2001), pp. 223–224.
129 Meserve, Empires of Islam, p. 56.
130 Hugh of St Victor, ‘Priorum Excerptionum libri decem’, PL, vol. 177 (1854), cols.
275–276; Meserve, Empires of Islam, p. 51.
131 This connection persisted into the early modern period where this connection between
the Turks and Trojans came under sustained criticism. Meserve, Empires of Islam,
pp. 22–64.
132 Badr al-Din Mahmud (al-Ayni), ‘Genealogy and tribal division’, The turkic peoples in
medieval Arabic writings, trans. Y. Frenkel, RSIT (Abingdon: Routledge, 2015), p. 67.
Naturally it had long been believed that the Turks were descended from Japheth and
Gomer, but this is the earliest reference I have seen which identifies the Franks as
descending from this common root.
 Urban II 101

to the Franks. Whether it was this link that lay behind the Gesta Franco-
rum’s report that some Anatolian Turks claimed a relationship with the
crusaders is unknowable; still it opens up the possibility that the answer
to this question lies in the Turkic, rather than the Latin, tradition.
Whilst Fredegar’s account raises many questions, it also provides one of
the very few references to the ‘Turks’ in western European sources writ-
ten before the tenth century. Among the handful of other works to name
them is the Cosmography of Aethicus Ister. This is a rather bizarre text, pro-
duced in the early eighth century, in which the unknown author, posing
as St Jerome, sets out to edit and reflect upon a much earlier work by an
Istrian pagan philosopher called Aethicus Ister. This ‘pagan’ source dis-
cusses Aethicus’ philosophy and gives an account of his journeys ranging
from Taprobane (Sri Lanka) to the Orkneys. He describes lands popu-
lated by strange phenomena and mythical beasts, which lie side by side
with more accurate observations corroborated by other sources. Within
this colourful account, the Turks receive a lengthy treatment. The author
comments that they are largely unknown by contemporaries and he pro-
ceeds to make amends for this deficit.133 He situates them among a group
of peoples including the Huns, Danes, and Alans in ‘Germania’, a land
he locates between the Rhine and the Meotic marshes. For him the Turks
were among the unclean peoples and monstrous northern races, descen-
dants of Gog and Magog, who Alexander the Great had attempted to
trap behind the Caspian gates until the end of days and the coming of the
Antichrist. He presents them as dirty, debauched, idolatrous worshippers
of Saturn who were ready to eat the most unclean of meats (including
aborted human foetuses).
Some parts of his lurid descriptions may well have been the product
of his evidently powerful imagination; nevertheless, several of his ideas
find their echo in eastern Christian eschatological sources. Of these, the
Apocalypse written in Syriac by Pseudo Methodius (writing c. 691) seems
to have been particularly influential. It presents a broad overview of world
history from the formation of the earth to the Second Coming of Christ.
Its most significant feature is the incorporation within this chronology
of an account of the rise and ultimate fall of Islam. Most importantly
for this present analysis, the Apocalypse offers a description of the foetus-
eating peoples of Gog and Magog trapped to the north of the Caspian

133 The cosmography of Aethicus Ister, ed. and trans. by M. Herren, Publication of the
journal of medieval Latin VIII (Turnhout: Brepols, 2011), pp. 28–32. Meserve has
suggested that the Turks described in this work may have been Turkic Khazars: M.
Meserve, ‘Medieval sources for Renaissance theories on the origins of the Ottoman
Turks’, Europa und die Türken in der Renaissance, ed. B. Guthmüller and W. Kühlmann
(Tübingen: Niemeyer, 2000), p. 424.
102 The Launch of the First Crusade

gates.134 These details tally closely with the description of the Turks
given in the cosmography. Nevertheless, the cosmography does not seem
to have been drawing upon the Apocalypse directly. Pseudo-Methodius
may attribute these qualities to the peoples of the north but his work
does not include the Turks among these northern peoples.135 It sup-
plies a list of different names. The inclusion of the Turks among races
of Gog and Magog occurred many years later. The first author to estab-
lish this link may possibly have been Jacob of Edessa, who was writing
shortly after Pseudo-Methodius.136 Subsequently, many eastern Chris-
tian authors associated the Turks to varying degrees with these peoples.
For example, the Georgian Primary History of K’art’Li describes the
Turks as a people of Gog and Magog (it also mentions their suppos-
edly unpleasant diet).137 Moreover both this work and the cosmogra-
phy contain the story that Alexander the Great attempted to conquer
the Turks but was then forced to withdraw – a story not contained in
Pseudo-Methodius’ Apocalypse.138 Thus these works describe the Turks
in similar terms; raising the likelihood that the cosmography’s author was
drawing in some way upon eastern Christian sources based ultimately
on Pseudo-Methodian tradition.139 It is also possible that this informa-
tion was connected in some form to Islamic traditions and some tenth-
century Arab writers claimed that some pre-Islamic Turks ate fell meats,
including dead bodies, and reverenced Saturn.140 Another example of
cross-cultural borrowing occurred in the 870s when the papal librarian
Anastasius Bibliothecarius copied the Chronographia of Theophanes into

134 Pseudo-Methodius, Apocalypse, ed. and trans. B. Garstad, Dumbarton Oaks Medieval
Library (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2012), pp. 23, 97.
135 The Turks are mentioned at one point briefly in this work, but in a very different
context: Pseudo-Methodius, Apocalypse, p. 37.
136 M. Dickens, ‘Turkāyē: Turkic peoples in Syriac literature prior to the Seljuks’, unpub-
lished PhD thesis, University of Cambridge (2008), pp. 72–75. Dickens observes that
it is difficult to identify which parts of Jacob of Edessa’s text are his own and which
are additions by later redactors. The first Syriac author to unambiguously make this
connection between Magog and the Turks was Michael the Syrian. M. Dickens, ‘The
sons of Magog: The Turks in Michael’s chronicle’, Parole de l’Orient 30 (2005), 436.
137 S. H. Rapp, Studies in medieval Georgian historiography: Early texts and Eurasian contexts,
Corpus Scriptorum Christianorum Orientalium: Subsidia CXIII (Louvain: Peeters,
2003), p. 257.
138 The cosmography of Aethicus Ister, pp. 32–34.
139 Dickens also points out that the cosmography describes the gates of the north as the
‘breasts of the north’. Again this is a convention found in Syriac sources from the
seventh century. See: Dickens, ‘Turkāyē: turkic peoples’, p. 128.
140 Ibn Faqih al-Hamadhani, ‘On the Turks and their lands’, pp. 51–52; Abu Dulaf,
‘Pseudo-travel’, The turkic peoples in medieval Arabic writings, trans. Y. Frenkel, RSIT
(Abingdon: Routledge, 2015), pp. 55, 57.
 Urban II 103

Latin; thereby making available a work which contains some references

to Byzantium’s early dealings with the Turks.141
When the name ‘Turk’ next resurfaced in the work of Liutprand of
Cremona (d. 972), it did so in a rather different form. In his chronicle
Antapodosis he used the name ‘Turks’ as a synonym for the Hungari-
ans. During Liutprand’s lifetime the Hungarians were still pagan so they
appear in his narrative as the entrenched opponents of Christendom. To
take one example, Liutprand described the battle fought between King
Louis IV ‘The Child’ of East Francia at Lech in 910 using the terms
Hungarii and Turci interchangeably.142 He discussed Turci subsequently
in a poem, which touched upon their depredations, using standard ter-
minology reserved for pagan attackers: presenting them as an ‘evil race’
and ‘enemies of God’.143
Nevertheless, the identification of Hungarians as ‘Turks’ was not com-
mon practice in western Christendom, nor was it strictly accurate.144
There were some later authors who drew upon the connection he cre-
ated (as we shall see) but they were few. The Hungarians themselves are
of Finno-Ugric extraction; although admittedly having lived for many
centuries on the steppe they had picked up some elements of Turk-
ish culture and language.145 European authors, both contemporary and
in later centuries, tended instead to describe the Hungarians as Hun-
grii or Huns.146 Liutprand’s inspiration for using this ethnonym seems
rather to derive from the Byzantine tradition, which frequently conflated

141 Meserve, ‘Medieval sources for Renaissance theories’, p. 430.

142 Liudprand of Cremona, ‘Antapodosis’, pp. 36–37.
143 Liudprand of Cremona, ‘Antapodosis’, p. 47.
144 Although it was rare for later Western authors to describe the Hungarians in this way
there were a few occasions where Hungarians were named as ‘Turks’. In the thirteenth-
century one reader of Otto of Freising’s History of Two Cities added a marginal note
to a passage describing the conversion of ‘Garda’ king of the Huns at the time of
the Emperor Justinian. He commented that his contemporaries call the Huns ‘Turks’
and that the western Huns were commonly called ‘Hungarians’ or ‘Avars’. This is
however an isolated case and there is little to suggest that the crusaders perceived an
association between these two peoples. Otto of Freising, ‘Chronica sive Historia de
Duabus Civitatibus’, Monumenta Germaniae Historica: SRG, ed. A. Hofmeister, vol.
45 (Hanover, 1912), p. 233.
145 P. Golden, ‘The peoples of the Russian forest belt’, The Cambridge history of early inner
Asia, ed. D. Sinor (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990), p. 243; P. Engel,
The realm of St. Stephen: A history of medieval Hungary: 895–1526 (London: I.B. Tauris,
2005), pp. 8–10.
146 For the characterisation of Hungarians as ‘Huns’ see: A. Sager, ‘Hungarians as vremde
in medieval Germany’, Meeting the foreign in the Middle Ages, ed. A. Classen (New
York: Routledge, 2002), pp. 27–44; Berend, At the gate of Christendom, p. 204; Engel,
The realm of St. Stephen, pp. 8–9. The Hungarians do not seem to have described
themselves in this way, see: A. Róna-Tas, Hungarians and Europe in the early Middle
Ages (Budapest: Central European University Press, 1999), pp. 275–282.
104 The Launch of the First Crusade

Turks and Hungarians. This practice occurs widely in Byzantine sources

for this period including the histories of John Skylitzes and various texts
attributed to Constantine VII Porphyrogenitus (d.959).147 In his work on
court protocol, Constantine outlined the correct modes of address to be
used when dealing with foreign dignitaries, explaining that the Hungar-
ian leaders were to be described as the ‘archons of the Turks’.148 Indeed,
the Hungarians were referred to as ‘Turks’ by the Byzantines even in an
inscription on a crown sent from Constantinople to the Hungarians in
the late eleventh century.149 Liudprand’s employment of this distinctively
Byzantine terminology is hardly surprising. He travelled to Constantino-
ple on several occasions and learned Greek there in 949–950. Antapodosis
itself is studded with Greek phrases and references.
The first clear reference to the Turks’ activities in Anatolia in western
European sources occurs in the chronicle of Amatus of Montecassino
(written c. 1080). Within his account of the Normans’ wars in southern
Italy and Sicily, he included a brief report of the defeat of the Byzantine
army at Manzikert in 1071 and the role played by the Norman com-
mander Roussel de Bailleul during the battle. He described: Roussel’s
subsequent captivity; his honourable treatment at the hands of the Turk-
ish sultan; and his later deeds.150 Several other Norman sources discuss
the involvement of warriors from western Christendom in the eleventh-
century defence of Asia Minor and these also mention the Turks,
although – Amatus aside – they were all written either during or after the
First Crusade and consequently are an uncertain guide when attempt-
ing to establish how much was known in advance of the campaign.151 It
seems likely that Amatus’ information on this topic derived from Nor-
mans returning from Byzantine service. Certainly he was well placed

147 JS, pp. 170–171, 215, 220, 223, 231, 265, 276; Constantine Porphyrogenitus: De Admin-
istrando Imperio, ed. G. Moravcsik, trans. R. Jenkins (Washington, DC: Dumbarton
Oaks Center for Byzantine Studies, 1967), passim. See also Nicholas I, patriarch of
Constantinople, letters, trans. R. Jenkins and L. Westerink (Washington, DC: Dumb-
arton Oaks Center for Byzantine Studies, 1973), p. 159.
148 Translaiton taken from: Constantine Porphyrogenitus, The book of ceremonies, trans. by
A. Moffatt and M. Tall, vol. 2 (Canberra: Australian Association for Byzantine Studies,
2012), p. 691.
149 Róna-Tas, Hungarians and Europe, p. 277.
150 Amatus of Montecassino, Storia de’ Normanni, ed. V. de Bartholomaeis, Fonti per la
Storia d’Italia LXXVI (Rome, 1935), pp. 18–20.
151 William of Apulia, ‘Gesta Roberti Wiscardi’, passim. An anonymous source from the
British Isles written around the time of the First Crusade, which also describes Turkish
depredations in Syria and Asia Minor, may also have been produced by returning
warriors. See: The life of King Edward who rests at Westminster, ed. F. Barker, OMT, 2nd
ed. (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1992), p. 108.
 Urban II 105

to interview such warriors, who represent one possible route by which

news of the Turks might have reached western Christendom before the
First Crusade.
The above references complete the survey of pre-crusade references
to ‘Turks’ (at least in the Western tradition). Evidently only a very small
number of authors were aware of them. Still, there were some lines of
communication from the east which may have conveyed further news. As
Amatus of Montecassino’s chronicle suggests, for example, it is likely that
mercenaries returning from service with the Byzantines in Anatolia would
have been substantially better informed. These forces hailed from many
regions and in the 1090s one particularly large contingent was despatched
to this frontier by Count Robert I of Flanders. Robert sent these troops
on the explicit request of Emperor Alexius, who he visited in 1089 whilst
on his return journey from a pilgrimage to Jerusalem.152 Robert seems
to have acted swiftly upon this matter because his knights arrived the
following year and were sent to support the defenders of Nicomedia.153
The link between the house of Flanders and Constantinople could have
served as another conduit by which news from Byzantium could reach
the west.
There was evidently a strong relationship between the counts of Flan-
ders and Byzantium and it is even possible that Alexius wrote to Robert
I of Flanders shortly afterwards encouraging him to send further aid.
Several First Crusade chronicles report that Byzantine emissaries arrived
with just such an appeal and thirty-six manuscripts of Robert the Monk’s
chronicle include a copy of a document purporting to be the actual letter
of appeal.154 Guibert of Nogent’s chronicle also includes an epitome of
this letter.155
The authenticity of this letter however has been widely disputed and
multiple arguments have been advanced about its reliability. For some
historians it is a fabrication (either partial or total) created in western
Christendom for propaganda purposes after the crusade (possibly con-
nected to Bohemond’s subsequent crusade against Byzantium); for oth-
ers it was a heavily-redacted Latin version of a Byzantine original; the
possibility has even been raised that it was written by a Frank living

152 AC, p. 199.

153 P. Adair, ‘Flemish comital family and the Crusades’, The Crusades: Other experiences,
alternative perspectives, ed. K. Semaan (Binghampton: Global Academic Publishing,
2003), pp. 101–112.
154 E. Joranson, ‘The problem of the spurious letter of Emperor Alexius to the court of
Flanders’, The American historical review 55.4 (1950), 811–832.
155 GN, pp. 100–104.
106 The Launch of the First Crusade

in Constantinople.156 Without further data it is difficult to pass judge-

ment on this point, beyond noting that there is nothing implausible
about renewed Byzantine appeals for aid to the counts of Flanders. Cer-
tainly, those who were in communication with Constantinople or who
had recently travelled on pilgrimage to the east represent another route
by which news of the Turks might have reached western Europe.
This transmission of information concerning the Turks from Byzan-
tium to western Christendom via the house of Flanders is evident in
a letter written by Countess Clemence to the Christian faithful in 1097
concerning the early stage of her husband’s crusade. In this document she
reports: Count Robert’s acquisition of relics whilst passing through Italy
enroute for the Holy Land; his decision to send them to her; and then her
subsequent actions with them. Although her correspondence was primar-
ily concerned with these artefacts, her opening remarks described briefly
her husband’s reasons for setting out on crusade. Here she mentioned the
depredations of the Turks, naming them as ‘Persians’ (Persae).157 None
of the handful of earlier references to the Turks in western European
sources describe the Turks as ‘Persians’ but this was frequently the case
in Byzantium. Archaic terms, such as ‘Persians’ were often applied to
contemporary neighbours by Byzantine authors including many chroni-
clers writing in the eleventh century such as Michael Psellus and Michael
Attaleiates.158 Thus Clemence’s choice of terminology seems to reflect
this Byzantine influence.
Count Robert I of Flanders was among the most important pilgrims
to have travelled to the east before the First Crusade. Pilgrimage to the
Holy Land had always been important to Christians in western Europe,
but during the eleventh century pious individuals and groups set out for
the east in ever increasing numbers. Some of the parties were very large
and in 1064 a substantial expedition set out under the leadership of the
archbishop of Mainz and a group of German bishops. Until c. 1070 these
expeditions would have reached the Levant to find it under Fatimid con-
trol, but in later years the region became a frontline in their war with the

156 For discussion see: C. Sweetenham, Robert the Monk’s history of the First Crusade:
Historia Iherosolimitana, Crusade texts in translation XI (Aldershot: Asgate, 2005), pp.
215–218; Frankopan, The First Crusade, pp. 60–62; Joranson, ‘The problem of the
spurious letter’, 811–832; Flori, Pierre l’Ermite, pp. 105–108.
157 Kb, p. 142.
158 Michael Psellus, Fourteen Byzantine rulers, trans. E. Sewter (London: Penguin, 1966),
pp. 351–355; MA, pp. 190, 192, 270. K. Durak, ‘Defining the ‘Turk’: mechanisms
of establishing contemporary meaning in the archaizing language of the Byzantines’,
Jahrbuch der österreichischen Byzantinistik 59 (2009), 65–78. Western Europeans would
continue to describe the Turks in this way well into the early modern period see:
Meserve, Empires of Islam, p. 1. For more discussion see Chapter 5.
 Urban II 107

Turks. Between 1073 and 1098, control of Jerusalem was repeatedly con-
tested by these two powers and European visitors would necessarily have
encountered the Turks and therefore have brought back tidings. Unfor-
tunately, no account written before the crusade has survived in which
these pious travellers described their experiences with Turks.159 It can
only be assumed therefore that, following their return to the west, they
would have discussed their perceptions of this recently-arrived people.160
One pilgrim journey that is particularly relevant to this discussion is
Peter the Hermit’s visit to Jerusalem in c. 1085. The crusade chronicler
Albert of Aachen gives an account of his experiences explaining how,
after his arrival in Turkish-held Jerusalem, Peter was horrified by the
Turks’ treatment of the local Christians and holy places. He then met
with Symeon II, patriarch of Jerusalem, and promised him that he would
return with help. Shortly afterwards, whilst at prayer, Peter fell asleep
and saw a vision of Jesus, who instructed him to tell his countrymen
of the suffering of the eastern Christians and to bring aid. Peter duly
did – the First Crusade.161 Exactly what should be made of this story
is unclear, but the notion that Peter did visit Jerusalem and did meet
with the patriarch needs to be taken seriously. Following the capture
of Jerusalem in 1099 the local Christians are said to have given him a
hero’s welcome, apparently recognising that he had fulfilled his promise
to them.162 Consequently, Peter himself is likely to have been a first-hand
source of information on the Turks for those taking part in the campaign.
This is important given his role in the preaching for the First Crusade.
Even so, a lack of contemporary material on his activities renders it
impossible to ascertain the extent to which he disseminated information
on the Turks.
Another source of information on the Turks would have been mer-
chants conducting commerce in the eastern Mediterranean. Several Ital-
ian cities conducted a brisk trade with both Levantine and Egyptian ports

159 Morris, The sepulchre of Christ, p. 139.

160 For discussion on earlier pilgrim journeys to the east (1070–1098) see: Jotischky, ‘The
Christians of Jerusalem’. 35–58.
161 AA, pp. 2–6. For discussion on Peter’s role in the launch of the First Crusade see:
Flori, Pierre l’Ermite, passim.
162 WT, vol. 1, pp. 415–416; C. Kostick, The siege of Jerusalem: Crusade and conquest in 1099
(London: Continuum, 2009), p. 133; Jotischky, ‘The Christians of Jerusalem’, 37, 54.
Jotischky has pointed out that there were precedents for eastern Christians seeking
aid from western Europe. It has also been noted that Peter’s journey to Jerusalem is
also reported in a separate source: ‘Annales Sancti Rudberti Salisburgenses’, MGHS,
ed. G. Pertz, vol. 9 (Hanover, 1851), p. 774. See also Morris, The sepulchre of Christ,
p. 176. By contrast in an earlier article, Cahen (1954) stated that it is an ‘established
fact that non-Greek Christians sent no appeal to the West, not even to the papacy’.
See: Cahen, ‘An introduction’, 13.
108 The Launch of the First Crusade

and their seafarers would presumably have learnt news of the Turk-
ish advances. The Amalfitans were especially active in this region and
a nobleman from this city established hospitals in Jerusalem and Anti-
och in c. 1070s.163 Residents at these institutions, like other merchants
in the east, would presumably have been acutely aware of the Turks.
One commercial expedition that certainly returned home with news of
the Turks was a group of merchants from Bari who were en-route for
Antioch but having reached Myra they were dissuaded from going any
further having received reports of Turkish advances.164 Tales of Turk-
ish activity could have been conveyed along multiple trading arteries to
western Christendom and not solely those spanning the Mediterranean.
The Scandinavians had long established links with many Central Asian
societies and, as shown earlier, they dealt directly both with Byzantium
and the Abbasid caliphate. They too may have carried back reports about
the Turks.165
Western travellers, however, were not the only source of news on the
Turks. Throughout the early and central Middle Ages, the Byzantines
themselves maintained strong connections with many secular and eccle-
siastical authorities across Europe, keeping them up to date with recent
developments. Towards the end of the eleventh century, appeals for aid
against the Turks were despatched both to Rome and to other leading
magnates. In 1073–1074, Pope Gregory VII responded by planning his
famous expedition that would march to assist Byzantium and then con-
tinue beyond to the Holy Sepulchre. In the 1090s several further letters
and embassies seem to have been sent; the most famous of which was the
party that met the pope at Piacenza in March 1095.166 Moving from the
diplomatic to the military sphere, it is even possible that some Europeans
may formerly have encountered Turks fighting in Byzantine service. It
was common practice for Byzantine armies to recruit auxiliaries from
its neighbours and Turks are frequently reported fighting in Italy, Sicily,
and Western Greece during the tenth and eleventh centuries. Turkish
contingents are numbered among the forces that took part in the 935
campaign in Italy, the 1027 invasion of Sicily, and Alexius’ campaign

163 Amatus of Montecassino, Storia de’ Normanni, p. 342.

164 Hugh of Fleury, ‘Liber qui modernorum regum Francorum continet actus’, p. 392.
165 The suggestion has been made that ninth-century Frankish merchants may have
encountered Turkish traders in Slavic territory: E. Goldberg, Struggle for empire: King-
ship and conflict under Louis the German, 817–876 (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press,
2006), p. 121.
166 The continuator of Frutolf of Michelsberg’s chronicle speaks of letters being sent by
Alexius to Pope Urban II. See: FE, p. 136.
 Urban II 109

against Robert Guiscard in 1081.167 As France has pointed out, Bohe-

mond may have acquired experience of fighting Turks serving under
Alexius whilst campaigning in Greece with his father.168
In the foregoing discussion it has been necessary to fall back upon an
investigation into the possible routes by which contemporaries in western
Christendom might have learnt of the Turks primarily because explicit
references are so scarce. Before the first millennium the Turks seem to
have been almost entirely unknown to most contemporaries in the west
and the sources contain only the odd glimpse of their activities in the east.
During the eleventh century, it is likely that, with the Turkish advance into
the Near East, many more Europeans would have encountered the Turks.
Normans serving in Anatolia and Italians conducting their business in
the Levant would presumably have shared news of the Turkish conquests
with their fellows. Thus it seems reasonable to suggest that those liv-
ing in the major Mediterranean commercial ports and their dependent
commercial arteries would have been amongst the best informed. Scan-
dinavians, trading along the rivers of eastern Europe, also had some inter-
action with Turkic peoples. Nevertheless, the knightly families of France
and northern Germany would have had far fewer sources of information.
Some might have met a pilgrim returning from Jerusalem, others may
have been connected in some way to warriors serving in the Byzantine
army, but for many their links to the east would have been tenuous at
best. The well-informed crusade chronicler Guibert of Nogent seems to
imply at the opening of his chronicle that he had not previously heard
of the Turks.169 It is possible that Peter the Hermit might have named
them in his preaching, but it is equally clear that the papacy did not.
Consequently, in forming a judgement on how well known the Turks
were amongst those who took the cross, it is reasonable to conclude
that despite some regional variations they were largely unknown.170 This

167 Constantine Porphyrogenitus, The book of ceremonies, p. 661; Lupus Protospatarius,

‘Annales’, MGHS, ed. G. Pertz, vol. 5 (Hanover, 1844), p. 62; AC, p. 15. There is
always the possibility that these references to Turks in Byzantine service pertain rather
to Hungarians, who were also often identified as ‘Turks’. AA, p. 842.
168 J. France, ‘The Normans and crusading’, The Normans and their adversaries at war:
Essays in memory of C. Warren Hollister, ed. R. Abels and B. Bachrach (Woodbridge:
Boydell, 2001), p. 94.
169 GN, pp. 82, 83, 352.
170 Frankopan, by contrast advances the case that the Turks were well known through
Byzantine appeals. It is not impossible that some learnt of the Turks through this
route, but it is not clear that these appeals circulated widely: Frankopan, The First
Crusade, pp. 60, 89. Cahen also describes a Europe which at the time of the crusade
was well accustomed to viewing the Turks as oppressors of Christians. See: Cahen,
Orient et Occident, p. 26.
110 The Launch of the First Crusade

deduction is admittedly an argument ex silencio, but when the absence

of references pre-crusade is contrasted against the enormous quantity of
material written about the Turks post-crusade, this creates a dichotomy
that is too pronounced to be overlooked. One point, however, that comes
across clearly from the foregoing analysis is that the little information
that was available concerning the Turks had been gathered from eastern
Christian sources.
3 The First Crusade and the
Conquest of Jerusalem

Encountering the Turks

Having crossed the Bosporus, the crusaders were finally in a position to
experience the Turks at first hand. The earliest crusading contingents
to reach Constantinople were led by Peter the Hermit who reached the
capital in August 1095. His pilgrims were then swiftly transported to
Civitos in Northern Anatolia. They made some attempt to strike inland
but were swiftly defeated and massacred by the Turks in October of the
same year.1 The survivors later joined with the various armies raised by
Christendom’s princes that were converging on Constantinople.
In the months that followed, as the first crusaders fought their way
from Nicaea to Antioch and from there to Jerusalem, they had ample
opportunity to temper their preconceptions of the Turks with their own
experience. Their encounters with the Turks were not confined simply to
the battlefield, but could take many forms. The crusaders took Turkish
prisoners, who could presumably have offered information about the
affairs of the east. One of these is said to have converted to Christianity,
taking the name Bohemond.2 This Turkish Bohemond would later work
closely with the crusading army, offering invaluable assistance during the
siege of Antioch.3 The crusaders also: formed a series of treaties with
various Turkish rulers; received Turkish converts; negotiated with their
envoys; suffered imprisonment at their hands; gathered news about them
from their Byzantine and Armenian allies; and, on some occasions, fought

1 France, Victory in the east, pp. 93–95.

2 AA, p. 234. For another reference this Turkish Bohemond see: RA, pp. 158–159. Inci-
dentally, there seems to have been quite a trend for converted Turks/Muslims to take
the name of their Christian sponsor. Roger of Sicily, for example, gave his name to a
Sicilian convert called Ahmad. Baldwin I of Jerusalem gave his name to another Muslim
convert. See: Kedar, Crusade and mission, pp. 50. 62, 75. For discussion on the crusaders’
intelligence gathering see: S. Edgington, ‘Espionage and military intelligence during the
First Crusade, 1095–99’, Crusading and warfare in the Middle Ages: Realities and represen-
tations: Essays in honour of John France, ed. S. John and N. Morton, Crusades subsidia
VII (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2014), pp. 75–86.
3 AA, p. 270.

111
112 The First Crusade and the Conquest of Jerusalem

alongside them. A few, among the Sicilian Normans, could even speak
Arabic and thus consult Arabic-speaking authorities.4 Perhaps one of
the most remarkable sources of information was a knight named Hugh
Bonel from Normandy. He appeared suddenly in the crusader camp
having spent the last twenty years in the east following his murder of
Countess Mabel of Bellême. During this time he had become an expert
in local customs and languages.5
The many crusading chronicles produced by participants, along with
several letters and charters, record the pilgrims’ impressions of the Turks
and these materials will form the basis for this chapter. The authors
of the main narratives are: Fulcher of Chartres, chaplain to Baldwin of
Boulogne, Raymond of Aguilers, chaplain to Raymond of Saint-Gilles,
Peter Tudebode, and the anonymously-authored text known as the Gesta
Francorum. Also relevant is the continuator of Frutolf of Michelsberg’s
chronicle, who also participated in the later crusade of 1101 and therefore
acquired first-hand knowledge of the Turks.6 The many other chronicles
produced later by authors in western Europe will be only sparsely refer-
enced in this section. Their works seem to include some reports carried
home by returning crusaders but they also reflect the process of the-
ological contextualisation that characterises many of the later attempts
to place the events of the crusade in a broader theological framework.7

4 K. Tuley, ‘A century of communication and acclimatization: interpreters and interme-

diaries in the kingdom of Jerusalem’, East meets west in the Middle Ages and early modern
times: Transcultural experiences in the pre-modern world, ed. A. Classen, Fundamentals of
medieval and early modern Culture XIV (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2013), pp. 312–319.
5 OV, vol. 5, pp. 156–158. For discussion on this incident see: M. Chibnall, The world of
Orderic Vitalis: Norman monks and Norman knights (Woodbridge: Boydell, 1984), pp. 14–
41 (esp. 24).
6 It used to be thought that this chronicle’s continuator was Ekkehard of Aura. Neverthe-
less, the evidence which had formerly been used to identify Ekkehard as the author of this
narrative and therefore a participant in the 1101 crusade has recently been challenged
by McCarthy. He argues that the evidence connecting Ekkehard to this work is slight
and that the textual similarities between Ekkehard’s other works and this chronicle are
not as great as has been previously supposed. He has also problematised the notion that
Ekkehard ever resided at the monastery of Michelsberg (where the chronicle was pro-
duced). Thus this present work – following McCarthy – will simply describe the author of
this piece as the continuator of Frutolf ’s chronicle. For a full discussion see: McCarthy,
‘Introduction’, Chronicles of the Investiture Contest: Frutolf of Michelsberg and his con-
tinuators (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2014), pp. 44–48, 73–74. Another
key debate centres on the relationship between the Gesta Francorum and Peter Tude-
bode’s chronicle. For recent discussion see: M. Bull, ‘The relationship between the
Gesta Francorum and Peter Tudebode’s Historia de Hierosolymitana: the evidence of a
hitherto unexamined manuscript’, Crusades 11 (2012), 1–18. There have been several
excellent overviews outlining the background and inter-relationships between the cru-
sade chronicles, see for example: Lapina, Warfare and the miraculous, pp. 8–14; Kostick,
Social structure, pp. 9–50.
7 Riley-Smith, The First Crusade and the idea of Crusading, p. 135.
 Encountering the Turks 113

Their attitudes and perceptions are subtly different and will be discussed
in the following chapter. The only exception to this division is the history
produced by Albert of Aachen. His is the longest and most detailed of all
the crusading chronicles and is largely independent of the other narra-
tives, many of which are connected in some way to the Gesta Francorum
tradition.8 He did not participate in the campaign, but the sheer quantity
of precise data provided in Albert’s work demonstrates the author’s close
reliance upon eye-witnesses, who were themselves shrewd observers.9
Thus, his chronicle will be discussed in this section.10

Military Confrontations
The chroniclers reveal a close interest in their Turkish antagonists and
their narratives are full of their reflections. The topic which ubiquitously
receives their greatest attention is the Turks’ conduct in war. All the
chroniclers discuss the challenges posed by their skirmishes with waves
of mounted Turkish archers and for some it was the Turks’ skill as bow-
men more than any other cultural characteristic that defined them as a
people group. Fulcher of Chartres, for example, summed up the ‘East-
ern Turks’ describing them simply as ‘extremely accurate archers with the
bow’.11 In the tales of battle found in these narratives there are frequent
references to relentless showers of arrows and many writers drew explicit
attention to the fact that Turkish forces could be comprised entirely
from archers. Describing the Turkish forces at the battle of Dorylaeum,
Fulcher of Chartres, for example, commented: ‘they were calculated to
number 360,000 warriors, specifically archers, for it is their custom to
use arms of this kind’.12
The crusaders were curious about the Turks’ weapons and chroniclers
offered descriptions of their arms, observing that their bows were made
from layers of bone and horn.13 They swiftly learnt that these weapons
had their vulnerabilities, in particular that Turkish bowstrings lost their

8 For discussion on the question of the relationship of Albert’s Historia to other crusading
chronicles see: J. Rubenstein, ‘Guibert of Nogent, Albert of Aachen and Fulcher of
Chartres: three crusade chronicles intersect’, Writing the early crusades: Text transmission
and memory, ed. M. Bull and D. Kempf (Woodbridge: Boydell, 2014), pp. 24–37.
9 For discussion see: S. Edgington, ‘Albert of Aachen reappraised’, From Clermont to
Jerusalem: The Crusades and crusader societies, 1095–1500, ed. A. Murray (Turnhout:
Brepols, 1998), pp. 55–67; S. Edgington, ‘Albert of Aachen and the Chansons de Geste’,
in The Crusades and their sources: Essays presented to Bernard Hamilton, ed. J. France and
W. Zajac (Aldershot: Ashgate, 1998), pp. 23–37; Riley-Smith, The first crusaders, p. 1;
Flori, Pierre l’Ermite, pp. 51–70.
10 France similarly feels that Albert’s history deserves to be treated with the same serious-
ness as an ‘eyewitness’ narrative. France, Victory in the east, p. 381.
11 FC, pp. 179–180. 12 FC, p. 193. 13 AA, pp. 34, 322, 602.
114 The First Crusade and the Conquest of Jerusalem

tension in the rain.14 Clearly the rain could become a serious problem for
the Turks and one commentator noted that the glue holding together the
various layers of bone and horn was water-soluble, rendering the bows
useless in such conditions.15 The crusaders’ decision to march by night
across some parts of Anatolia may also have been driven by a desire to
negate Turkish archery.16
There are only a few references to Turkish body armour, which – if
worn at all – is likely to have been light. Turkish horses were not raised
to bear great loads and they tended to be smaller than crusader mounts.
Moreover, one Byzantine account observed that their horses could be
unshod, in which case they could only be lightly burdened.17 Histori-
cally, the Turks seem to have known how to manufacture iron-gear and
there are indications from the sixth century that they had some aptitude
with metallurgy.18 In addition, by 1098 the Turks had conquered many
agricultural regions in the Near East and had access to metal armour,
either from their subjects or through the spoils of war.19 Even so, such
items were sufficiently scarce to be prized and when Ibn al-Athir listed
the plunder taken during a Turkish raid against Asia Minor in 1048–1049
he specifically mentioned their seizure of chainmail jackets, suggesting
that especial importance was attached to metal war gear.20 Nevertheless,
Turkish warcraft was characterised by movement and flexibility and it is
not surprising that there are only sporadic references to Turks wearing
hauberks or helmets.21
An exception to this trend is the cavalry formation in Karbugha’s army
at the battle of Antioch, which the crusaders described as ‘Agulani’.22
They are said to have numbered 3000 and to have been heavily armoured;
both horse and rider were apparently covered in iron mail. These
‘Agulani’ were Ghulams (elite slave soldiers). The Saljuqs had been
employing these forces since the 1060s and in 1071 Alp Arslan had
deployed a large contingent at Manzikert.23 Exactly how the crusaders

14 AA, p. 236. 15 FC, p. 342.

16 B. Bachrach and D. Bachrach, ‘Ralph of Caen as a military historian’, Crusading and
warfare in the Middle Ages, ed. S. John and N. Morton, Crusades subsidia VII (Aldershot:
Ashgate, 2014), p. 94.
17 JS, p. 423. Even so the hardiness of Turkish horses’ hooves impressed the eleventh-
century writer Aristakes of Lastivert who described them as ‘solid as rock’. Aristakēs
Lastivertc ‘I’s History, p. 64.
18 Sinor, ‘The establishment and dissolution of the Türk empire’, pp. 295–296.
19 For an explicit reference to the Turks acquiring arms from their foes during their early
Persian wars see: The History of the Seljuq Turks, p. 35.
20 AST, p. 68. 21 AA, p. 106. 22 GF, pp. 20, 45, 49.
23 Peacock, Early Seljūq History, pp. 94–98; Peacock, The great Seljuk empire, pp. 225–
228; M. Bennett, ‘First crusaders’ images of Muslims: the influence of vernacular
poetry’, Forum for Modern Language Studies 22 (1986), 109; S. Loutchitskaja, ‘Barbarae
 Encountering the Turks 115

learnt to identify this force is unclear, but they were quite correct that
these were amongst the Turks’ most heavily armoured warriors. The
Ghulams are also said to have fought solely with a sword; another point
differentiating them from the vast majority of the Turkish army. There
are occasional references to the Turks bearing shields; these are reported
to have been small and crescent shaped (peltae).24 Some chroniclers also
describe the Turks using swords or lances, but Raymond of Aguilers
observed that the Turks generally preferred to rely on their ballistic supe-
riority and were not practiced in close-combat.25
The extreme mobility of the Turkish forces posed additional problems
for the crusaders, challenging them to adapt their practices.26 Many writ-
ers described the Turks’ preference for surrounding their foes, even when
they were themselves outnumbered.27 In some encounters the Turks’
ability to withdraw from battlefield with incredible speed also attracted
attention. In most cases, the Turks were content to harass their foes,
rather than seeking to confront and defeat them in a single encounter.
The crusade’s leaders explained this approach to war in a letter to Pope
Urban in September 1098, writing: ‘In their usual fashion they split up
into groups, occupying the hills and making for the roads wherever they
could in order to encircle us, because they thought that they would be
able to kill us all that way’.28 The most famous Turkish manoeuvre, how-
ever, was to feign flight during battle.29 This manoeuvre involves giving
the impression of a panicked retreat in order to lead a pursing opponent
into a trap. Alexius warned the crusade commanders specifically about
this tactic.30 The fundamental purpose of the Turkish tactics of harass-
ment and encirclement seems to have been to slow/halt an enemy and
then to corral them in a single space, wearing them down until they either

Nationes: Les peuples musulmans dans les chroniques de la Première Croisade’, Autour
de la Première Croisade: Actes du Colloque de la Society for the Study of the Crusades and the
Latin East, ed. M Balard (Paris: Publications de la Sorbonne, 1996), p. 103.
24 RC, p. 28. 25 RA, pp. 50–52.
26 The Turks’ ability to respond to various strategic threats would only have been enhanced
by their use of carrier pigeons; a practice observed by the crusaders, see: AA, 348. For
discussion see: S. Edgington, ‘The doves of war: the part played by carrier pigeons in
the Crusades’, Autour de la Première Croisade: Actes du Colloque de la Society for the Study
of the Crusades and the Latin East, ed. M. Balard (Paris: Publications de la Sorbonne,
1996), pp. 167–175.
27 RA, p. 52; Kb, p. 157.
28 Translation from Letters from the east: Crusaders, pilgrims, and settlers in the 12th–13th cen-
turies, ed. and trans. M. Barber and K. Bate, Crusade texts in translation XVIII (Aldershot:
Ashgate, 2010), p. 32. Kb, p. 163.
29 See for example: Nicéphore Bryennios, Historiarum Libri Quattuor, ed. P. Gautier,
Corpus Fontium Historiae Byzantinae IX (Brussels, 1975), p. 111.
30 AC, p. 292.
116 The First Crusade and the Conquest of Jerusalem

fled or surrendered. Such an approach hinged on their ability to inspire

a sense of fear in an opponent. This was achieved in many ways and, to
take one example, many authors frequently describe the Turks attacking
them whilst shouting war cries.31
Reflecting upon these encounters, Albert of Aachen frequently char-
acterised the crusading army as a flock of sheep beset by wolves. He drew
upon this image repeatedly, for example, when narrating: the collapse of
Peter the Hermit’s force in Anatolia; the destruction of a foraging party
led by Louis of Toul during the siege of Antioch; and Bohemond’s expe-
riences during the Battle of Antioch.32 In the last of these examples, this
analogy was intended to capture the sense of isolation and vulnerability
created by Turkish encirclement:
Since they were overwhelmed, indeed, by the forces of so many and the cun-
ning enemy’s trick, Bohemond’s surrounded troops were forced into a wretched
and worried flock, like sheep about to be killed by wolves, and they could no
longer resist, but were on the point of dying surrounded on all sides by troops of
infidels.33

Similarly, Fulcher of Chartres described the Turks ‘howling’ (ululantes)

during the battle of Dorylaeum and in his early history of the king-
dom of Jerusalem he explicitly characterised a Turkish force as ‘howling
like wolves’.34 Not only did the wolves/sheep analogy capture the demor-
alising effect of Turkish tactics upon the crusaders, but – spiritually – it
calls to mind the biblical metaphor of the True Shepherd which describes
the Christian community as a flock beset by wolves. Ralph of Caen
employed a similar device styling the crusaders as a boar surrounded by
dogs.35
In their characterisation of the Turks as ‘wolves’ the crusaders may
have been acting independently, devising this comparison by drawing
upon their own traditions, but it is equally possible that they were being
guided to use these metaphors by eastern Christians. Both Armenian and
Byzantine authors employed precisely the same imagery, depicting the
Turks as wolves preying upon the Christian flock, and, to take one exam-
ple, the Armenian writer Aristakes described the sufferings of his people

31 PT, p. 74; AA, pp. 41, 599, 602; MA, pp. 149, 285; ME, 235; WM, vol. 1, p. 630; GF,
p. 40; FC, p. 194. Völkl, Muslime – Märtyrer – Militia Christi, p. 249. There are also
references to the Turks using trumpets and horns in battle, AA, p. 150.
32 AA, pp. 24, 222, 328. 33 Translation from AA, p. 329.
34 FC, pp. 194, 362. See also BB, p. 15.
35 RC, p. 30. For discussion on the links drawn between wolves and Muslims in the
eleventh century see: C. Lauranson-Rosaz, ‘Le Velay et la Croisade’, Le Concile de
Clermont de 1095 et l’Appel à la Croisade (Rome: Ecole française de Rome, Palais Farnèse,
1997), p. 43.
 Encountering the Turks 117

at the hands of the Turks, characterising them as ‘ravenous wolves’.36

Likewise Greek authors including both Anna Comnena37 and Michael
Attaleiates (d. c. 1085) presented the Turks in this way. Attaleiates named
the Turks ‘wild wolves’ in a chapter outlining the rise of the Saljuqs in
the mid eleventh century.38 He drew this comparison explicitly because
of the Turks’ propensity for raiding and plundering. These parities in
the polemical labels applied to the Turks raises the possibility that the
crusaders adopted them whilst passing through eastern Christian terri-
tory. Certainly this seems to have been the case for the earlier-mentioned
monk Guillermus. He travelled to Byzantium some years before the cru-
sade and later served with the Byzantine army. In his later description
of his acquisition of relics from the town of Nicomedia he spoke of the
Turks as ‘ravening wolves’ (lupi rapaces).39 His choice of imagery com-
pares closely with Byzantine norms.40
An alternative explanation is that all these groups were originally influ-
enced by the Turks themselves. Wolves featured prominently in Turkish
folklore and symbology.41 It is possible that they promoted an image of
themselves as wolves to give themselves a more fearsome aspect in battle.
While the Turks certainly aroused strong feelings of fear within the cru-
sading army, the Franks were often impressed by the Turks’ proficiency
in battle and whilst they often derided Byzantine or Fatimid warriors,

36 Aristakēs Lastivertc ‘I’s History, pp. 64, 122. See also ME, p. 97. For further discussion on
his use of animal imagery see: S. La Porta, ‘Conflicted coexistence: Christian-Muslim
interaction and its representation in medieval Armenia’, Contextualizing the Muslim other
in medieval Christian discourse, ed. J. Frakes (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2011),
pp. 107, 110.
37 AC, p. 444.
38 MA, p. 81. A. Papageorgiou, ‘οί δέ λύκοι ώς Πέρσάι: the image of the “Turks” in the reign
of John II Comnenus (1118–1143)’, Byzantinoslavica (2011), 149–161. For descriptions
of Turks as wolves in the Syriac tradition, see: Dickens, ‘Turkāyē: turkic peoples’,
pp. 122–125; A. Beihammer, ‘Die Ethnogenese der Seldschukischen Türken im Urteil
Christlicher Geschichtsschreiber des 11. und 12. Jahrhunderts’, Byzantinische Zeitschrift
102.2 (2009), 600.
39 Shepard, ‘How St James the Persian’s head was brought to Cormery’, pp. 298.
40 Notably wolves had long played an important role in Turkic mythology: Papageorgiou,
‘The image of the “Turks”’, 152; Peacock, The great Seljuk empire, p. 129.
41 The extent to which the Turks drew upon lupine imagery in their culture and symbology
during this period has been the subject of some debate. Clauson has argued that this
association lay primarily in the eyes of outsiders and that the Turks did not draw heavily
upon such imagery themselves. Stepanov however has reaffirmed this connection. See:
T. Stepanov, The Bulgars and the steppe empire in the early Middle Ages: The problem of
the others, trans. T. Stefanova and T. Stepanov (Leiden: Brill, 2010), pp. 55–56; G.
Clauson, ‘Turks and wolves’, Studia Orientalia 28.2 (1964), 20. Clearly some eastern
Christian authors came to learn of the Turks’ associations with wolves in their origin
myths because this connection appears albeit in a garbled form, in the Chronography of
Bar Hebraeus and Chronicle of Michael the Syrian. See: Dickens, ‘The Sons of Magog’,
441–442. See also Golden, ‘Religion among the Qıpčaqs of Medieval Eurasia’, 186–189.
118 The First Crusade and the Conquest of Jerusalem

they could be lavish in their praise of Turkish prowess.42 Statements of

this kind appear in many crusading narratives and the author of the Gesta
Francorum felt so strongly about the Turks’ marshal competence that he
endorsed the notion that they must be related to the Franks.43 This
was no mean compliment. In the eleventh century western Christendom
notions of divine ordination and providence were thickly entwined in
the warp of Frankish identity and the term ‘Franks’ had – in the eyes
of many Frankish authors – almost become almost a synonym for pop-
ulus christianus.44 The author’s astonishing willingness therefore to link
the Turks so directly to his own people-group (and the willingness of the
Gesta’s later redactors to repeat this association) reflects a profound sense
of respect and there is no reason to doubt the author’s sincerity when
he lamented that the Turks were not Christian. Expressions of respect
and admiration, however, are not universal across the crusade chroni-
cles. Some authors were less impressed and the continuator of Frutolf ’s
chronicle, coming to terms with the destruction of the 1101 crusade,
compared the Turks’ tactics to those of robbers, although he also noted
their proficiency.45
Overall, in their encounters with the Turks, the western knights con-
fronted an enemy that was fundamentally new.46 Alexius’ advice aside,
when the crusaders crossed into Asia Minor they had virtually no prior-
knowledge of their enemy’s warcraft. It is possible that some Normans or
Anglo-Saxons may have encountered the Turks previously whilst serving
in Anatolia. There is also a chance that some crusaders from the German
Empire or eastern Europe might have been able to draw upon tales of
earlier wars against the Hungarians. Certainly there were marked sim-
ilarities between Turkish and Magyar tactics. Regino of Prüm (d. 915)
described how Magyars fought with bows of horn and ‘know noth-
ing about fighting hand-to-hand in formation or taking besieged cities.
They fight by charging forward and turning back on their horses, often
indeed simulating flight’.47 Even so, whether there was a small pool of

42 C. Kostick, ‘Courage and cowardice on the First Crusade, 1096–1099’, War in History,
20.1 (2013), 47–48.
43 GF, 21. For other statements of admiration for the Turks’ valour see: AA, pp. 36, 173;
Kb, p. 139.
44 Gabriele, Empire of memory, pp. 102, 154–157 and passim. 45 FE, p. 168.
46 J. France, ‘Warfare in the Mediterranean region in the age of the Crusades, 1095–
1291: A clash of contrasts’, The Crusades and the Near East: Cultural histories, ed. C.
Kostick (Abingdon: Routledge, 2011), pp. 1–26. See Anna Comnena’s comments on
the distinctive nature of Turkish warcraft: AC, p. 439.
47 Translation from History and politics in late Carolingian and Ottonian Europe: The chronicle
of Regino of Prüm and Adalbert of Magdeburg, trans. S. Maclean (Manchester: Manchester
 Encountering the Turks 119

experience among the crusader ranks or not, in their correspondence, the

crusade commanders declared themselves to have been unprepared for
Turkish tactics, which had taken them by surprise.48 Likewise, Fulcher
of Chartres, brooding upon the scattered corpses of Peter the Hermit’s
army, explained their defeat writing that they were ‘unaware and new to
the use of the arrow’.49 Confronted with this fundamentally new style
of war, the crusaders had to adapt. Their armoured cavalrymen and
infantry squadrons were poorly equipped to defeat a fast-moving enemy
that was content to harass them from a distance. The Turks, for their
part, learnt to fear the crusaders’ cavalry charge and this was instrumen-
tal in many of their defeats. They had experienced such charges before
in their Anatolian encounters with Frankish mercenaries in the eleventh
century, but such a manoeuvre could still prove decisive if launched at
the right moment.50 Still, the highly-mobile Turks were well suited for
evading any enemy whilst the lumbering crusaders had little answer to
a cycle of Turkish attacks withering their marching columns. Moreover,
once broken, fleeing Frankish forces – particularly infantry – were excep-
tionally vulnerable against pursuing Turkish riders. Thus, the onus was
on the Franks to adjust their tactics.
The crusaders’ battlefield encounters with Turks form the rump of
most of the crusade narratives. The cut and thrust of the raids, mas-
sacres, and skirmishes instigated by both sides constitute a substantial
proportion of each chronicle and it is almost always within accounts of
such confrontations that chroniclers offer further details of the Turks’
character, clothing, beliefs etc. This point is important because it is
necessary to recognise that the crusaders’ experiences of their enemies
occurred in an environment in which the Turks were seeking to pro-
voke a sense of fear. Their battlefield tactics were predicated on caus-
ing panic and dread among their enemies. Recalling their memories of
the Turks, the crusade chroniclers were quite plainly not studying this
people group with any sense of detachment, let alone presenting their
cold-bloodied theological assessment of ‘Islam’, but rather were recall-
ing moments when, huddled together with their fellows and harassed
by Turkish forces, they felt quite literally like lambs to the slaughter. It

University Press, 2009), p. 205; Regino of Prüm, ‘Chronicon’, MGH: SRG, ed. F.
Kurze, vol. 50 (Hanover, 1890), p. 133. See also C. R. Bowlus, The battle of Lechfeld
and its aftermath: The end of the age of migrations in the Latin West (Aldershot: Asghate,
2006), pp. 19–44, 73–95.
48 Kb, p. 163. 49 FC, p. 180.
50 Michael Attaleiates described Roussel de Bailleul’s earlier success with heavy cavalry
against the Turks, see: MA, p. 332, 334.
120 The First Crusade and the Conquest of Jerusalem

is within this unique and violent context then that the crusaders’ per-
ceptions of their Turkish opponents need to be placed if they are to be
understood and interpreted.51

Hierarchies, Culture, and Religion

The crusaders displayed some inquisitiveness about the Turks that
extended beyond simply their martial qualities. At times their works
include discussion on their social hierarchies and leadership. The Gesta
Francorum, among others, showed an awareness of the offices of the caliph
and the sultan as well as the title of ‘emir’.52 Likewise, the names (and
in some cases genealogies) of several Turkish rulers are identified with a
degree of accuracy (if garbled).53 All the chronicles name Karbugha of
Mosul (Curbaram, Corbagath et al.)54 and some also name other Turkish
leaders, including: Yaghi Siyan, governor of Antioch (Cassianus, Dar-
sianus, Gitcianus),55 Balak ibn Bahram (Balas),56 Balduk of Samosata
(Balduc),57 Ridwan of Aleppo (Brodohan de Halapia),58 and Suqman ibn
Artuq (Socomannus).59 Both Albert of Aachen and the Gesta Francorum
correctly identified that Yaghi Siyan had a son called Shams ad-Dawla
(Sensadolus, Sansadonias).60 Naturally some of these renditions of Turk-
ish names bear a closer resemblance to their originals than others and
there are some errors and moments of confusion; for example, in cer-
tain places the term ‘emir’ is offered as first name rather than a title.61
There also seem to have been moments when these authors’ choice of
names were guided by rather different considerations. As Sweetenham
has observed, Robert the Monk named the Fatimid general at Ascalon

51 Other historians to raise this point include: Hill, ‘The Christian view of Muslims at the
time of the First Crusade’, p. 1. Völkl also discusses moulding power of the crusaders’
experiences: Völkl, Muslime – Märtyrer – Militia Christi, passim.
52 GF, pp. 44, 52.
53 Housley, Fighting for the cross, p. 225. See also A. Beihammer, ‘Christian views of Islam
in early Seljuq Anatolia: perceptions and reactions’, Islam and Christianity in medieval
Anatolia, ed. A. Peacock, B. de Nicola and S. Nur Yildiz (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2015),
p. 69.
54 GF, p. 49; FC, p. 242.
55 RA, p. 60; AA, p. 194; GF, p. 47. The Gesta Francorum’s rendition of Yaghi Siyan’s
name as Cassianus is rather curious given that there was a major church in Antioch
called the church of Cassianus. Whether there is a deeper meaning in his conflation of
these two names or whether the Gesta’s author simply confused the two is unclear.
56 AA, p. 176. 57 AA, p. 170. 58 AA, p. 328.
59 AA, p. 444. 60 GF, p. 50; AA, p. 196.
61 AA, p. 230. Fulcher knew that the term ‘emir’ was a title, although he also used a variant
as the first name of a Turkish leader: FC, pp. 249, 253.
 Encountering the Turks 121

‘Clemens’ and it might not be entirely coincidental that Pope Urban II’s
challenger to the papal throne also bore that name!62
The crusaders tended to explain Turkish hierarchies to their readers
by locating equivalent positions in their own communities, filling in any
gaps by assuming that the Turks would organise their society in much
the same way as western Christians.63 This is evident in the Gesta Fran-
corum within a fabricated letter which purports to have been written by
the Turkish general Karbugha to the caliph of Baghdad. This begins:
‘To the caliph, our pope, and to our king, the lord sultan’.64 In this
opening the author has placed Turkish and western European titles side
by side very probably so that contemporaries in western Christendom
will be able to understand the broad significance of roles, which to them
would otherwise have been entirely foreign. The expectation that Turk-
ish society was similar to that in western Christendom appears in other
places. Chroniclers describe Turkish rulers as ‘kings’ or ‘dukes’, who
communicate with one another through letters secured by ‘seals’,65 and
who in one case issues a ‘royal summons’66 to their levies of nobles and
knights.67 Peter Tudebode’s assertion that the defenders of Jerusalem
bore a spear surmounted by a covered depiction of Mohammed along
the walls of Jerusalem – which of course cannot be true – probably
reveals the same expectation that Turks would select images to adorn
their banners on the same basis as the Franks themselves.68 It might also
indicate the influence of ideas drawn from the chansons, where ‘Saracen’
armies are occasionally said to have carried such standards.69 Other par-
allels occur throughout these works, including descriptions of religious
buildings and Albert of Aachen depicts Mawdud of Mosul at prayer in
his ‘oratory’ (oratorium).70 In short, the Franks anticipated that Turkish
hierarchies, institutions, and social structures would be fundamentally
be the same as their own in form, if not in religious allegiance, and they
projected this expectation into their chronicles.71
It could be concluded from this approach that the Franks were pur-
posefully depicting their foes’ society so as to fabricate an evil mirror

62 C. Sweetenham, ‘Crusaders in a hall of mirrors: the portrayal of Saracens in Robert the

Monks’ Historia Iherosolimitana’, Languages of love and hate: Conflict, communica-
tion, and identity in the medieval Mediterranean, ed. S. Lambert and H. Nicholson,
International Medieval Research XV (Turnhout: Brepols, 2012), pp. 59–61.
63 Köhler, Alliances and treaties, p. 32. 64 GF, p. 52.
65 AA, p. 252; RA, p. 135. 66 Translation from AA, p. 260.
67 GF, p. 52; AA, p. 252. 68 PT, p. 137.
69 Daniel, Heroes and Saracens, 149. 70 AA, p. 852.
71 See: Akbari, Idols in the east, pp. 206–208; Völkl, Muslime – Märtyrer – Militia Christi,
pp. 226–227, 230.
122 The First Crusade and the Conquest of Jerusalem

image of their own. Thus the caliph is presented as the Turkish ‘pope’ in
deliberate juxtaposition to the Christian ‘pope’, emphasising a sense of
binary opposition between the two (good pope-vs-evil pope). Neverthe-
less, the passages presenting Turkish rulers as ‘kings’ using ‘seals’ and
leading armies of ‘knights’ are rarely couched in hostile language. Even
the references to the caliph as the ‘pope of the Turks’ (papa Turcorum)
generally seem more explanatory in purpose than polemical.72 It is more
likely that the crusaders were simply trying to locate the Turks within
their own frame of reference – based on their societal backgrounds. Inci-
dentally, the same process can be found in reverse with Muslim writers
explaining the significance of Christian rulers by drawing parallels to
leaders in their own society; Ibn Wasil, for example, identified the pope
was the ‘caliph of Christ’.73
The participant narratives also reveal that by the end of the campaign
their authors had acquired some knowledge concerning the Turks’ ethnic
identity and their prehistory. The Turks themselves are identified with a
number of descriptors. The most frequent is Turci (Turks), but there were
variants on this term; many of which betray a Byzantine influence. A pos-
sible example of this can be found in Fulcher of Chartres’ description of
the crusaders’ arrival at Nicaea where he identifies their foes as ‘Turci Ori-
entales’ (Eastern Turks).74 This reference may simply have been intended
to mean ‘Turks from the East’ and certainly this was the position taken
by Ryan in her translation of his chronicle.75 Nevertheless, this phrase
may have a far more specific meaning. Several civilisations, including the
Byzantines, had long been accustomed to dividing the Turkish peoples
into ‘Eastern’ and ‘Western’ groups.76 In these cases, this distinction
served to differentiate the earlier Turkish tribes, operating out of cen-
tral Asia, or ‘Eastern Turks’, from the Hungarians who were identified
as ‘Western Turks’.77 John Skylitzes, for example, referred frequently to
‘Turks’ in the earlier part of his chronicle exclusively with reference to the

72 RA, p. 110.
73 Translation from O. Latiff, ‘Qur’anic imagery, Jesus and the creation of a pious-warrior
ethos in the Muslim poetry of the anti-Frankish Jihad’, Cultural encounters during the
Crusades, ed. K. Jensen, K. Salonen and H. Vogt (Odense: University Press of Southern
Denmark, 2013), pp. 135–151. For another example see the work of Yaqūt al-Rūmı̄ (d.
1229) who explained the role of the pope by comparing him to the ‘Commander of the
Faithful’. His account can be found in: Ibn Fadlān and the land of darkness, p. 187.
74 FC, p. 179.
75 F. Ryan, Fulcher of Chartres: a history of the expedition to Jerusalem, 1095–1127 (New
York: W.W. Norton, 1973), p. 80.
76 See: Nicholas I, Letters, p. 158; The chronicle of Theophanes Confessor: Byzantine and near
eastern history, AD284–813, trans. C. Mango and R. Scott (Oxford: Clarendon Press,
1997), p. 446. In this case, Theophanes was referring to the Khazars.
77 Sinor, ‘The establishment and dissolution of the Türk empire’, p. 289.
 Encountering the Turks 123

Hungarians, but then used the term ‘Eastern Turks’ when his narrative
turned to the movement of the Saljuqs into Persia – clearly he wanted
his readers to be aware of the distinction.78 Emperor Constantine VII
Porphyrogenitus (d. 959) provided an explanation for this division of
the Turkish people in his De Administrando Imperio. He explained that
originally there were seven Turkish tribes who lived near the Khazars,
but following a defeat at the hands of the Pechenegs they broke into two
groups, one heading west and the other east towards Persia.79 Fulcher’s
use of this term may betray his assimilation of this Byzantine practice and
evidently many Greek authors were aware that the Saljuqs derived from
the ‘Eastern Turks’.
A Byzantine influence is also evident in other ethnonyms used to
describe the Turks. Many of the participant narratives and the crusade
letters refer at times to the Turks as ‘Persians’ while the sultan of Bagh-
dad was often named as the king or sultan of Persia.80 Again this reflects
standard practice in Byzantine texts, which often applied archaic names
to contemporary peoples. As Durak’s study has shown, it was common
for Byzantines to identify the Turks in this way and the term ‘Persians’
served to distinguish them from Arab Muslims, who were identified as
‘Saracens’. The term ‘Persians’ however was not simply a generic descrip-
tor applicable to all Turks, at least in the eleventh century, but rather it
was used by Byzantine authors to refer specifically to Turks who actually
lived in Persia. Thus this ethnonym pertained to one specific group of
Turks, rather than the people group as a whole.81 The crusaders seem
to have adopted elements of this practice. Certainly, they too described
the Turks as ‘Persians’, and these references do tend to pertain to Turks
who have travelled to the Levant from lands further to the east, but they
do not show the same clear-cut geographical division as the Byzantine
authors.82 Thus the sultan of Baghdad is ubiquitously referred to as
the ruler of Persia and Karbugha’s army (which many authors believed
to have been sent by the sultan) is reported to have included Persians.
Nevertheless, forces made up of Anatolian Turks are also occasionally

78 JS, p. 315 (for his reference to ‘Eastern Turks’) 170–171, 215, 220, 223, 231, 265, 276
(for his references to Hungarians as Turks). See also Three Byzantine military treatises,
p. 148.
79 Constantine Porphyrogenitus, De Administrando Imperio, pp. 170–172.
80 For example: GF, p. 49 (although such references are found widely across most First
Crusade narratives). William of Apulia, whose work discusses Turkish advances into
Anatolia, also describes the Turks as ‘Persians’. Again, he is an author with clear links
to Byzantium. William of Apulia, ‘Gesta Roberti Wiscardi’, pp. 265–267.
81 Durak, ‘Defining the “Turk”, 65–78; Beihammer, “Die Ethnogenese”’, 608–610.
82 Loutchitskaja, ‘Barbarae Nationes’, p. 102.
124 The First Crusade and the Conquest of Jerusalem

described as ‘Persians’, both at the siege of Nicaea and at Dorylaeum.83

Thus they do not entirely conform to the standard Byzantine schema. It
seems likely that the Franks adopted some elements of common Byzan-
tine parlance and applied it as they saw fit.
A local influence is also apparent in the chroniclers’ knowledge of
the Saljuqs’ early history and religious beliefs. Several accounts take
an interest in this subject and speak of them emerging from the land
of ‘Khurasan’ (in the Gesta ‘Corosanum’, ‘Corrozanam’).84 According
to Peter Tudebode, Khurasan was ruled by the caliph and was situ-
ated far to the east. Many other chroniclers speak of Turkish reinforce-
ments emerging from these lands and captives being led off to Khurasan
into slavery. Albert of Aachen even ventured a description of its terrain
presenting it as ‘so enclosed by mountains and watery marshes on all
sides that anyone who is once captured and enters there is unable to
come out again’.85 He supplied this information in a passage describ-
ing the Turks’ enslavement of captured crusaders.86 He also mentions a
town called ‘Sanmarthan’ which Murray plausibly suggests is a garbled
reference to Samarkand.87 These references clearly pertain to Persia and
the Caliphate of Baghdad (Khurasan is a province in Persia), which the
Turks had conquered several decades previously.88 Their identification
of this land specifically as ‘Khurasan’ mirrors common practice among
Muslim, Armenian, Coptic, and Byzantine writers, who all routinely use
this same toponym to identify the Turkish heartlands and in much the
same contexts.89 This is not surprising. Khurasan was a major centre of

83 Examples: GF, pp. 21, 49, 70; PT, pp. 54, 89; FC, pp. 133, 193, 220, 242.
84 GF, pp. 4, 5, 15, 39. 85 Translation from AA, p. 613. See also RA, p. 87.
86 A curious point worth mentioning is that when the Byzantines described ‘barbarian’
territory they often described the landscape itself as being hostile and forbidding. In
1294, for example, Theodore Metochites presented the lands beyond the Byzantine
frontier as ‘blind marsh, or Scythian cold’. Naturally this is a very late example, but
it is worth considering the possibility that Albert has inherited (probably at second
or third hand) a description of Turkish territory derived ultimately from Byzantine
polemics. Quotation and discussion from D. Korobeinikov, Byzantium and the Turks in
the thirteenth century, Oxford Studies in Byzantium (Oxford: Oxford University Prss,
2014), p. 98.
87 A. Murray, ‘Coroscane: homeland of the Saracens in the chansons de geste and the histori-
ography of the Crusades’, Aspects de l’épopee romane: Mentalités, idéologies, intertextualités,
ed. H. van Dijk and W. Noomen (Groningen: E. Forsten, 1995), p. 178.
88 Murray, ‘Coroscane: homeland of the Saracens’, p. 177. Albert of Aachen also speaks
of Baghdad as the capital of Khurasan; a reference that reinforces the idea that it was
perceived by the heart of the Turkish sultanate: AA, p. 594 (see also Murray, ‘Coroscane:
homeland of the Saracens’, p. 178).
89 See: ME, p. 135; History of the Patriarchs of the Egyptian Church, vol. 2, part 2, p. 311;
The History of the Seljuq Turks, p. 31, passim; AC, pp. 179–180, 306, 318, 321, 410,
450; JS, pp. 72, 420. For an earlier reference see: The chronicle of Theophanes Confessor,
pp. 512, 587, 661, 665.
 Encountering the Turks 125

power for the Turks and many of their administrators and cultural tradi-
tions derived from this area. Peacock has even observed that the Saljuq
empire was ‘in some respects as much a Khurasani empire as a Turkish
one’.90 The crusaders had evidently learnt to identify this region through
the peoples they encountered.
There may however be another dimension to this toponym. The var-
ious participant narratives treat Khurasan simply as a place name, fol-
lowing the practice of other eastern authors. Most subsequent authors,
such as Baldric of Bourgueil, simply transliterated this name without
making any alterations.91 Still, Robert the Monk seems to have seen an
opportunity to imbue this term with additional eschatological meaning.92
When Robert the Monk wrote his account of the crusade, drawing on the
Gesta, he amended its spelling from ‘Corosanum’ to ‘Chorozaim’.93 This
is a significant shift. ‘Chorozaim’ is the name of a Galilean town men-
tioned in the New Testament in Matthew 11: 20–24 and Luke 10: 13–
15. In these verses Christ upbraids three towns (Chorazin, Bethsaida,
and Capernaum) for refusing to hear his teaching and he prophesies
their doom. These same verses were subsequently remoulded in the later
apocalyptic work of Pseudo-Methodius who depicted Chorazin as the
birth place of the Antichrist.94 Pseudo-Methodius’ work was later used
by the tenth-century author Adso, abbot of Montier-en-Der, in his own
widely circulated work on the Antichrist, although here Chorazin was
given as the place where the Antichrist would grow up.95 What seems
to have happened here is that Robert theologically redacted the purely
geographic term ‘Corosanum’ (Khurasan) to give it eschatological over-
tones, effectively positioning the Turks within the homelands of the
Antichrist.
Peter Tudebode and the Gesta Francorum offer some further spec-
ulation about the Turks’ more distant origins in their versions of the
earlier-mentioned letter which purports to have been sent by Kar-
bugha to the caliph of Baghdad. This source presents Karbugha eagerly
anticipating battle with the Franks, stating that he will either be victori-
ous or he will be driven beyond the ‘rivers of the Amazons’ (Amazonia

90 Peacock, The great Seljuk empire, p. 9. 91 BB, pp. 61, 63.

92 For previous discussion on the usage of this term and its potential eschatological con-
notations see: Murray, ‘Coroscane: homeland of the Saracens’, pp. 177–184; Tolan,
Saracens, p. 112. Sweetenham has specifically drawn attention to the way that Robert
realigned this name, see: C. Sweetenham, ‘“Hoc enim non fuit humanum opus, sed
Divinum”: Robert the Monk’s use of the Bible in the Historia Iherosolimitana’, The uses
of the Bible in crusading sources, ed. E. Lapina and N. Morton (forthcoming). Carole has
kindly permitted me to reference this article before publication.
93 RM, p. 59. 94 Pseudo-Methodius, Apocalypse, p. 63.
95 Murray, ‘Coroscane: homeland of the Saracens’, pp. 182–184.
126 The First Crusade and the Conquest of Jerusalem

flumina) and even into ‘upper India’ (India superior).96 Exactly what infor-
mation these statements were based upon is unclear. One explanation is
that these references to Amazons and India were intended to denote
nothing more than simply: faraway places beyond the horizons of knowl-
edge. It is also plausible, however, that his identification of the Amazons
and India was not coincidental. Michael Attaleiates stated that the Turks
had first invaded Persia from across the Ganges, which he reported to be
a river that is four and a half miles wide.97 This is seemingly a garbled
reference to the campaigns of the Ghaznavids. Perhaps these authors had
also picked up a rumour of Turkish activity in this region. The references
to Amazons are also thought-provoking because back in the first cen-
tury, Pomponius Mela had also described a Turkish homeland bordering
the Amazons.98 The Syriac tradition likewise situated the Turks near to
Amazon territory. This is shown explicitly in the Ecclesiastical History of
Pseudo-Zachariah (written 555 AD).99 These similarities may be sheer
coincidence, but they may also reflect Peter’s dependency upon classi-
cal and/or eastern Christian authorities. This is not to suggest that they
actually read Pseudo-Zachariah; rather that this kind of association may
have been in circulation in eastern Christian circles at this time. Likewise,
there was nothing unusual about a medieval traveller seeking guidance
from classical and early-medieval texts when attempting to understand
the world of central Asia; Friar William of Rubruck in the thirteenth cen-
tury consulted Solinus and Isidore of Seville before his journey across
Asia.100
The crusaders’ grasp of Turkish history for the period between their
conquest of Persia and the time of the First Crusade was far stronger.
They recognised that the Turkish conquests in Anatolia and Syria were
recent occurrences. Fulcher of Chartres noted that they had crossed
the Euphrates around half a century previously and had then set about
conquering vast swathes of Byzantine Asia Minor. In a similar vein, Ray-
mond of Aguilers correctly dated the Turkish capture of Antioch to 1084;
fourteen years before the crusaders’ conquest of the city.101 The most
detailed history of the Turkish attacks into Syria and their confronta-
tions with the Fatimids can be found in Albert of Aachen’s chronicle.

96 GF, p. 51; PT, p. 92.

97 MA, p. 76. For discussion on the Byzantine understanding of the Turks’ pre-history
and their sources of information see: Beihammer, ‘Die Ethnogenese’, 589–614.
98 Pomponius Mela’s description of the world, pp. 66–67. See also Pliny (the Elder), Natural
History, vol. 2, p. 350.
99 Dickens, ‘Turkāyē: turkic peoples’, pp. 19–21.
100 The mission of Friar William of Rubruck, trans. P. Jackson, Hakluyt Society: Second
Series CLXXIII (London: Hakluyt Society, 1990), p. 4.
101 RA, p. 64.
 Encountering the Turks 127

He narrated how the Turks had taken Jerusalem from the Egyptians with
a force apparently numbering 300 warriors, which had then extracted a
considerable tribute from both ‘Saracen’ and Christian travellers seek-
ing entry into the holy city.102 He then explained how the city had been
retaken by the Egyptians shortly before the crusaders’ arrival and he was
aware that the Turks had been commanded by a Turkish prince called
‘Socomannus’ (Suqman ibn Artuq). According to this narrative, Suqman
then sought shelter with his brother in Damascus (This is a reference
to Duqaq, who in fact was not Suqman’s brother).103 Such references
demonstrate that it was well known that the Turks were comparatively
recent invaders, who had stirred up considerable resentment amongst
the peoples of the Near East.104 Accounts of the suffering they inflicted
on the Armenians appear with particular regularity in many accounts
and Raymond of Aguilers reports that the collapse of Turkish resistance
in the forts and towns around Antioch (in the face of the crusaders’
advance) owed much to the hostility of the local populace.105 The effect
of the crusaders’ arrival upon the Armenian population is confirmed in
the Muslim sources and Ibn al-Qalanisi likewise reports that many towns
in the vicinity of Antioch ejected their Turkish garrisons upon news of
the Christians’ approach.106
Considered as a corpus, the general impression given by the crusade
narratives is one of intense interest concerning any detail about the Turks
that might give them a tactical or strategic advantage. The Turks’ prior
history and the resentment they had stirred up among the peoples they
had conquered were both themes of significance because they had mili-
tary applications. Even so, there are very few references to wider cultural
factors, such as the Turks’ manners or way of life. In one brief passage,
which mourns the enslavement of Christian women by the Turks, one
author imagines the captives being carried away by Turks with partially
shaved heads and untrimmed beards.107 Whether these Turkish hairstyles

102 AA, p. 442. For recent discussion on the impact of the Seljuk conquest see: Gat, ‘The
Seljuks in Jerusalem’, pp. 1–39.
103 AA, pp. 442–445. 104 FE, p. 152.
105 RA, p. 48. See also GF, p. 41; Kamal al-Din, ‘Extraits de la Chronique d’Alep’,
pp. 578–579.
106 Ibn al-Qalanisi, The Damascus chronicle of the Crusades, ed. and trans. H. Gibb (Mineola,
NY: Dover, 2002), pp. 42–43.
107 Describing the pre-crusade period, Matthew of Edessa observed that the Turks tended
to have long hair ‘like women’. ME, pp. 44, 83. For discussion on steppe hairstyles
during this period see: Stepanov, The Bulgars and the Steppe Empire, pp. 49–50. For
further Frankish commentary on Turkish and Arab beards see: HAI, p. 48; AA, p. 612;
GN, pp. 84, 339. It is interesting to note that the Turks historically had not always been
bearded. Travelling among the shamanistic Turks in the early tenth century, the envoy
Ibn Fadlan noted that the Turks tended to pluck their beards (although they retained
128 The First Crusade and the Conquest of Jerusalem

have any basis in reality or were merely the product of the author’s imag-
ination is unclear.108
The crusaders’ showed fractionally more interest in the Turks’ religious
beliefs, but even on this point their curiosity was uneven. One aspect –
omnipresent through every crusade narrative, whether it was written by
a participant or not – is the basic fact that the Turks adhered to a non-
Christian religion. Each author leaves his readers in no doubt on this
point, using terms such ‘pagans’, ‘heathens’, and ‘gentiles’. Cumulatively,
these names convey little information beyond the plain fact that the Turks
were not Christian. The repeated use of such labels embeds the idea that
religious difference was a fundamental notion which informed the cru-
saders’ world view and was of particular importance in their perception
of the Turks. A connected theme, which again appears with considerable
regularity in these narratives, is the attribution of ‘evil’ characteristics
to the Turks’ religion. Several chronicles include references to mosques
(machomaria) and the Gesta Francorum refers them on two occasions
using deeply-hostile language presenting them as ‘the hall of the Devil’
(diabolicum atrium) and the ‘house of the Devil’ (domus diabolica).109 The
Turks, by extension, are referred to with linked terms such as ‘unbeliev-
ing’ (increduli), or ‘enemies of God’ (inimici Dei).110 Terminology of this
kind is present – to varying degrees – in all the chronicles for the crusade
and each relates directly to the Turks’ spirituality.
Still, none of this language conveys any real knowledge of the Turks’
religion and certainly many of their descriptions of the Turks’ ‘pagan-
ism’ drew upon long-standing tropes that had long been applied to
Christendom’s non-Christian enemies. Albert of Aachen demonstrated
this practice where he described the Turkish ‘king of Khurasan’ seek-
ing advice from ‘magicians, prophets and soothsayers’ (magi, arioli,
aruspices).111 Naturally, the identification of these spiritual advisors offers
no accurate information about the Islamic religion and this allusion seems
to derive from the Old Testament where these same mystics appear in the
Book of Daniel in the entourage of Nebuchadnezzar.112 Perhaps Albert
thought it appropriate to present the king of Khurasan in the same way
as the biblical king of Babylon. More likely, this was simply a standard
way among medieval writers of describing the spiritual leaders of other

their moustaches). Even so, the sources seem to agree that the Turks confronting the
crusaders were bearded. This may be a sign of their movement towards Islam: Ibn
Fadlān and the land of darkness, p. 19. Guibert of Nogent also points out that the
crusaders were instructed by the Adhemar of Le Puy to shave so that they would not
be mistaken for Turks. GN, p. 206. See also Leclercq, Portraits croisés, pp. 118–119.
108 AA, p. 612. 109 GF, pp. 42, 75. See also PT, p. 77.
110 GF, pp. 20, 32, 62; AA, p. 234.
111 Translation from AA, p. 259. See also RM, p. 63. 112 Daniel 2:27.
 Encountering the Turks 129

faiths. Notably, Cosmas of Prague (d.1125) in his history of Bohemia

described how Duke Bretislav expelled this same trio in 1092 from his
land when he sought to rid himself of paganism.113 In a similar vein,
Adam of Bremen included references to magicians (magi), soothsayers
(augures), and necromancers (nigromantici) in his descriptions of Scandi-
navian paganism.114 Thus it was not only Muslims who were said to look
to magicians and soothsayers, rather they were deemed to be omnipresent
among non-Christian peoples.
Having identified the Turks as a hostile non-Christian enemy, the
chroniclers’ interest in their religion largely evaporates.115 They showed
some awareness of the fact that Arabs and Turks adhered to linked
religious traditions through their very occasional application of the term
‘Saracen’ to both peoples – although they were also aware that the
Turks’ spiritual beliefs were closely enmeshed with their ethnic identity
(see later). Some crusaders were broadly aware of the Sunni/Shia
divisions within Islam and there are a few references to Mohammed.
They were less clear about Mohammed’s status within Islam. Fulcher
described Mohammed as the Turks’ ‘advocate’ (advocatus).116 Peter
Tudebode less accurately referred to Muslims worshipping Mohammed
and ‘other Gods’ (alii dii), advancing the idea that they were polytheists
(interestingly, the same accusation was sometimes levelled at Christians
by Muslim writers).117 Albert of Aachen makes a similar claim.118 In
sum, it seems likely that these authors neither knew, nor wanted to
know, much about their enemies’ beliefs beyond what was of immediate
military utility.
The crusaders’ lack of interest in the Islamic religion and its tenants of
faith is not surprising.119 For centuries Christendom had been launching
evangelical campaigns across its eastern borders into eastern Europe

113 ‘Die Chronik der Bühmen des Cosmas von Prag’, MGH: SRGNS, ed. B. Bretholz,
vol. 2 (Berlin, 1923), p. 161.
114 Adam of Bremen, ‘Gesta Hammaburgensis Ecclesiae Pontificum’, p. 244.
115 Housley, ‘The Crusades and Islam’, 197; Meserve, Empires of Islam, p. 157; Tolan,
Saracens, p. 110; Irwin, For the lust of knowing, p. 21; Leclercq, Portraits croisés, p. 229.
This uninterest seems in some cases to have been mirrored by Muslim authors. See for
example, Micheau’s study on Ibn al-Athir: F. Micheau, ‘Ibn al-Athı̄r’, Medieval Muslim
historians and the Franks in the Levant, ed. A. Mallett (Leiden: Brill, 2014), p. 73.
116 FC, p. 220.
117 PT, p. 80; The history of the Seljuq state, p. 37. For discussion see: Latiff, ‘Qur’anic
Imagery’, p. 144; Hill, ‘The Christian view of Muslims’, p. 3; N. Christie, ‘Ibn
al-Qalānisı̄’, Medieval Muslim historians and the Franks in the Levant, ed. A. Mallett
(Leiden: Brill, 2014), p. 16.
118 AA, p. 258.
119 Discussing the Anglo-Saxon sources for the period before the First Crusade, Scarfe
Beckett has drawn a similar conclusion. Scarfe Beckett, Anglo-Saxon perceptions, p. 8.
See also Campopiano, ‘La culture pisane’, p. 89; Daniel, Islam and the West, p. 16.
130 The First Crusade and the Conquest of Jerusalem

and the Baltic, but whilst many sources celebrate the deeds of leading
missionaries, they contain few details about the religious beliefs held by
those they were seeking to convert.120 Up to the eleventh century at
least, it seems that converting non-Christians was considered interesting
and important, while the beliefs from which these people were being
converted was not. Even Archbishop William of Tyre who spent decades
in the east, took a lively interest in his Muslim neighbours, and was
an intelligent and inquisitive observer, betrays only a marginally greater
knowledge of this faith.121
One curious aspect of the crusaders’ convictions concerning the ‘Sara-
cen’ religion was their belief that Muslims were idolaters.122 This is
repeated in many chronicles and among these several authors claimed
that the crusaders actually discovered a statue of Mohammed in the
Dome of the Rock/Templum Domini in Jerusalem shortly after its con-
quest. This report is made in Fulcher of Chartres’ chronicle (although
he was not actually there) and it later appears in the Gesta Tancredi (whose
author was also not there), which speaks of a silver idol of Mohammed,
enthroned and covered in jewels.123 Naturally, the belief that Muslims
were idolaters had a substantial pedigree in western Christendom that
long predated the First Crusade; thus, the repeated identification of
Muslims in this way was not new.124 Nor were western Christians alone

120 See: R. Fletcher, The barbarian conversion: from Paganism to Christianity (Berkeley,
CA: University of California Press, 1999), pp. 3–4; H. Mayr-Harting, The coming of
Christianity to Anglo-Saxon England, 3rd ed. (London: Batsford, 1991), p. 22.
121 N. Morton, ‘William of Tyre’s attitude towards Islam: some historiographical reflec-
tions’, Deeds done beyond the Sea: essays on William of Tyre, Cyprus and the military orders
presented to Peter Edbury, ed. S. Edgington and H. Nicholson, Crusades subsidia VI
(Farnham: Ashgate, 2014), p. 16.
122 Again this accusation was also made by Muslim authors about the Franks. The poet
Mu’izzi, for example, wrote of a time when ‘Those miserable idolaters will become
the sport of lions, those accursed pig-eaters will become food for pigs’. G. Tetley, The
Ghaznavid and Seljuk Turks: Poetry as a source for Iranian history, RSIT (Abingdon:
Routledge, 2009), p. 143.
123 FC, p. 290; RC, p. 107. William of Malmesbury mentions this idol, following Fulcher
of Chartres: WM, vol. 1, p. 642. The Hystoria Antiochiae atque Ierusolymarum also refers
to it following the Gesta Tancredi, see: HAI, pp. 123–124. The Hystoria Antiochiae atque
Ierusolymarum claims that the Turks erected three ‘shrines to the Devil’ in the church
of St Peter’s in Antioch. One of these in particular is reported to have been very ornate.
HAI, p. 61.
124 For an example see: Hrotsvit of Gandersheim’s Pelagius (‘Passio Sancti Pelagii Pretio-
sissimi Martiris’, in ‘Hrotsvithae Opera’, MGH: SRG, ed. P. de Winterfeld, vol. 34
(Berlin, 1902), pp. 53–58). Other crusade narratives also reported idols of Mohammed:
‘Passio Thiemonis Archiepiscopi’, MGHS, vol. 11 (1854), pp. 60–61; BB, p. 7. Bar-
tolf of Nangis speaks of idols in Caesarea: see, Bartolf of Nangis, ‘Gesta Francorum
Expugnantium Iherusalem’, RHC: Oc, vol. 3 (Paris, 1866), p. 527. On the genesis of
this identification see: Scarfe Beckett, Anglo-Saxon perceptions, pp. 104–109, 212–217;
J. Flori, ‘Tares et défauts de L’Orient dans les sources relatives a la première croisade’,
 Encountering the Turks 131

in this conviction; the Byzantines had also long described the Islamic reli-
gion in these terms.125 Norman Daniel is almost certainly correct that
an influential train of thought that led contemporaries to this conclusion
can be reduced to the following progression: (1) the Muslims are deemed
to worship God falsely, (2) therefore they worship a false God. (3) If they
worship a false God then by definition they worship an idol.126 As Gre-
gory VII pointed out to the clergy of Constance in 1075, in discussion
upon 1 Samuel, all resistance to the will of God is idolatry.127 Thus many
contemporaries probably would not have seen much utility in drawing
distinctions between non-Christian religions because they were all per-
ceived as the idolatrous work of demons. John of Würzburg spelled out
this reasoning when explaining why the reverence shown by Muslims’
for the Templum Domini was not theologically acceptable. Drawing upon
Augustine, he stated that idolatry is anything that ‘differs from the faith
of Christ’.128 This theological background may explain how contempo-
raries could view Islam as idolatrous, even if they would have searched
in vain for any actual Muslim statues.
Nevertheless, Fulcher and Ralph of Caen’s chronicle do not simply
label Islam as idolatry, they specifically claimed that an actual idol of
Mohammed was discovered in the Dome of the Rock. Their reports
warrant closer attention. The first point to make is that the crusaders
did not find a statue of Mohammed on the Temple mount. This would
have been emphatically against Islamic law and Albert of Aachen, who

Monde Oriental et Monte Occidental dans la culture médiévale (Greifwald, 1997), pp. 45–
56; Schwinges, Kreuzzugsideologie, p. 88.
125 For further discussion see: Tolan, Saracens, p. 118; Kedar, Crusade and mission, p. 21;
Daniel, Islam and the West, pp. 338–343; Akbari, Idols in the east, pp. 204–205, 243–245.
126 Daniel, The Arabs and mediaeval Europe, p. 31. See also Daniel, Islam and the West,
p. 343; Daniel, Heroes and Saracens, p. 145; Ducellier, Chrétiens d’Orient, pp. 32,
161–162. Although it should be pointed out that the early twelfth-century author
Petrus Alfonsi described Islam as idolatrous on different grounds. He claimed that
Muslims worshipped idols originally dedicated to Saturn and Mars in Mecca. See:
Petrus Alfonsi, Dialogue against the Jews, trans. I. Resnick (Washington, DC: Catholic
University of America Press, 2006), p. 158.
127 Epistolae Vagantes, p. 27. Pope Gregory made a similar point in his Moralia (later
included in Gratian’s Decretum). See: Nilsson, ‘Gratian on pagans’, p. 160. Flori argues
that the crusaders’ allegations that Muslims were idolaters are rooted in the traditions
of the chansons de geste where such claims are frequently made. It is not impossible that
they were influenced by such ideas, which certainly do appear in the chansons, but even
so these sources were themselves manifestations of the long-standing belief that almost
all non-Christian religions are idolatrous. Flori, ‘Première croisades et conversion’, p.
452.
128 ‘John of Würzburg’, Peregrinationes Tres, ed. R. Huygens, CCCM CXXXIX (Turnhout:
Brepols, 1994), p. 94. For a similar statement see: Bede’s Ecclesiastical History, p. 168.
In the 1160s Benjamin of Tudela noted that the Franks were particularly concerned to
keep the Templum Domini empty of any image or statue: ‘The travels of Rabbi Benjamin
of Tudela’, Early travels in Palestine, ed. T. Wright (London, 1848), p. 68.
132 The First Crusade and the Conquest of Jerusalem

lists the contents of the building in some detail, does not mention any
idol.129 The descriptions of an idol of Mohammed seem rather to have
been symbolic and can perhaps be explained with reference to a parallel
example. In his recent study on the conversion of Scandinavia, Winroth
has demonstrated that the famous pagan Temple of Uppsala in Swe-
den, described by Adam of Bremen in some detail, may in fact never
have existed. Despite Adam’s lengthy explanation of its lurid practices,
archaeologists can find no trace of it. Winroth’s suggestion, rooted in
local politics, is that Uppsala was a figment of Adam of Bremen’s imag-
ination; he located the temple at Uppsala because the local Christian
rulers had not subordinated themselves to the archbishop of Hamburg-
Bremen.130 Yet there may be something more here too. Adam used the
fictional Uppsala as a symbolic focal point for local paganism which, with
its destruction, opened up the area to Christianity. It seems that Fulcher
and Ralph’s reference to a statue of Mohammed should be understood
in the same context; an imagined item symbolising the focal point of
an idolatrous belief, which was being set up simply so that it could be
cast down in ruin.131 Schwinges may also be right that this idol was
introduced into these texts as an allusion to 2 Thessalonians 2,4. This
verse prophecies that in the end times the son of perdition will take up
residence in the Temple of God, and will pose as God before being cast
down. This same notion is mirrored closely in the Pseudo-Methodian
apocalyptic tradition.132
Overall, reflecting upon these points, what makes the first cru-
saders’ experiences of the Turks so distinctive is the fact that they were

129 AA, p. 448. Muratova has raised the possibility that this ‘statue’ may have been a
missidentified Roman statue of Jupiter (Folda follows her in this: J. Folda, The art of
the Crusaders in the Holy Land, 1098–1187 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
1995), p. 44). Still, as Bennett and Loutchitskaja observe, it seems unlikely that a
statue to a Roman god would have remained upon the Temple mount while it was
under Muslim rule. X. Muratova, ‘Western chronicles of the First Crusade as sources
for the history of art in the Holy Land’, Crusader art in the twelfth century, ed. J. Folda
(Oxford: British School of Archaeology in Jerusalem, 1982), p. 55; Bennett, ‘First
crusaders’ images of Muslims’, 102; S. Loutchitskaja, ‘L’image des musulmans dans
les chroniques des croisades’, Le Moyen Âge 105 (1999), 727–728.
130 Winroth, The conversion of Scandinavia, p. 148.
131 For further discussion on this theme see: Bennett, ‘First crusaders’ images of Muslims’,
104.
132 Schwinges, Kreuzzugsideologie, p. 123. See also Muratova, ‘Western chronicles of the
First Crusade’, pp. 53–57; Pseudo-Methodius, Apocalypse, pp. 67–69, 137. Another
piece of evidence that warrants attention is the claim made by al-Muqaddasi (tenth
century) that the Dome of the Rock was constructed to outcompete the Holy Sepul-
chre. Had this tradition become known to the crusaders it might help to account for
the specific symbolic importance they attached to its capture. Pringle, churches of the
crusader kingdom: Volume III, p. 399; al-Muqaddasi, The best divisions for knowledge of
the regions, trans. A. Collins (Reading: Garnet, 1994), p. 153.
 Encountering the Turks 133

encountering a people about whom they previously knew virtually noth-

ing aside from the fact that they were hostile and non-Christian. True,
some may previously have heard tales about the Saljuqs carried by return-
ing pilgrims and mercenaries; others might have learnt something from
the Byzantines. The crusaders’ skirmishes with the imperial turcopoles
during their march to Constantinople might also have provided a source
of reflection. Turcopoles are mentioned in several sources and Raymond
of Aguilers explains that they were either Turks who had migrated to
Byzantium or were the sons of mixed marriages between Turks and
Greeks.133 Even so, only a tiny minority of crusaders would have had
any prior personal experience before their first meeting in Asia Minor.
Consequently, the First Crusade chronicles and letters serve as a case-
study for how medieval Europeans approached a new, but hostile, people.
These works describe their authors’ efforts to locate the Turks within their
world view and lived experience and their narratives represent a synthesis
of curiosity, shrewd military observation, and theological interpretation.
As shown earlier, on many subjects their information frequently betrays
eastern Christian hallmarks, suggesting that the crusaders recognised
that their co-religionists were a natural source of knowledge. Western
Christians had long relied upon their Eastern cousins for guidance on a
whole range of topics. From Charlemagne proudly displaying a Byzantine
water-clock at Aachen through to William the Conqueror using Byzan-
tine ship designs and naval signalling techniques during his conquest of
England, there was a long deferential tradition of drawing upon Byzantine
authorities.134 Earlier pilgrim groups had likewise returned to the west
bearing gifts, goods, and ideas from Byzantium. Among these was Bishop
Gunther of Bamberg, who was buried in a silk Byzantine tapestry in 1065
whilst returning from Jerusalem.135 Clearly, the first crusaders were no
different. In one place Raymond of Aguilers explicitly stated that he was
supplying the Greek name for one of the hills on which Antioch was
built; a point which demonstrates his dependency on Greek-mediated
information.136 Descriptions of some of the other people groups encoun-
tered by the Franks reveals a similar influence. To take an example,

133 RA, p. 55.

134 B. Bachrach, ‘On the origins of William the Conqueror’s horse transports’, Trans-
port and culture 26.3 (1985), 505–531. See also K. Ciggaar, ‘Byzantine marginalia to
the Norman Conquest’, Anglo-Norman Studies IX, ed. R. Allen Brown (Woodbridge:
Boydell, 1986), pp. 43–63.
135 D. Jacoby, ‘Bishop Gunther of Bamberg: Byzantine and Christian pilgrimage to the
Holy Land in the eleventh century’, Zwischen Polis, Provinz und Peripherie: Beiträge
zur byzantinischen Geschichte und Kultur, ed. L. Hoffmann (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz,
2005), pp. 267–285.
136 RA, p. 48.
134 The First Crusade and the Conquest of Jerusalem

several crusaders noted that there were ‘Azymites’ (Azimitae) and ‘Pub-
licans’ (Publicani) among the ranks of their enemies.137 These are both
predominantly Byzantine terms.138 ‘Azymites’ is a polemical name used
by the Greeks with reference to those who use unleavened bread (azymus)
in the Eucharist. In this case it seems to refer to Armenians fighting with
the Turks. Naturally, the term ‘azymus’ was present in western Christen-
dom’s lexicon, but ‘Azymites’ (those who use unleavened bread) seems
to have been borrowed. The issue of leavened/unleavened bread was an
important topic in eleventh-century Byzantium and the use of unleav-
ened bread was deemed to be an erroneous Judaizing influence that was
to be condemned.139 Ironically the Franks themselves were often labelled
as ‘Azymites’ by Greek authors because they too used unleavened bread,
but neither of the Frankish authors to use this term shows any awareness
of this fact. It seems more likely that they simply picked up a Greek term
of abuse for Armenians and applied it to those serving with the Turks
without fully understanding its implications.
The second term Publicani refers to Paulicians, who were dualists and
therefore deemed heretics. Paulicians were not well known in western
Europe and lived for the most part in isolated communities spread across
Asia Minor.140 Again it is unlikely, although not impossible, that the cru-
saders could have identified them without Byzantine, or at least Arme-
nian, assistance.141 In a similar vein the mysterious group of crusaders
known as Tafurs seem to have adopted a name with either Armenian or
Arabic roots (historians are divided on its precise etymology, but it clearly
has an eastern origin).142 It might also be relevant to point out that the

137 GF, pp. 45, 49, 83; PT, pp. 84, 89, 147; AA, pp. 456. 462, 464, 468. Peter located
them among the Egyptian forces and Albert of Aachen noted the presence of ‘Publicans’
(gens Publicanorum) in the Fatimid army at Ascalon. The Gesta claimed that there were
‘Publicans’ at Arqa.
138 Loutchitskaja, ‘Barbarae Nationes’, pp. 104–105.
139 T. Kolbaba, ‘Byzantine perceptions of Latin religious “errors”: themes and changes
from 850 to 1350’, The Crusades from the perspective of Byzantium and the Muslim
world, ed. A. Laiou and R. Mottahedeh (Washington, DC: Dumbarton Oaks, 2001),
pp. 121–126.
140 The Paulicians had in earlier centuries allied with the Arabs against the Byzantines.
Their support for the Turks may have been offered in a similar context. See: S.
Dadoyan, The Armenians in the medieval Islamic world, paradigms of interaction, sev-
enth to fourteenth centuries, volume 1: The Arab period in Armı̄nyah, seventh to eleventh
century (New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Publishers, 2011), pp. 45, 100; Z. Pogos-
sian, ‘The frontier existence of the Paulician heretics’, Annual of medieval studies at
CEU, vol. 6, ed. K. Szende and M. Sebők (Budapest: Central European University,
2000), pp. 203–206.
141 J. Hamilton and B. Hamilton, Christian dualist heresies in the Byzantine world, c.650–
c.1450 (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1998), pp. 22–24.
142 C. Sweetenham, ‘The count and the cannibals: the old French crusade cycle as a
drama of salvation’, Jerusalem the golden: The origins and impact of the First Crusade,
 Encountering the Arabs and Fatimids 135

warrior saints who in a letter written by both Greek and Latin prelates
(also in several chronicles) were reported to have come to the crusaders’
aid in their battle against Karbugha at Antioch (SS. George, Theodore,
Demetrius, Mercurius and Blaise) were all Greek warrior saints; another
possible indication of cross-cultural influence.143 Such examples help to
identify the process by which the crusaders gathered information about
the peoples they encountered, demonstrating their sustained reliance on
Greek guidance.144 Incidentally this discussion strengthens John France’s
argument that relations between the Franks and Greeks may have been
more cordial than has been imagined hitherto.145

Encountering the Arabs and Fatimids

The crusaders’ relations with Arab Muslims contrast sharply from their
dealings with the Turks. Unlike the Turks, the Arabs were better known
across western Christendom which for centuries had traded with, and
defended against, the Muslim polities along the southern and eastern
shores of the Mediterranean. Aspiring crusader knights may initially have
anticipated that they would be confronting the Arabs in the east during
the crusade. After all, the Turks were not mentioned in the crusade
preaching and Urban’s repeated use of the term ‘Saracen’ may have led
some to conclude that they were marching to face the long-standing
opponent that had raided Christendom’s seaboard for centuries.

ed. S. Edgington and L. Garcı́a-Guijarro, Outremer: studies in the Crusades and the
Latin East III (Turnhout: Brepols, 2014), pp. 326–328.
143 Riley-Smith, The First Crusade and the idea of Crusading, p. 105; Kb, p. 147. It might
be added that different authors reported slightly different groups of saints coming to
the crusaders’ assistance. The Gesta Francorum named SS. George, Mercurius and
Demetrius. GF, p. 68. For further discussion: Jotischky, ‘The Christians of Jerusalem’,
47–50; C. Walter, The warrior saints in Byzantine art and tradition (Aldershot: Ashgate,
2003). Lapina has demonstrated that the Normans in particular, during their many
interactions with the Byzantine Empire in earlier decades, had learned to reverence
these saints. Notably, she advances the case that references to these saints in crusading
sources indicate an authorial desire to demonstrate that the saints had abandoned the
Byzantines and were now fighting for the Franks. Thus it was a form of ‘aggressive
borrowing’. E. Lapina, Warfare and the miraculous, pp. 54–74. For an example of the
centrality of these saints in the Byzantine thought world see the Greek epic Digenis
Akritis where George, both Theodores and Demetrius (along with Basil) are presented
from the outset as the defenders of Byzantium against the Muslims. Digenis Akritis:
The Grottaferrata and Escorial versions, ed. E. Jeffreys, Cambridge medieval classics VII
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998), p. 4. Also Leo the Deacon describes
how a knight on a white horse supported a Byzantine army in battle against the Rus in
971. See: The history of Leo the Deacon: Byzantine military expansion in the tenth century,
trans. A.-M. Talbot and D. Sullivan (Washington, DC: Dumbarton Oaks, 2005),
p. 197.
144 Loutchitskaja, ‘Barbarae Nationes’, pp. 99–107.
145 France, ‘Byzantium in western chronicles’, pp. 3–16.
136 The First Crusade and the Conquest of Jerusalem

Strictly speaking, the first pilgrims to encounter Muslims of any ethnic-

ity during the crusade were those who took the cross whilst surrounded
by large numbers of friendly Muslim forces. One of these was Bohemond
of Taranto. He originally joined the crusade during the siege of Amalfi
in 1096. This city had rebelled against his half-brother’s (Roger Borsa,
duke of Apulia) authority and they were both engaged in quelling the
unrest. When the city was on the point of surrender, Bohemond sud-
denly declared his intention of taking part in the crusade and induced so
many other warriors to follow his example that Roger Borsa was appar-
ently forced to lift the siege.146 A significant aspect of this episode is that
Roger Borsa’s army at Amalfi was supported by a large force of ‘Saracen’
warriors. This was not unusual for the Normans of southern Italy and
Sicily whose armies often included large Muslim contingents.147 In this
case Geoffrey of Malaterra suggests that they numbered twenty thou-
sand – surely an exaggeration – but it is necessary to take seriously the
notion that they formed a sizeable company.148 Thus, when Bohemond
joined the crusade, he did so surrounded by the encampments of many
thousands of allied Muslim warriors. It is not stretching credulity too far
to speculate that some Muslims may even have marched with his cru-
sading army. Bohemond is said to have recruited extensively from the
besiegers and it is entirely possible that there may have been some Mus-
lims within the households of the departing Norman knights; they may
also have been among his paid retainers.149 The Norman rulers of this
region would have seen nothing contradictory in marching to fight the
‘Saracens’ whilst supported by ‘Saracen’ allies. In 1113, when Adelaide
of Salerno (widow of Roger I of Sicily) set out for the east to marry
King Baldwin I of Jerusalem, she was accompanied by a troop of Saracen
archers, whose skill with the bow was much admired – again there is no
suggestion that this was problematic in any way.150
The crusaders’ first encounter with the Arab Muslims in the Near
East was more hostile and occurred during their crossing of Asia Minor.

146 Geoffrey of Malaterra, De Rebus Gestis Rogerii, p. 102.

147 Catlos, Infidel kings, p. 145. 148 Lupus Protospatarius, ‘Annales’, p. 62.
149 In her article on intelligence gathering during the First Crusade, Edgington noted that
some of Bohemond’s scouts could communicate with the local peoples. She argues
that he must have recruited Greek and Arabic speakers. Reflecting on her article, it
is not stretching credulity too much to imagine that some of these could have been
Muslim. Edgington, ‘Espionage and military intelligence’, pp. 75–86. For discussion
on the financial relations between Bohemond and his company see: C. Tyerman,
‘Paid crusaders: “pro honoris vel pecunie”; “stipendiarii contra paganos”; money and
incentives on crusade’, The practices of crusading: Image and action from the eleventh to
the sixteenth centuries, Variorum collected studies series (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2013),
pp. 35–37 (article XIV).
150 AA, pp. 842–844.
 Encountering the Arabs and Fatimids 137

Several accounts note that there were ‘Arabs’ amongst the Turkish forces
which resisted the crusader advance, particularly during the battle of
Dorylaeum (1 July 1097). The author of the Gesta Francorum identifies
the enemy forces as being made up of ‘Turks, Arabs and Saracens’ along
with others who he did not know.151 It is tempting to question whether the
author of the Gesta Francorum had identified his foe correctly. After all,
the battle was fought in formerly Byzantine territory against the forces
of Qilij Arslan, the Turkish ruler of Rum; a long way from the major
centres of Arab settlement. It is possible that he included this reference
to ‘Arabs’ simply to bulk out a list of the foes arrayed against them.
Nevertheless, shortly afterwards, he made a specific point of emphasising
the sheer size of the Arab contingent present at the battle writing: ‘of
whose number, no-one except God alone knows’, suggesting that their
inclusion among the enemy’s ranks was not simply rhetorical.152 This is
not entirely implausible and there are known to have been some Arab
communities in Asia Minor prior to the Turkish invasions of the eleventh
century.153
Subsequently, the Arabs are listed as auxiliaries within the Turkish-
led armies encountered by the crusaders, although they are never given
prominence; they are almost always simply one name in a list of foes rather
than the central enemy. During the siege of Antioch several chroniclers
noted their presence among the city’s defenders and also within the
relieving armies despatched to raise the siege by Duqaq of Damascus
and later Karbugha of Mosul.154
As the crusade headed south into Syria, the pilgrims came to realise
that they were passing out of Greek/Armenian territory and into lands
populated predominantly by Arabic-speaking peoples. This change is
discernible in accounts of the siege of Antioch. Several authors, describ-
ing crusader incursions to the south, speak of them leaving ethnically
Greek or Armenian territory and entering the ‘land of the Saracens’
(terra Saracenorum). This phrase was first used to describe the region
raided by Bohemond of Taranto and Robert II of Flanders during their
expedition into the Orontes valley where they later defeated the forces
of Damascus.155 This term demonstrates these authors’ awareness that
the raiders had crossed an ethnic frontier (certainly this could not be
a political frontier because, before the arrival of the First Crusade, all
these lands were ruled by the Turks); notably, the earlier pilgrim Richard
of St Vanne, who visited the east in 1026–1027, is also said to have
151 GF, p. 19; PT, p. 35. 152 GF, p. 20.
153 See: Korobeinikov, Byzantium and the Turks, p. 94.
154 GF, pp. 26, 30, 47, 49; AA, p. 190; RA, p. 52.
155 GF, p. 30; AA, p. 217. See also PT, p. 65; France, Victory in the east, pp. 237–238.
138 The First Crusade and the Conquest of Jerusalem

entered ‘Saracen’ territory south of Antioch.156 The crusaders evidently

perceived ‘Saracen’ lands to be more dangerous than Christian areas
because the Gesta Francorum reported that no one was prepared to cross
into Saracen territory without a strong force.157
Raymond of Aguilers also recognised these changes in the underlying
demography and he too used different terminology when discussing these
areas. Like other chroniclers he felt that Bohemond and Robert’s expe-
dition had crossed an ethnic border, but he described these new lands
distinctively as ‘Hispania’.158 Marching with the Provencal forces, and
serving as chaplain to Raymond of Toulouse, whose territories lay close
to Spain, it seems likely that for him the notion of Hispania was synony-
mous with the identification of ethnically-Muslim territory.159 This idea
is confirmed by the fact that at a later point he described the Arabs of
Tripoli as ‘Moors’ (Mauri).160
Whilst the terra Saracenorum might have been viewed as a dangerous
environment, the crusaders were also conscious of the fact that relations
were strained between the Turks and the Arabs. As shown earlier, they
knew the Turkish conquest of Syria and Anatolia to be a recent event
and several described how the Turks had ‘terrified’ (terrere) the Arabs
and other peoples of the region during the process.161 They were aware
that the Turks’ incursions had provoked the enmity of the Arab peoples
and there are reports of moments of conflict between these two groups
both during, and shortly after, the crusade. One of these is described
by Albert of Aachen in an account of events which occurred shortly
after Baldwin of Boulogne took power in Edessa. He explained how a
neighbouring Turkish ruler named Balak ibn Bahram sought Baldwin’s
assistance in suppressing a rebellion instigated by ‘Saracens’ in nearby
Sororgia, who were refusing to pay him tribute.162 It seems probable
that news of the mounting Turkish defeats suffered at the hands of the
crusaders may have encouraged them to rebel.
This same tension appears at a later point in Albert’s chronicle in a
description of Baldwin of Boulogne’s journey south from Edessa along

156 Although in this instance it is possible that he was describing a political frontier as well
as an ethnic one. After 969 Antioch was under Byzantine control. It did not fall to the
Turks until 1084. ‘Chronicon Hugonis monachi Virdunensis et Divionensis’, MGHS,
ed. G. Pertz, vol. 8 (Hanover, 1848), p. 394.
157 GF, p. 30; PT, p. 65.
158 RA, pp. 50, 53. The continuator of Frutolf’s chronicle includes a letter that purports
to have been written by Robert of Flanders. This letter also uses this term. See: FE,
152.
159 France, ‘The First Crusade and Islam’, 249. The letter written by Daimbert of Pisa
(along with several further crusader commanders) also used this term. See: Kb, p. 170.
160 RA, p. 125. 161 GF, p. 21; PT, p. 55; RA, pp. 109–110. 162 AA, p. 178.
 Encountering the Arabs and Fatimids 139

the Levantine littoral to become king of Jerusalem in 1100. Albert

explained how a mixed force of Arabs (‘Saracens’) and Turks sought
to waylay Baldwin near Dog River. He then presented an imagined con-
versation that took place between the Turkish leaders on the eve of the
battle. According to his narrative, the Turkish ruler of Homs suggested
that they should stage a night attack upon the Franks, but the Turkish
ruler of Damascus refused. He was concerned ‘lest we should suddenly
be surrounded and killed by the Saracens, who have always hated us’.163
Here he identifies the Arab-Turkish enmity explicitly. Admittedly, it
seems unlikely that Albert would have had first-hand information about
this conversation, thus it is probably a product of his imagination. Still he
reveals an acute awareness of Arab hostility towards the Turkish invader.
In a similar vein, the crusaders seem to have been aware that their
sustained advance into Anatolia and the Levant was causing the Turks
to become concerned that their Arab subjects might choose this moment
to rebel. Raymond of Aguilers, for example, reports that following the
defeat of Peter the Hermit’s army, the Turks sent captured weapons
and captives to ‘Saracen’ leaders to assure them of their victory whilst
deriding the Franks’ competence in war.164 Whether this is factually true
or not, the pilgrims had evidently grasped the idea that the Turks felt
the need to impress their authority upon the subjugated populace when
threatened by Frankish invasion. More importantly, several chronicles
include an account of a conversation – again probably entirely fictional –
between Qilij Arslan (named by many chroniclers as ‘Suleiman’ – his
father’s name)165 and the leader of a force of Arabs following the battle
of Dorylaeum. The story runs as follows: having just been defeated, this
Turkish commander is shown to be in despair and in full retreat. The Arab
leader then accosted him and asked why he was fleeing and he explained
that he had just suffered a disastrous reverse. The Arab commander is
then said to have been so moved by this account that his force immediately
scattered. The Turks are then said to have changed their story, telling
everyone they met that they had defeated the Franks.166 This is a rather
garbled tale, but it does communicate one idea clearly: the crusaders
understood that their victories were troubling the Turks and were having
a disruptive effect upon Saljuq dominance over the subjugated Arab
population.167 A better known example of Islamic (non-Turkish) rulers
taking the military initiative following these Turkish reverses was the

163 Translation from AA, p. 535. 164 RA, p. 45.

165 Beihammer discusses Fulcher’s account which describes Qilij as Suleiman, son of
Suleiman. He suggests that this reflects common Islamic usage. See: Beihammer,
‘Christian views of Islam’, p. 67.
166 GF, pp. 22–23; PT, p. 56. 167 See also RA, p. 101.
140 The First Crusade and the Conquest of Jerusalem

reconquest of Jerusalem by the Fatimids in August 1098. Raymond of

Aguilers recognised that this Fatimid assault had been stimulated by a
growing aura of Turkish defeat generated by the crusaders’ advances
because he explained that the Christian conquest of Antioch gave them
the confidence necessary to attack the holy city.168 He also pointed out
that the defeat of Karbugha had such an effect on the ‘Saracen’ cities to
the south that if the crusaders had attacked south immediately there was
no one [from Antioch] to Jerusalem who would have thrown so much as
a rock at them.169
The crusade chroniclers were not wrong in their identification of these
Turkish/Arabic tensions. It is clear from the various Muslim and eastern
Christian accounts that the crusaders’ victories did indeed have a sub-
stantial effect on the Arab Muslim population of the Middle East. To
take one example, Ibn al-Athir agrees with the crusader accounts that
Arab contingents were among Karbugha’s army, when he marched to
the relieve Antioch.170 Kamal ad-Din however adds the detail that argu-
ments broke out between the Arabs and Turks, causing the Arabs to leave
the army.171 He later reported how in 1100 forces from the Banu Kilab
tribe (the Arab rulers of Aleppo before the Turkish invasion) then raided
Aleppan territory.172 Certainly, the Arabs seem to have resented the
Turks who they had long viewed as drunken and uncouth barbarians.173
Other chroniclers likewise report the sense of shock that spread across the
Levantine region following this catalogue of Turkish defeats. Michael the
Syrian describes how in the period following the crusade, the Arabs ‘lifted
their head’ and began to make war on the Turks.174 The aura of Turkish
weakness would only have been compounded by the fact that Alexius’
forces under John Doukas capitalised on the crusaders’ advances to retake
many major cities in Western Anatolia.175 The crusaders’ awareness that
Turkish power was hanging in the balance was rooted in observed fact
168 RA, p. 110. A similar statement was made by Ibn al-Athir: IAA, vol. 1, p. 21.
169 RA, p. 84. 170 IAA, vol. 1, p. 16.
171 Kamal al-Din, ‘Extraits de la Chronique d’Alep’, pp. 582–583.
172 Kamal al-Din, ‘Extraits de la Chronique d’Alep’, p. 586.
173 Hillenbrand, ‘What’s in a Name?’, p. 464; Safi, Politics of Knowledge, pp. 11–12; C.
Hillenbrand, ‘Ibn al-Adı̄m’s biography of the Seljuq sultan, Alp Arslan’, Actas XVI
Congreso Union Européene des Arabisants et Islamisants (Salamanca, 1995), pp. 237–
242. For Persian reactions to the Turks see: Tetley, The Ghaznavid and Seljuk Turks,
passim.
174 MS, vol. 3, p. 192. As Mallett observes, the Turks are often said to have been drunk
on fermented mares’ milk; a drink that recalls the Turks’ steppe background. Mallett,
Popular Muslim Reactions, p. 58. For more detailed analysis on this phenomenon see:
N. Morton and J. France, ‘Arab Muslim reactions to Turkish authority in northern
Syria, 1085–1128’, Warfare, crusade and conquest in the Middle Ages, Variorum collected
studies series (Farnham: Ashgate, 2014), XV (1–38).
175 Frankopan, The First Crusade, pp. 145–146.
 Encountering the Arabs and Fatimids 141

and demonstrates their close attention to the evolving political affairs of

the east. Consequently the pilgrims created enough disruption to allow
dissenters – whether Armenian, Arab, or even Turkish – to contemplate
resistance to Saljuq authority.
Although the Syrian Arabs’ resistance to the Turks was recognised by
the pilgrims, the crusaders were aware that the Fatimid rulers of Egypt
represented the heart of local opposition to the Turks. Albert of Aachen,
for example, described the mutual ‘hatred’ (odium) between the two,
which had arisen through the Turks’ former incursions into the Near East
and especially their conquests of Jerusalem in 1073/8.176 Raymond of
Aguilers makes a similar point, explaining how the Turks had conquered
vast swaths of Fatimid territory only a few decades previously.177
When historians have discussed the Saljuq/Fatimid conflict previously,
they have tended to couch the confrontation between these two peoples
in religious terms. Having covered events such as the Fatimid recovery
of Jerusalem from the Turks in 1098, it is typical for historians to step in
and explain this conflict on sectarian grounds pointing out that the Turks
were Sunni Muslims, whilst the Fatimids were Shia. This distinction is
true enough, as far as it goes, but the prioritisation of religious difference
as the main cause of hostility is not without its problems. In particular,
the crusaders seem to have understood the conflict between these two
powers to be a struggle between two rival ethnicities at least as much as it
was a war of religions. As shown earlier, the crusaders were broadly aware
of the difference between Sunni and Shia Islam, although no author dwelt
upon this issue. Raymond of Aguilers observed that the Egyptians revere
Ali, ‘who is from the family of Mohammed’.178
Still, Raymond does not present sectarian divisions as the main reason
for the Saljuq/Fatimid conflict. Describing the diplomatic negotiations
between the Fatimids and crusaders at Arqa, he reports that, having suf-
fered a series of defeats at the hands of the crusaders, the Turks had
offered to convert to Shia Islam in order to secure Fatimid assistance; a
statement which carries the implication that the Turks were prepared to
sacrifice their religious identify in favour of political expediency.179 Prima
facie Raymond’s claim sounds absurd because historians have long con-
sidered the Turks to have been steadfast adherents to Sunni Islam, who
would never have compromised their piety in this way.180 Even so, his
account is not without its merits.181 Many of the key Muslim sources for

176 AA, p. 230 (see also p. 442). 177 RA, p. 129.

178 RA, p. 110. 179 RA, p. 110.
180 See, for example: Gil, A History of Palestine, p. 409; Cahen, Pre-Ottoman Turkey, pp. 42–
43.
181 Köhler also feels that this report is ‘credible’: Köhler, Alliances and Treaties, p. 46.
142 The First Crusade and the Conquest of Jerusalem

this period were written (or compiled) many decades/centuries after these
events at a time when the Turks had indeed become vigorous advocates
of Sunni Islam. They were written by authors who were keen to show
that piously-observed Sunni Hanafi religiosity had characterised Saljuq
policies from the moment of their conversion.182
Nevertheless, they may have overstated this point. As Peacock has
demonstrated, the Turks’ adoption of Islam seems to have been a slower
process (particularly at a tribal level) than these authors either hoped or
imagined. In many cases their Sunni adherence may have been rather
nominal, while many Turks retained their shamanistic beliefs, and others
seem to have been drawn towards Shia Islam.183 The Turks in Asia
Minor – ruling over a large eastern Christian population – even seem
to have adopted some Christian practices in their religious ritual and
there is a Byzantine document from the twelfth century that suggests
that many Turkish Muslims were accustomed to receiving a baptism
from a Christian priest shortly after their birth. Apparently some Turks
believed that baptism was a kind of medicine that would immunise them
from the attacks of demons.184 The blurred and transitional nature of
the Turks’ religious alignments at this time is reflected clearly in a tale
told about the siege of Antioch. According to the Gesta Francorum, on
the day following a major skirmish, a group of Turks departed from
the city to collect their dead. They then buried them at a mosque, which
lay just outside the walls. The crusaders subsequently seized the mosque,
despoiled the graves, and decapitated the corpses. Their motives for such
aggressive behaviour are immediately apparent: these Turkish corpses
had been buried with valuable grave goods. The Gesta notes the presence
of cloaks, money, bows, arrows, and other items.185 This incident is
important because it supplies details about Turkish funerary practices.
The fact that they buried them outside a mosque shows that this building
held an important spiritual meaning for them – a sign of their movement

182 Safi, Politics of knowledge, pp. 1–42.

183 Peacock, Early Seljūq History, pp. 99–127. See also Hillenbrand, ‘What’s in a Name?’,
p. 464; Başan, The great Seljuqs, pp. 172–174, 187 and passim. In addition, it has been
noted that steppe peoples tended to convert for political purposes. See: Stepanov,
The Bulgars and the steppe empire, p. 64. Michael the Syrian provides some interesting
insights into their motives, see: MS, vol. 3, pp. 156–157 (on Michael see also Dickens,
‘The Sons of Magog’, p. 443).
184 For detailed discussion on this evidence and – more broadly – Christian/Muslim
identity among Anatolian Saljuq elites see: R. Shukurov, ‘Harem Christianity: The
Byzantine identity of Seljuk princes’, The Seljuks of Anatolia: court and society in the
medieval Middle East, ed. Peacock, and Sara Nur Yıldız, (London: I.B. Tauris, 2013),
pp. 115–150; M. Brand, ‘The Turkish element in Byzantium, eleventh–twelfth cen-
turies’, Dumbarton Oaks papers 43 (1989), 16; Korobeinikov, Byzantium and the Turks,
passim.
185 GF, p. 42.
 Encountering the Arabs and Fatimids 143

towards Islam. Nevertheless, the interment of the dead with grave goods
speaks rather of long-established pre-Islamic steppe practices. Travelling
among the shamanistic Turks in the early tenth century, the Arab envoy
Ibn Fadlan had observed this custom closely. He saw how deceased
Turks were interred with their clothes, a bow, their horses, food, and a
wooden cup. They believed that these items would serve the dead in the
afterlife.186
Other reports similarly cast doubt on the notion that when the Turks
did convert that they sided decisively with Sunni Islam. Peacock draws
attention to a moment in 1062–1063 when Sultan Tughril touted the
possibility of his conversion to Shia Islam when the caliph in Baghdad
attempted to prevent him from marrying his daughter.187 Clearly he was
prepared to compromise his religious adherence if it served his dynastic
purposes. It might be added that Ridwan, ruler of Aleppo (d. 1113),
entered into an alliance with Fatimid Egypt in 1097 which resulted in
him ordering the Fatimid caliph to be named in the khutbah (the Friday
sermon) across his lands. The fact that he was later persuaded to revoke
this agreement does not detract from his readiness to trade his religious
adherence for political advantage. Likewise, it is worth noting that some
among later sultans of Rum raised the possibility of converting to Chris-
tianity when it was in their interests to do so in both the late twelfth
and early thirteenth centuries. Qilij Arslan II (d/1192) seems to have
made this offer in his dealings with both the Emperor Frederick I and
Pope Alexander III.188 Kay-Kusraw I (d.1211) is even said to have been

186 Ibn Fadlān and the land of darkness, p. 18. Leclercq, Portraits croisés, pp. 144–145. In
a similar vein it has been noted that Turkish tombs found in Anatolia (tekkes) retained
many features common with steppe practices. See: J. Freely, Storm on horseback: The
Seljuk warriors of Turkey (London: I.B. Tauris, 2008), p. 141; C. Emilie Haspels, The
highlands of Phrygia: sites and monuments, vol. 1 (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University
Press, 1971), pp. 264–267. There are many other examples of the Turks retaining
their earlier steppe practices. The mid-twelfth-century Persian treatise Sea of Precious
virtues reports that the Turks firmly believed in the spiritual properties of various types
of stone, a custom observed in the pre-Islamic Turks. See: The sea of precious virtues
(Bah.r al-Favā’id): a medieval mirror for princes, trans. J. S. Meisami (Salt Lake City:
University of Utah Press, 1991), p. 281; Ibn Faqih al-Hamadhani, ‘On the Turks and
their lands’, pp. 46–48.
Likewise, See also S. Vryonis, ‘Evidence on human sacrifice among the early
Ottoman Turks’, Journal of Asian history 5 (1971), 140–146. See also Golden, ‘Religion
among the Qıpčaqs’, 202–203.
187 Peacock, Early Seljūq History, pp. 120–121. Tor has recently restated the case for a
strong sense of religiosity at least among the early Turkish sultans: D. Tor, ‘“Sovereign
and pious”: The religious life of the great Seljuq sultans’, The Seljuqs: politics, society and
culture, ed. C. Lange and S. Mecit (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2011),
pp. 39–62.
188 We know of Qilij Arslan II’s offer to the papacy from Pope Alexander III’s reply:
‘Instructio fidei Catholicae ad soldanum Iconii missa’, PL, vol. 207 (1904), cols. 1069–
1078. Another account of this letter suggests that the sultan was actually baptised, see:
144 The First Crusade and the Conquest of Jerusalem

baptised.189 With this background, Raymond’s claim that the Turks dan-
gled the possibility of their conversion to Shia Islam in their negotiations
with the Fatimids becomes less outlandish. If the Turks’ Sunni adher-
ence was more nominal than has previously been thought then sectarian
tensions between the two can only supply a partial explanation for the
animosity between the Fatimids and Saljuqs. Ethnic hostility, however,
provides a stronger answer.
On this point, it is significant that when the crusaders described the
main religious and secular authorities in Baghdad they often portrayed
them in distinctively racial terms. The sultan and caliph, for example,
were not presented as ‘Saracen’ leaders who – incidentally – derived
from a Turkish background, but rather Turks advancing their own ethic
group. Both Raymond of Aguilers and the Gesta Francorum described the
Abbasid caliph as the ‘pope of the Turks’. Raymond also speaks of Turks
as those who ‘walk in Khurasan and worship the God of the Turks’.190 In
a later section, which deals with the sufferings of the Christian popula-
tion near to Tyre under Turkish rule, he explained that these Christians
had been compelled to be ‘turkified’ (turcandum).191 Anselm of Ribe-
mont likewise, in his letter to Manasses, archbishop of Reims, described
Karbugha’s determination to assail the crusaders until they had ‘denied
Christ and professed the law of the Persians’ (synonym for Turks).192
Describing the siege of Antioch, the Gesta Francorum likewise reports
Karbugha demanding to Peter the Hermit that the crusaders give up

Matthew Paris, Chronica Majora, ed. H. R. Luard, Rolls Series LVII, vol. 2 (London,
1874), pp. 250–260. For the sultan’s offer to Frederick I (to convert in return for
a marriage alliance) see: ‘Ottonis de Sancto Blasio Chronica’, MGH: SRG, ed. A.
Hofmeister, vol. 47 (Hanover, 1912), p. 37.
189 George Akropolites, The history: introduction, translation and commentary, ed. R.
Macrides, Oxford Studies in Byzantium (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007),
p. 124; Robert of Clari, La Conquête de Constantinople, ed. P. Noble, British Rences-
vals Publications III (Edinburgh: British Rencesvals Publications, 2005), p. 66; Oliver of
Paderborn, ‘Historia Damiatina’, Die Schriften des Kölner Domscholasters, Späteren
Bishofs von Paderborn und Kardinal-Bischofs von S. Sabina, Bibliothek des Litter-
arischen Vereins in Stuttgart, CCII (Tübingen, 1894), p. 235. For discussion see: See:
Korobeinikov, Byzantium and the Turks, pp. 115–126.
190 RA, p. 87. Völkl offers some interesting discussion on related themes: Völkl, Muslime –
Märtyrer – Militia Christi, pp. 238–240.
191 RA, p. 129. A similar verb appeared in an earlier passage see: RA, p. 64. See also RC,
p. 81. Even into the fourteenth century a similar formulation was used by European
authors to describe inclusion into Turkish society. Ramon Muntaner described how
sons born to a Turkish mother and a Greek Christian mother were circumcised and
became Turks. See: Ramon Muntaner, The Catalan expedition to the east: From the
chronicle of Ramon Muntaner, trans. R. Hughes and J. Hillgarth (Woodbridge: Boydell,
2006), p. 46.
192 Kb, p. 160. Phrases such as ‘law of the Saracens’ or ‘law of Mohammed’ were often
used to denote the Islamic religion during this period.
 Encountering the Arabs and Fatimids 145

their God and become ‘Turks’.193 In each of these pieces of evidence,

the Turks’ ethnicity is stressed while their religious adherence is sub-
sumed within this racial identity. Thus, these authors link the Turks’
religious leaders and beliefs directly to their ethnicity and not to any con-
cept of a pan-Islamic/‘Saracen’ community. As shown earlier, the cru-
saders were aware that the Turks were ‘Saracens’ (Muslims) and yet these
passages demonstrate that the Turks had also impressed the pilgrims
with the notion that their policies and religion were specific to their peo-
ple group. In this context, Raymond’s suggestion that the Turks were
prepared to renegotiate their religious identity with the Fatimids gains
further credibility. Overall, the crusaders seem to have surmised that the
Turks were ultimately concerned with the advancement of their people’s
interests. This seems to have been their defining objective and it was this
purpose that presumably had originally brought them into conflict with
the Fatimids. Their religious identity was part of this agenda, but it was
seemingly open to compromise and adaptation if such a shift would serve
the advancement of Turkish interests.
As might be expected, the crusaders attempted to exploit these ethnic
and sectarian divisions. Their initial policy was to seek an alliance with
the Fatimids against the Saljuqs and to this end they embarked upon a
protracted period of diplomacy with the representatives of the Egyptian
caliphate.194 Their first embassy to Cairo seems to have been despatched
during the siege of Nicaea in the summer of 1097 on the advice of
Emperor Alexius. The Byzantines had long considered the possibility of
an alliance with the Fatimids against the Turks so such a suggestion would
have been entirely in accordance with existing policy.195 The legation was
led by Hugh of Bellafayre, Bertrand of Scabrica and his chaplain Peter
of Picca.196 Fatimid envoys later arrived in the crusader camp during the
siege of Antioch to discuss a treaty. Clearly the crusaders saw no objec-
tion to establishing treaties with a Muslim power and no contemporary
author felt the need to provide any kind of justification – theological or
otherwise – for such an accord. Indeed, they report the crusaders work-
ing strenuously to win favour with the Egyptian envoys. Following the

193 GF, p. 67.

194 Incidentally, Ibn al-Athir suggests that the crusaders had actually been invited to invade
the Near East by the Fatimids: IAA, vol. 1, p. 14.
195 A. Hamdani, ‘Byzantine-Fātimid relations before the battle of Manzikert’, Byzantine
Studies 1–2 (1974), 69–79.
196 ‘Historia peregrinorum euntium Jerusolymam’, RHC Oc., vol. 3 (Paris, 1866), p. 181;
HAI, p. 28. For discussion on these sources see: J. France, ‘The use of the Anonymous
Gesta Francorum in the early twelfth-century sources for the First Crusade’, From
Clermont to Jerusalem: The Crusades and crusader societies, 1095–1500, ed. A. Murray
(Turnhout: Brepols, 1998), pp. 33–39.
146 The First Crusade and the Conquest of Jerusalem

crusaders’ victory over the army of Ridwan of Aleppo on 9 February

1098, the Fatimid envoys were presented with a selection of decapi-
tated Turkish heads.197 This grisly choice of gift (which was repeated
shortly afterwards) was presumably intended both to demonstrate the
crusaders’ prowess and to assure the Fatimids of their vehement and
mutual opposition to the Turks.198 The outcome of these negotiations is
unclear, although a letter from Stephen of Blois may imply that a treaty
had been established and that Frankish envoys had been despatched to
Egypt.199
The next phase in these diplomatic negotiations began with the arrival
of a new deputation from Egypt during the crusaders’ siege of Arqa in
May 1099. The Fatimid envoys brought with them the Frankish ambas-
sadors who by this stage had been held in Egypt for over a year. In
the intervening period the crusader armies had marched south without
meeting significant opposition. The Arab princes of this region, presum-
ably torn between their desire to resist the Turks and the uncertainties
of allying themselves with the powerful, but brutal, and largely unknown
crusaders, had generally been anxious to speed the Christian armies on
their way whilst offering very little resistance (for further discussion see
later). When negotiations reopened at Arqa, the crusaders found that the
Fatimids’ position had changed in a number of ways. Firstly, by this stage
the Turks had suffered multiple defeats and were prepared to offer sub-
stantial concessions to secure a peace treaty with the Fatimids (thus the
Egyptians now had the choice of an alliance with either the Franks or the
Turks). Secondly, the Fatimids themselves had seized Jerusalem from
the Turks and were determined to retain control of the city. Thirdly,
Alexius I is said to have written to the Egyptians telling him that the
Franks had lost much of their manpower. The crusaders for their part
were not prepared to sign any treaty that did not give them control of
Jerusalem; their best offer was that they would take control of the holy city
but would assist the Fatimids to regain their other former territories in
Syria.200
Viewed from a Fatimid perspective, given that the Turks now posed
less of a threat and the crusaders were absolutely determined to retake
the holy city, which the Egyptians were equally determined to keep,
197 GF, p. 37. Albert of Aachen suggests that the Egyptians participated in the battle (AA,
p. 236). Both sides seem to have indulged in displaying their foes’ decapitated heads.
For discussion see: Leclercq, Portraits croisés, p. 123.
198 GF, p. 42.
199 RA, p. 58; Kb, p. 151. Albert of Aachen also states that a treaty was agreed because he
later accused the Egyptians of breaching it during the siege of Jerusalem (AA, p. 402).
France, Victory in the east, p. 251.
200 RA, pp. 109–110.
 Encountering the Arabs and Fatimids 147

the incentives for a treaty with the crusaders were substantially re-
duced.201 Thus Raymond reports that the Fatimids were uncertain
whether to ally themselves with the Franks or the Turks.202 In the event,
these negotiations came to nothing and the crusaders continued their
march south, ultimately besieging Fatimid-controlled Jerusalem. Never-
theless, the conflict between the two should be seen as a last resort that
occurred only after sustained diplomatic activity.203
In general, the crusaders seem to have viewed the Arabs in a very
different way to the Turks.204 The Arabs were hardly ever described as
‘barbarians’ (barbari). In many of the texts, it is the Turks alone who are
assigned labels such as ‘barbarous’, ‘barbaric’, ‘barbarian’.205 In the Gesta
Francorum, for example, this term was exclusively reserved for Turks
(although there are moments when Turkish armies, which included Arab
companies, are presented in this way). The crusaders were not alone
in describing the Turks with such terminology. The Byzantines, Arabs
and Armenians all held similar opinions about the Turks’ ‘barbarism’; a
shared response which presumably encapsulates the standard reactions of
complex agricultural societies to their aggressive nomadic neighbours.206
A sample of this hostility can be found in the work of the eleventh-century
Baghdadi writer Ghars al-Ni’ma who described the rise of the Saljuqs
and their Khurasani supporters as follows:

201 France, Victory in the east, p. 326. 202 RA, p. 110. 203 RA, p. 110.
204 See also Meserve, Empires of Islam, p. 156. The Byzantines also drew clear distinctions
between Turks and Arabs, see: Beihammer, ‘Christian views of Islam’, p. 55.
205 See, for example, references in the following texts: GF, pp. 20, 29, 31, 73; FC, p. 136.
In the first six books of his work, which concern the First Crusade, Albert uses the
term slightly more broadly, at times to encapsulate all the enemies confronted by the
crusaders, and also to describe some of the ‘Ethiopian’ troops serving the Fatimid
caliphate. See: AA, pp. 258, 290, 308, 322, 342, 448, 456, 474, 480. The Turks
were considered to be barbarians long into the early-modern period; see: Meserve,
Empires of Islam, pp. 65–116. This point should nuance Jubb’s argument that for the
crusaders, ‘barbarians’ were ‘those who are distinct from the Latin (western) crusaders,
most notably in language and customs’. Clearly their frame of reference was more
sophisticated and focused. Jubb, ‘The Crusaders’ Perceptions of their Opponents’,
p. 226. For further discussion on this term in crusade texts see: A. Holt, ‘Crusading
against barbarians: Muslims as barbarians in Crusades era sources’, East meets west in
the Middle Ages and early modern times: Transcultural experiences in the pre-modern world,
ed. A. Classen, Fundamentals of medieval and early modern culture XIV (Berlin: De
Gruyter, 2013), pp. 443–456.
206 See for example: A. G. Savvides, ‘Byzantines and the Oghuz (Ghuzz): some observa-
tions on nomenclature’, Byzantinoslavica 54 (1993), 147–155; E. van Donzel and A.
Schmidt, Gog and Magog in early Christian and Islamic sources: Sallam’s quest for Alexan-
der’s wall, Brill’s Inner Asian Library XXII (Leiden: Brill, 2010), pp. 82–96. Beihammer
has demonstrated that the Byzantines also viewed the Turks and Arabs differently. See:
A. Beihammer, ‘Orthodoxy and religious antagonism in Byzantine perceptions of the
Seljuk Turks (eleventh and twelfth Centuries)’, Al-Masōq 23.1 (2011), 18–19.
148 The First Crusade and the Conquest of Jerusalem

The chiefs of the land and its elites were not happy with this dynasty when it
emerged. They despised it, and disassociated themselves from it. As a result they
were destroyed, ruined and perished. The rabble, low life and scum followed [the
Saljuq dynasty], and were promoted and raised high.207

The crusade authors also adopted a far softer tone in their presentation
of the Fatimids. It was not forgotten that the Fatimids had long acted as
protectors of pilgrims wishing to visit Jerusalem.208 The Gesta Francorum
for example reports an emir fleeing from the Franks after the battle of
Ascalon (12 August 1099), lamenting his misfortune and commenting
that the Egyptians used to give alms to Franks visiting the Holy Land.
Placing such a remark in the mouth of a defeated Muslim potentate may
even indicate a slight sense of guilt on the author’s part that they were
attacking those who had formerly offered pilgrims assistance.209 Another
important distinction concerns the Fatimids’ competence in war. Unlike
the Turks, they did not impress Raymond of Aguilers with their martial
prowess. He described them as ‘more cowardly than deer and more
harmless than sheep’.210 In this passage it is possible that he may not have
been making a specific judgement about the Fatimid’s warlike abilities,
but rather making the spiritual point that their attempt to withstand the
followers of Christianity was inherently doomed to failure. Even so, the
notion of Egyptian military incompetence reoccurs in later sources.211
Although many writers who travelled on crusade were rather more
favourable in their expressed opinions concerning native Muslims than
they were towards the Turks, there is one author who diverges from this
pattern. The continuator to Frutolf’s chronicle, who participated in the
1101 crusade, wrote that the ‘Saracens’ are ‘a more disgraceful people
than many Turks’.212 This statement occurs in his account of the earlier
conquest of Jerusalem by Atsiz in 1073. The author does not deem it
necessary to explain himself at this point; perhaps he assumed that this
distinction would be obvious to his intended readership. It is therefore
left to the reader to ponder his rationale. One possibility is that he, like the
author of the Gesta Francorum, was referring to the supposed kinship that
existed between the Turks and the Franks.213 This might have led him to
be more sympathetic to the Turks than to the ‘Saracens’. This suggestion
is not impossible, but it is not likely. Such a link is not referenced in
any other part of the text, not does it seem to have been well known
at this time. Another explanation that can be rejected is any notion the

207 Translation taken (with only one minor modification: the rendering of the name
‘Seljuk’) from Peacock, The great Seljuk empire, p. 201.
208 RA, p. 58; PT, p. 147. 209 GF, p. 96; PT, p. 147. 210 RA, p. 157.
211 See for example: WT, vol. 2, pp. 898, 915. 212 FE, p. 134. 213 GF, p. 21.
 Encountering the Arabs and Fatimids 149

Turks were perceived to be less brutal than the ‘Saracens’ (this reference
occurs in a detailed description of the Turks despoiling the holy sites
in Jerusalem).214 A more likely explanation is that the author felt that
the Turks, as newcomers to the region, might never have had any prior
experience of the Christian religion and were therefore less culpable for
their ignorance of Christianity than the native Muslims who had long
known of the faith and yet had failed to convert.215
Overall, up to the siege of Jerusalem, the crusaders’ treatment of Arab
Muslims was ambiguous. They recognised them to be adherents of a
rival religion and they encountered them in battle on occasion as Turk-
ish auxiliaries. Still, the crusaders seem to have harboured no especial
dislike of the Arabs. Bohemond evidently saw no contradiction in taking
the cross whilst surrounded by Muslim troops at the siege of Amalfi.
Moreover, having reached the east, pilgrims seem to have learnt of the
tensions between the Arabs and Turks at a relatively early stage in the
campaign and, by extension, the usefulness of this antipathy for their own
endeavours. They knew the Arabs were the resentful subjects of the Turks
and were consequently potential allies to be courted, rather than purely
‘Saracen’ foes. The crusade commanders were perfectly prepared to deal
with Fatimid envoys, along with several other Arab dynasties in Syria,
and they instigated these negotiations freely and on their own volition.
These rather mixed relations between Franks and Arabs permit a num-
ber of wider conclusions to be drawn concerning the crusaders’ general
attitudes towards Muslims. Firstly, the crusaders’ determination to try
and reach a diplomatic solution with the Fatimids and the Arab princes of
the Near East suggests that they did not consider ‘Saracens’ en bloc to be
their major enemy. They perceived their religion to be an evil doctrine,
but they were generally prepared to deal peaceably with its adherents
provided that they posed no obstacle to their progress. Moreover, their
behaviour towards the Turks was very different from their dealings with
the Arabs; demonstrating that they drew clear distinctions between these
two ethnic groups and did not approach them both purely as an undif-
ferentiated group.
It is particularly noteworthy that the crusaders made their first diplo-
matic approach to the Fatimids while they were at Nicaea. This was
an early stage in the crusade and – aside from the defeat of Peter the
Hermit – the crusaders had yet to experience a serious setback. Thus,

214 FE, pp. 134–136.

215 There were Christians in Central Asia and the Byzantines had long sent out missionar-
ies to the Eurasian steppe, but this was not well known in western Christendom. Such
an interpretation however is not entirely unproblematic however because the author of
the Gesta Francorum seemed to believe that the Turks were formerly Christian. GF, 21.
150 The First Crusade and the Conquest of Jerusalem

their decision to seek an alliance was made while they were in a posi-
tion of strength and was not driven by force of circumstances. Historians
have often suggested or implied that the crusaders entered the Near East
impelled by zeal for holy war, but were eventually compelled by the exi-
gencies of the journey to compromise their fervour and make alliances
with non-Christians. This interpretation is problematic. The crusaders
were exploring diplomatic solutions from the outset and there is little
to suggest that they perceived alliances or treaties with Muslims to be
theologically/spiritually reprehensible.216

How Important Were the Turks and

Arabs to the Crusaders?
Every crusade narrative, whether it was written by a participant or
not, provides exhaustively detailed accounts of warfare with the Turks.
Descriptions of the crusaders’ encounters with this foe fill page after
page. Clearly these encounters were vitally important to the crusaders’
recollections and, having reflected upon this corpus of material, many
historians have concluded that this was a war in which the crusaders
considered themselves to be locked in binary opposition against a bitter
foe – good Christian crusaders versus bad Muslims.217 Viewed from this
perspective, the defeat of Islam was central to the crusaders’ purposes
and they measured their righteousness against the tyranny of the Muslim
‘other’. Evidence can be found to support such an argument, but it will
be shown here that such a thesis does not bring the crusaders’ objectives
and beliefs fully into focus. This section will deal will the issue of binary
opposition, considering the role Turks and Arabs played in the crusaders’
thought-world and objectives.
An important predicate in this discussion is the near ubiquitous con-
viction – found across the First Crusade sources – that the campaign
bore marked similarities with the wars of the Old Testament. For some,
the battles of Judas Maccabaeus, King David, Moses and Joshua, were a
source of simile and imagery; for others, the crusade was depicted as a
continuation or even a reincarnation of these ancient wars. The centrality
of this idea to the crusaders’ identity is revealed throughout the crusade.
216 Kristin Skottki has also challenged the frequently-propounded narrative that the first
crusaders entered the Near East as fanatics who then moderated their views as they
acclimatised themselves to local conditions. See: K. Skottki, ‘Of ‘pious traitors’, and
dangerous encounters: historiographical notions of inter-culturality in the principality
of Antioch’, Journal of transcultural medieval studies 1 (2014), 104.
217 For discussion on this theme see: Rubenstein, Armies of Heaven, pp. 119–120; Loutchit-
skaja, ‘L’image des musulmans’, 721; Völkl, Muslime – Märtyrer – Militia Christi,
pp. 167, 255 and passim.
 How Important Were the Turks and Arabs to the Crusaders? 151

The fact that during the siege of Jerusalem the army marched around
the holy city in a symbolic re-enactment of Joshua’s conquest of Jericho,
demonstrates how deeply this notion was embedded in their sense of pur-
pose. Later commentators were struck by this idea with equal force and
Green has demonstrated that an epic German poem (c. 1120), known as
the Millstätter Exodus, based on the first chapters of the book of Exodus,
used language resonant with crusading terminology in its presentation of
the events of the Exodus, effectively conflating the two.218
Certainly the book of Exodus seems to have been a particular source
of inspiration. This is not surprising. It describes the long arduous march
of God’s chosen people to the Promised Land. The crusaders saw their
expedition in the same way and endlessly elaborated upon this theme.
Albert of Aachen, for example, described a vision experienced by a knight
called Hecelo from Kinzweiler, near Aachen. In his sleep he dreamt that
he had been brought to the place on Mount Sinai where Moses had
received instruction from God. Then, standing on the mountain’s peak,
he saw Godfrey of Bouillon blessed and divinely appointed as the leader of
the Christian people by two figures dressed as bishops, just as Moses had
before him. He then woke up. Reflecting on this vision, Albert described
Godfrey as a new Moses, ordained by God to lead His people on a
journey to the Promised Land.219
In a similar vein to the tribulations described in the Old Testament,
the problems the crusaders encountered on the road to Jerusalem were
presented as challenges designed to test their faith in God. These ‘tests’
took many forms: cold, hunger, enemy attack, exhaustion etc. This over-
arching theme is present throughout the crusade narratives. A case in
point is Raymond of Aguilers’ report of a skirmish that took place dur-
ing the siege of Antioch between Raymond of Toulouse’s forces and the
Turkish garrison. This engagement was precipitated by the departure of a
Frankish raiding party from the crusader lines. Their absence incited the
Turks to launch an attack on the diminished camp. Raymond explains
that the Franks fought off this assault and compelled the Turks to flee. A
company of footsoldiers then set out in pursuit, while a group of knights
competed with one another to gain possession of a runaway horse. Both
Frankish parties then fell prey to a Turkish counterattack and many fled,
dropping their weapons and impeding one another in their flight. Ray-
mond interpreted these events spiritually, showing how the sinfulness
of these warriors had caused God to punish them and to demand their

218 D. Green, The Millstätter Exodus: A crusading epic (Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 1966), passim.
219 AA, pp. 446–448.
152 The First Crusade and the Conquest of Jerusalem

repentance. These were then juxtaposed against the victorious warriors

who had gone out on the raiding campaign who – presumably because of
their virtue – were blessed with victory.220 This is merely one of a number
of scenarios where God is depicted using the battlefield as a challenge
or tutorial device, punishing the sinful and rewarding the faithful. Ray-
mond speaks of these challenges as divine corrections intended to draw
‘His children’ to penance.221 Fulcher likewise, described the extremes of
temperature and hunger experienced by his fellows explaining that they
were being purified by God, like gold being passed repeatedly through
furnace fires.222 The message communicated by these authors is clear
and closely parallels the message of the Old Testament: only the faithful
will be able to reach Jerusalem.
The assaults of the Turks form part of this interpretive structure
because they are depicted acting as the instrument of God’s discipline
upon the crusaders.223 Fulcher of Chartres, for example, presents the
arrival of Karbugha’s army outside Antioch as a punishment for the cru-
saders’ liaisons with prostitutes after their capture of the city.224 In this
scenario, enemy attacks are not depicted as diabolical activity, or even
the consequence of unfolding political/military events, but rather God-
inspired punishments and tests designed ultimately to guide His people
into righteous behaviour. A similar message is evident in a report of
Peter Bartholomew’s vision of St Andrew following Karbugha’s defeat.
Through this vision St Andrew issued a warning to Count Raymond of
Toulouse. He admonished him that if he does not follow the Lord’s com-
mands then he will never reach Jerusalem and, moreover, ‘infidels’ will
be used as an instrument of God’s vengeance against him, retaking those
lands which the crusaders had already seized.225 Again, in this case, the
enemy is not set up in binary opposition to the crusaders – as an ‘evil’
counterweight to the Franks’ godly virtue. Rather, the Turks are shown
as divine scourges used to correct the crusaders’ sinfulness, failings, and
evil behaviour. Daimbert of Pisa made a similar point in his letter to the
pope, written in September 1099, claiming that the siege of Antioch was
a test through which the crusading army was humbled and stripped of
its pride (superbia).226

220 See also Riley-Smith, The First Crusade and the idea of crusading, pp. 112–113.
221 RA, pp. 50–54 (quote 54). 222 FC, p. 226.
223 Incidentally, the idea that non-Christian enemies could serve as a form of divine
punishment is widely referenced in medieval sources. Bede presents the arrival of the
Saxons in early-medieval England in much the same way: Bede’s Ecclesiastical History,
p. 52. For further discussion see: S. Kangas, ‘Deus vult: violence and suffering as a
means of salvation during the First Crusade’, Medieval history writing and crusading
ideology, ed. T. Lehtonen, K. Jensen et al. (Helsinki: Finnish Literature Society, 2005),
pp. 169–170.
224 FC, p. 243. 225 RA, p. 87. 226 Kb, p. 169.
 How Important Were the Turks and Arabs to the Crusaders? 153

Naturally the connection between faithfulness to God and victory in

war was not unique to the crusade, but was widely referenced through-
out the medieval period. Charlemagne’s counsellor Alcuin explained this
connection succinctly when he connected personal (interior) sin with mil-
itary (external) failure, writing: ‘external enemies have power because of
interior enemies’.227 The crusade narratives manifest the same convic-
tion, with the distinction that the crusade itself is described as a process
of spiritual instruction – of which the Turks are part-whose culmination
was Jerusalem.
The crusaders’ ability to continue their advance through the Levant
was understood to be the product of an ongoing spiritual conversation
between the pilgrims and God. Intercessors such as St Andrew, the Vir-
gin Mary, and – following his death – Ademar of Le Puy are described
as appearing in visions whilst Jesus Himself is said to have visited Peter
Bartholomew. Faithfulness and virtue were deemed to bring them one
step closer to the holy city, whilst sinfulness and vice blocked their path.
This paradigm was a close match for the experiences of the Jews on their
journey to the Promised Land, as outlined in the Old Testament. This
dialogue between man and God was given as the sole reason for the
campaign’s success, overriding all strategic, tactical, and diplomatic con-
siderations. Turks and other enemies were understood simply as obstacles
set up intentionally by God to test their faith.
This point is vital because it helps to identify the main ‘other’ for the
crusade. The crusaders did not measure their conduct self-confidently
against that of the Turks, but negatively against the Christian ideal, being
fully aware of their own failings when set against the example of Christ.
They rarely stressed their own virtue over Turkish vice, but tended rather
to underline how little their conduct reflected the moral exemplars found
in scripture. Thus their ‘other’ was neither the Turks nor Arabs, but
God Himself; a ‘positive other’ whose example they aspired to reach,
rather than a ‘negative other’ whose vice served to underline their virtues.
Raymond of Aguilers, in particular, does not spare either himself or his
fellows when he describes their sinfulness and failings. Even the sins
committed by his master, Count Raymond of Toulouse, are discussed
in detail.228 It was presumably for this reason that he referred to the
crusaders as ‘His beggars’ (pauperes).229
The same structure is apparent in the biblical accounts of the Jewish
people’s journey to the Promised Land. They too fought many wars
against the peoples they encountered but these foes were not presented
as their evil ‘other’. The Old Testament rarely does more than mention

227 Alcuin of York, ‘Epistolae’, p. 55.

228 For an example see: RA, p. 91. 229 RA, p. 102.
154 The First Crusade and the Conquest of Jerusalem

their existence and certainly it does not dwell upon hostile representa-
tions.
If the crusade was transposed into a theatrical performance there
would be two main groups of protagonists: the crusaders and God. They
would dominate both the stage and script. All other characters would
play roles that were dependent on this relationship. St Andrew and the
other heavenly figures who appeared to the crusaders would form part of
God’s communication with the Franks while prayers, fasting, and pro-
cessions were the channels by which the crusaders appealed to God. The
Turks and Arabs, along with the various topographical/climatic prob-
lems encountered by the crusaders, were the challenges and punishments
meted out to the pilgrims by God. In this way, when attempting to frame
the crusaders’ attitude towards their enemies, it is important to note that
they played only an auxiliary role in their thought-world. They were in
large part a side-effect or consequence of their wider relationship with
God.

Conversion, Evil, and the Problem of Hatred

Baligant sees his banner fall
And Mohammed’s standard abandoned;
It begins to dawn on the emir
that he is wrong and Charlemagne is right.
Silence falls on the pagans of Arabia.
Chanson de Roland230

It was well known among the Franks that back in the fifth century their
people had originally converted to Christianity following a closely fought
battle against the Alemans. The renowned Gregory of Tours described
how the Frankish King Clovis cried out to God during this conflict,
imploring Him for aid and offering Him his spiritual allegiance in return.
Having defeated his foe, Clovis later fulfilled his promise by being bap-
tised; an act that – so the story goes – swiftly led to the conversion of his
people.231 By the eleventh century this tale had become deeply embed-
ded in Frankish culture as a foundation myth for their people, one that
was central to their collective identity. This legend is important for this
present discussion because it establishes a connection between combat
and voluntary conversion. In this case, military victory was understood by

230 Translation from SR, p. 153.

231 Gregory of Tours, ‘Decem Libri Historiarum’, MGH: Scriptores rerum Merovingicarum,
ed. B. Krusch (Hanover, 1951), pp. 74–76.
 Conversion, Evil, and the Problem of Hatred 155

Clovis’ Franks to be indisputable proof of the rectitude of the Christian

religion; sufficient to bring about their conversion.
This conviction that voluntary conversion can be brought about
through warfare is significant because many later authors projected a sim-
ilar expectation upon other non-Christian peoples, including Muslims.
Especially in chansons and epic verse, authors concocted colourful stories
in which ‘Saracen’ or Slavic foes initially march proudly against Christen-
dom, boasting of their own gods and deriding Christianity. Nevertheless,
as they suffer defeat after defeat, they increasingly come to question the
efficacy of their own faith and slowly acknowledge the validity of Chris-
tianity. Such tales inevitably conclude with either the death or conversion
of their leaders.
In these sources, warfare is presented as an evangelical tool, leading
unbelievers to Christianity through a process that could be described as
voluntary-conversion-through-force. To take one example, the chanson
‘Fierabras’, within a tale of Charlemagne’s wars against Islam, contains
a lengthy description of a duel between Oliver (the Christian champion)
and the ‘Saracen’ king Fierabras. This duel is not simply a contest of
arms but is presented as a test of the veracity of the two religions and
when Oliver finds himself on the back foot he cries out:
As truly noble Lord, as I believe and heed You
And everything I’ve said about You, I beseech you
To help me end the pride of this deriding heathen,
So he can see Your love and Your love can redeem him.232

The outcome of the contest then is accepted as clinching confirmation of

the victor’s faith.233 Consequently, when Oliver wins the battle, Fierabras
immediately sees the error of his own faith, which had not supported him
in this contest, and requests baptism. The early chansons contain many
tales of this kind; frequently referencing the expectation that Muslims will
interpret their defeats as proof of the hollowness of their own religion and,
in some cases, the truth of Christianity.
This concept of voluntary-conversion-through-force is important
because it manifests itself frequently in chronicles of the First Cru-
sade and in some places this conviction is stated very baldly.234 It is

232 Translation from Fierabras and Floripas, p. 71. (Newth’s primary text for his transla-
tion was: Fierabras: chanson de geste, p. 30). For further discussion on the impact of
chansons on the ideas of the first crusaders see: Bennett, ‘First crusaders’ images of
Muslims’, 101–117; Meredith Jones, ‘The conventional Saracen’, 222; Daniel, Heroes
and Saracens, 244.
233 Daniel, Heroes and Saracens, 167–173, 211.
234 In an excellent article, Loutchitskaja has already drawn some strong links between
the crusaders’ approach to conversion and the chansons de geste, focusing specifically
156 The First Crusade and the Conquest of Jerusalem

referenced for example in an account of Raymond of Toulouse’s trou-

bled crossing of Slavonia in February 1097. In an attempt to find anything
good to say about this journey, during which the crusading army came
under repeated attack, Raymond of Aguilers wrote that it was ‘for the
cause, I suppose, that the Lord wanted His army to pass through Slavo-
nia so that the brutish people, who are ignorant of God, would recognise
the virtue and long suffering of His warriors, and either recover here-
after from savagery or as unrepentant reprobates be cast down to God’s
judgement’.235 Thus, Raymond presents the crusaders’ virtuous conduct
in battle as a quasi-evangelical activity, which some Slavs would recognise
as proof of the truth of the Christian message.
Albert of Aachen made a similar point describing the events surround-
ing the battle of Ascalon (12 August 1099). He explained how the gov-
ernor of Ramla had struck a treaty with Godfrey of Bouillon soon after
Jerusalem’s fall. Albert then explained how this leader had offered God-
frey advice on the Fatimids’ warcraft before joining the Franks in the
ensuing battle. Albert then reports the rumour that ‘after he [the gover-
nor of Ramla] had seen the strength and triumph of the Christians he
received the favour of baptism’.236 In this case at least, the connection is
clear: the valour and victory of Christian crusaders was deemed proof in
its own right of the rectitude of the Christian religion.237

upon the reports of Peter the Hermit’s embassage to Karbugha and (their rival offers
of conversion) and the tales of the conversion of ‘Firuz’. Loutchitskaja, ‘L’idée de
conversion’, 39–53. See also Leclercq, Portraits croisés, pp. 472–488. Flori similarly
stresses the influence of the chansons upon the crusaders’ general approach to Muslims
see: Flori, Pierre l’Hermite, pp. 221–225. More recently, in a similar vein to this present
argument, he has stressed that the crusaders sought to demonstrate to unbelievers the
falsity of their faith through victory in arms, see: J. Flori, ‘Jérusalem terrestre, celeste
et spirituelle: Trois facteurs de sacralisation de la première croisade’, Jerusalem the
golden: The origins and impact of the First Crusade, ed. S. Edgington and L. Garcı́a-
Guijarro, Outremer: Studies in the Crusades and the Latin East III (Turnhout: Brepols,
2014), pp. 44–49. For analysis on the use of ‘compulsion’ within Christian conversion,
including discussion on Clovis’ conversion see: L. G. Duggan, ‘“For force is not of
God”? compulsion and conversion from Yahweh to Charlemagne’, Varieties of religious
conversion in the Middle Ages, ed. J. Muldoon (Gainesville: University Press of Florida,
1997), pp. 49–62; Buc, Holy War, pp. 220–234. Throop discusses instances in later
sources where the outcome of battle was perceived as an evangelical tool: S. Throop,
‘Combat and conversion: inter-faith dialogue in twelfth-century crusading narratives’,
Medieval encounters 13 (2007), 318–319, 322. See also S. Kangas, ‘First in prowess and
faith: the great encounter in twelfth century crusader narratives’, Cultural encounters
during the Crusades, ed. K. Jensen, K. Salonen and H. Vogt (Odense: University Press
of Southern Denmark, 2013), pp. 119–134.
235 RA, p. 37. 236 Translation taken from AA, p. 461.
237 For another example see RM, p. 107: Similarly, the continuator of Frutolf’s chronicle
described the First Crusade’s purpose with reference to Luke 15:4 (the parable of the
lost sheep). In this context the crusaders are presented, like the biblical shepherd, to
be attempting to bring a lost sheep (the peoples of the east) back into the fold. See: FE,
 Conversion, Evil, and the Problem of Hatred 157

In other cases, this conversion process is explained by crusading

authors at greater length and in more detail, often within passages con-
taining imagined debates between the Turkish leaders. To take one exam-
ple, the Gesta Francorum contains a sub-plot which charts the growing
realisation among the Turks that the Christians have the full support
of the true God. The storyline runs as follows: messengers arrive in
Khurasan from the Turks in Antioch, reporting the crusaders’ early
victories. The Turkish general Karbugha receives this news and then
decides to confront the Christians. He assembles a great army. When
this force draws near to Antioch, Karbugha appoints an emir (Ahmed ibn
Marwan)238 to command the citadel in Antioch. Hearing of the Chris-
tians’ weakness, Karbugha mocks them but is rebuked by his mother
who warns him that the Christian God will fight decisively for His peo-
ple. She prophetically foretells his defeat, but he ignores her advice and
persists in seeking a confrontation.239 Having arrived at Antioch, Peter
the Hermit and a translator then seek an audience with Karbugha during
which they offer to baptise him. He refuses scornfully and says that they
should renounce their own faith and become Turks. In the subsequent
battle Karbugha becomes fearful and his troops flee in terror. He dies
shortly afterwards. Karbugha’s emir, Ahmed ibn Marwan, command-
ing the Antiochene garrison, having witnessed these acts, then converts
freely along with several of his fellows.240 The message communicated
by this chain of events is plain. It suggests that a dawning awareness was
spreading among the Turks that, on one hand, the crusaders had the full
support of God who would grant them victory while, on the other, the
trust they placed in their own beliefs was unfounded and would render
them no aid.241 As this realisation took root among the Turks, it was
anticipated that some would acknowledge it to be the truth (e.g. Kar-
bugha’s mother) and convert (e.g. the commander of the citadel) while
others (e.g. Karbugha) would persist in their defiance and be scattered
or destroyed.

132. For discussion upon similar ideas in the chansons de geste see: J. Tolan, ‘The dream
of conversion: baptizing pagan kings in the crusade epics’, Sons of Ishmael: Muslims
through European eyes in the Middle Ages (Gainesville, FL: University Press of Florida,
2008), pp. 66–74.
238 Kamal al-Din, ‘Extraits de la Chronique d’Alep’, p. 582.
239 For some interesting discussion on medieval Christian representations of Muslims
foretelling their own defeat see: Leclercq, Portraits croisés, pp. 449–456.
240 GF, pp. 49–56, 66–70. Kamal al-Din reports that his name was Ahmed ibn Marwan and
that he was subsequently escorted to Aleppan territory. Kamal al-Din, ‘Extraits de la
Chronique d’Alep’, pp. 582–583. As Tolan points out, in later verse histories describing
Karbugha, he is also said to have converted. Tolan, ‘The dream of conversion’, pp. 66–
74.
241 See also Leclercq, Portraits croisés, pp. 456–464.
158 The First Crusade and the Conquest of Jerusalem

The essential features of the Gesta Francorum’s story are replicated

in other accounts. Albert of Aachen’s chronicle (which had little or no
connection to the Gesta tradition) contains a similar tale. He describes
the despair of Qilij Arslan, ruler of Nicaea, and Yaghi Siyan, ruler of
Antioch, at the crusaders’ early advances. Yaghi Siyan then requests
help from the ‘king of Khurasan’. This king ignores their warning about
Christian valour and sends Karbugha to confront the crusade. Karbugha
is repeatedly warned by Qilij Arslan that the Christians are extremely
dangerous enemies, but Karbugha ignores his advice and places his trust
in his own deity and the advice of soothsayers. As he gathers his army,
Albert describes how his troops treat him like a god. Having reached
Antioch, Peter the Hermit gives him the option to convert but he refuses.
Later, after battle is joined between the Turks and Crusaders, Karbugha
is rendered motionless by God and his consequent failure to direct his
forces leads to his defeat.242
Albert’s account is not as explicit as the Gesta and it does not conclude
with any conversions. Even so, his message is similar. He communicates
the idea that the falsity of the Turks’ beliefs was laid bare by the Christian
valour. Again, Karbugha is said to have ignored the warnings both of his
peers and Peter the Hermit and to have demanded instead that they
become Turks. The spiritual significance of his actions is underlined by
the adjectives that are applied to him. He is shown in these and other
accounts to have been filled with ‘stubbornness’ (contumax) and ‘pride’
(superbia).243 These are spiritually loaded words, appearing frequently in
the Bible. In the Old Testament book of Samuel, King Saul was described
as ‘stubborn’ for his refusal to carry out the will of God (Samuel 15: 23).
Psalm 104, likewise, describes how pride creates a distance between man
and God. These then are terms used to describe those who refuse God’s
commands and persist in following their own designs.
Fulcher of Chartres stated this plainly when he explained how Kar-
bugha was put to flight following the defeat of his great army writing,
‘because he endeavoured to make war against God. The Lord perceiv-
ing this from afar destroyed utterly his pomp and power’.244 In general,
the crusade emerges through these stories as an evangelical enterprise,
whose conspicuous successes are presented as an unambiguous statement
of transcendental fact, disproving the beliefs of their foes and underlining
the truth of Christianity.245

242 AA, pp. 102, 136, 194, 258–267, 318, 330–332.

243 AA, pp. 254, 258, 330, 320; GF, 66. 244 FC, pp. 256.
245 Discussing Fulcher’s chronicle, Cole has interpreted Fulcher’s presentation of Kar-
bugha’s continued resistance to the crusade as evidence that he was arguing for the
 Conversion, Evil, and the Problem of Hatred 159

The inclusion of these sub-plots should not imply that the crusaders
initially embarked upon their campaign with missionary intent. They
could not have foreseen from the outset either that they would be so
vigorously resisted or that they would win victories in battle against such
insurmountable odds.246 Moreover, the charters and letters produced
during the crusade’s recruitment phase do not list conversion among its
objectives. During the campaign there was only a scattering of localised
attempts to win converts directly; either through preaching, persuasion,
or force.247 It is more likely that, following the crusade, the survivors
began to ponder the enormity of their victories and the effect they imag-
ined these would have upon their enemies. These stories, which are very
similar in nature, even though the texts themselves are largely unrelated,
seem to represent the crusaders’ shared hope that the Turks (and in some
cases Fatimids) would come to see their own defeats as evidence of the
falsity of their own religion. Certainly, as shown earlier, this kind of spec-
ulation would have been entirely in accordance with the long-standing
conviction that the outcome of battle is decided by God and constituted
proof of the Christian message.248 Time would prove of course that the
Turks did not convert en-masse, but these stories suggest that in the
heady days following the fall of Jerusalem this end was in sight. Such
a conviction would only have been enhanced by the repeated promises

‘indiscriminate extermination of the pagan enemy’ on the grounds that Karbugha sym-
bolised an obstinate refusal to yield Antioch and acknowledge Christian supremacy. P.
Cole, ‘“O God, the heathen have come into your inheritance” (Ps. 78.1) The theme
of religious pollution in crusade documents, 1095–1188’, Crusaders and Muslims in
twelfth century Syria, ed. M. Shazmiller, The medieval Mediterranean I (Leiden: Brill,
1993), pp. 88–89.
246 As Riley-Smith has shown, the crusaders’ confidence in both divine support and their
spiritual interpretation of their victories seems to have grown over time. Riley-Smith,
The First Crusade and the idea of crusading, p. 99.
247 Historians have taken slightly different stances on the crusaders’ approaches to what
might be called ‘direct’ conversion. For discussion on this subject see: Riley-Smith, The
First Crusade and the idea of Crusading, 109–111; Kedar, Crusade and mission, pp. 57–
65; A. Cutler, ‘The First Crusade and the idea of “conversion”’, The Muslim World
58 (1968), 57–71; Flori, ‘Première croisades et conversion’, pp. 449–451; B. Kedar,
‘Multidirectional conversion in the Frankish Levant’, Varieties of religious conversion
in the Middle Ages, ed. J. Muldoon (Gainesville: University of Florida Press, 1997),
pp. 190–199. Mastnak has advanced the view that the crusade was not concerned with
conversion, Mastnak, Crusading peace, pp. 122. For further discussion on the Christian
accounts of the reported conversion of the Turkish traitor who helped to the crusaders
to gain access into Antioch see: Skottki, ‘Of ‘Pious Traitors’, 80–94. For a summary
of the general consensus on the question of the crusaders’ approach to conversion see:
Loutchitskaja, ‘L’idée de conversion’, 40.
248 Flori makes a similar point observing that the crusaders may have hoped that their
victories would bring about a sweeping, or at least a partial, conversion of the Muslims.
He also stresses the importance of the Chansons de Geste in forming this conviction.
See: Flori, ‘Première croisades et conversion’, pp. 449–455.
160 The First Crusade and the Conquest of Jerusalem

made in the spring of 1099 by the Muslim rulers of many Levantine

coastal cities that if the Franks should take Jerusalem then they would
either serve them faithfully or even convert to Christianity.249 In addition,
the mere fact of the crusaders’ conquest of Jerusalem was perceived by
participants as undisputable proof of the falsity of paganism; one which –
so they believed – all unbelievers could not fail to recognise. Incidentally,
the growing realisation in later decades that in fact the Turks had not
converted may explain why later authors such as William of Tyre, who
drew heavily upon the First Crusade narratives, did not include these
imagined conversations between Turkish leaders in their chronicles –
they knew that this was an aspiration that would not reach its fulfilment.
Although some elements of these stories (in particular the reported
conversations between Turkish leaders in distant lands) must be sheer
fantasy, these tales should not be dismissed too lightly as purely figments
of the crusaders’ imaginations. There is a foundation of fact here that is
widely referenced in the sources of many cultures. Drawing upon these
materials it is not disputed that Yaghi-Siyan did appeal for aid. Karbugha
did respond by raising a large army. Peter the Hermit did visit Karbugha
before the battle and the Turks were subsequently defeated against all
the odds. Even the crusaders’ reports of Karbugha’s haughty response to
Peter the Hermit’s offer of conversation may contain a grain of truth.250
Ultimately, the crusaders seem to have formed their narratives through
the following process: they studied their enemies and their behaviour;
they then interpreted the Turks’ actions through the lens of their own
spiritual ideas and evangelical expectations; and finally – when producing
their chronicles – they filled in any gaps with imagined scenarios that
explicated their interpretation of events for their audience.
This discussion on conversion is important because it establishes a fun-
damental aspect of the crusaders’ approach towards their Turkish oppo-
nents. If we remain focused on the earlier-mentioned stories reported
in the Gesta Francorum and Albert of Aachen’s Historia, it can be seen
that the Turks described in these tales can be divided roughly into two
groups. The members of the first group are typified by Karbugha but also
include other leaders such as the ‘king of Khurasan’ and are described

249 See later in this chapter.

250 Turan has argued that Karbugha’s counter-proposal at his meeting with Peter the
Hermit (that the crusaders cast off their religion, become Turkish warriors and be richly
rewarded or alternatively be dragged away in chains) bears close relation to standard
contemporary Turkish assertions of their right to world dominance. If this was the
case then the Gesta Francorum’s account of Karbugha’s words may have some basis in
reality. Turan, ‘The ideal of world domination’, 87–88; GF, 67. Nevertheless, Mecit
challenges the notion that the Turks still maintained a concept of world domination by
this stage in their history. Mecit, The Rum Seljuqs, p. 5.
 Conversion, Evil, and the Problem of Hatred 161

with the utmost scorn and hostility. They are the pantomime villains of
these accounts and all kinds of dastardly behaviour are ascribed to them;
for example, the manufacture of chains with which to lead the Christians
into captivity.251 The second group is presented very differently. This
includes Karbugha’s mother, who is said to have warned her son about
the inevitable victory of the Christian God, and Qilij Arslan, who likewise
advised him about the potency of the Christian army. These individu-
als are presented in a far more sympathetic manner. Albert describes
Qilij Arslan as ‘magnificent’ (magnificus), ‘a man of marvellous and great
diligence’, ‘a very noble man, but of gentile beliefs’, who also felt a deep
sense of grief at the defeat of his men.252 The Gesta describes Karbugha’s
mother as a wise, diligent, and loving woman.253 Also included in this
group is Ahmed ibn Marwan who was given command over the citadel
of Antioch and who later converted to Christianity. The Gesta presents
him as ‘truthful, gentle and peaceful’ (verax, mitis, pacificus); a highly
positive profile.254 Naturally, these descriptions – positive or negative –
are imagined and not based on personal experience. It is unlikely that
these authors had any personal experience of these individuals – except
possibly Ahmed – and the only known crusaders to have met Karbugha
were Peter the Hermit and his interpreter Herluin.255 It is far more likely
that these Turkish characters exist rather as ‘types’ within the crusaders’
thought-world.
The differences between these two groups are revealed in both texts
through the fact that they are opposed to one another. Qilij Arslan and
Karbugha’s mother are both said to have realised that there was a spe-
cial significance to the crusaders’ victories that needed to be recognised
and, by extension, to have attempted to restrain Karbugha. Karbugha,
on the other hand, is shown to have batted away their advice and to have
suffered defeat as a consequence. There is a typology at work here in
which these various individuals are playing well established roles. Their
differing responses to the victories are reminiscent in some ways of the
New Testament parable of the sower (Matthew: 13, 1–9). This parable
is generally understood to describe the receptiveness of human beings to
the word of God, through the analogy of a sower spreading seed upon
various types of ground. Some seeds fall in good soil and thrive, while
other seeds either do not take root at all, or grow a little before being

251 AA, p. 258. 252 AA, pp. 32, 94, 136, 254.
253 GF, pp. 53–55. 254 GF, p. 51.
255 The Antiochene emir who converted to Christianity is an exception here. He evidently
interacted closely with several crusaders although this does not guarantee that the
chroniclers themselves ever met him. For discussion on Karbugha’s mother see the
Introduction.
162 The First Crusade and the Conquest of Jerusalem

either choked by weeds or scorched by the sun. The message is clear:

some will respond to the word of God and others will not. The described
responses of these Turkish elites fall into very similar categories. Some
(Karbugha’s mother and Ahmed ibn Marwan) are shown to understand
the full significance of the crusaders’ victories and recognise it as proof
of the truth of the Christian religion; Ahmed ibn Marwan even converts
(in some later chansons retelling the crusade, Karbugha’s mother also
converts).256 Qilij Arslan does not convert and there is absolutely no
doubt in either chronicle that he remained the crusade’s enemy, yet he
is said to have recognised the power and valour of the Christians. The
positive personal qualities ascribed to these individuals are in direct cor-
relation to their acknowledgement of the crusade’s spiritual significance.
The opposite is naturally the case with Karbugha himself whose domi-
nant characteristic, ascribed by these narrators, is his dogged refusal to
accept this truth and to reject the sage warnings of those closest to him.
These typological tales establish the theological lens through which
the authors of the crusade narrative viewed their Turkish opponents.
They were viewed as a non-Christian people who had suddenly been
confronted with unassailable proof of the validity of Christianity. The
crusaders expected some among their ranks to recognise this truth, whilst
others would inevitably persist in their unbelief. Thus the campaign was
perceived in hindsight as a ground-breaking, if belligerent, evangelical
enterprise, introducing a new people to the Christian message.257
This theological viewpoint is important because it carries an array
of attached expectations. Firstly, as the earlier characterisations of Qilij
Arslan and Ahmed ibn Marwan demonstrate, these authors were pre-
pared to project positive – albeit imagined – personal qualities onto their
enemies. Whilst these characterisations were, as shown earlier, compo-
nent parts in the earlier-mentioned typographical morality tales, they
still demonstrate the crusaders’ readiness to accept the principle that
non-Christians could possess praiseworthy virtues.258 Secondly, these
tales reveal the crusaders’ recognition that the Turks were human beings
256 His conversion is also mentioned in the crusaders’ letter to Pope Urban II, written
in September 1098 (Kb, p. 164). C. Sweetenham, ‘What really happened to Eurvin
de Créel’s donkey? Anecdotes in sources for the First Crusade’, Writing the early Cru-
sades: Text, transmission and memory, ed. M. Bull and D. Kempf (Woodbridge: Boydell,
2014), p. 87. For discussion on the descriptions of Karbugha and his relationship with
his mother in the later chansons (as well as tales of both Karbugha and his mother
converting) see: Leclercq, Portraits croisés, pp. 492–513.
257 Riley-Smith has discussed the notion that crusading could be viewed as a way of
loving one’s enemies, drawing upon the Augustinian notion of parents disciplining
their children. Riley-Smith, The First Crusade and the idea of Crusading, p. 27.
258 Schwinges by contrast argues that the crusaders generally only recognised military
virtues in their enemies. Schwinges, Kreuzzugsideologie, pp. 143–144; R.C. Schwinges,
 Conversion, Evil, and the Problem of Hatred 163

and manifestations of God’s creation.259 This is shown plainly through

the earlier discussion. If they were not viewed in this way then they
would not have been deemed capable of conversion or, by extension, of
responding to God’s teaching (as understood by the crusaders). More-
over, the Turks’ and Franks’ shared humanity is emphasised repeatedly,
both explicitly and implicitly. At one point in the Gesta Francorum the
author affirmed the idea that these two peoples were related, stating that
only the Turks’ adherence to a foreign religion separated them from their
Frankish cousins.260 Later in the fictional conversation between Kar-
bugha and his mother, Karbugha asks whether Bohemond and Tancred
are ‘gods of the Franks’ (Francorum dii), but his mother responds that
they are mortal ‘like all other people’ (sicut alii omnes).261 This passage
was clearly designed both as a moment of comedy and to praise Bohe-
mond and Tancred, but it is also a statement founded on an assumption
of shared humanity. The difference she identifies between these Christian
warriors and the Turks is their religious adherence and, by extension, the
support granted to them by God.262
If the crusaders were prepared to accept both the Turks’ shared human-
ity and their personal virtues, the same was not true of their religion. They
believed them to be living under the profoundly malign influence of a
non-Christian religion.263 The various terms applied to the Turks, such
as: ‘unbelieving’ (incredulus),264 ‘blasphemous’ (prophanus),265 ‘excom-
municated’ (excommunicatus),266 ‘erring religion’ (ritus erroris),267 or
‘accursed’ (execratus)268 carry a similar message. They all describe a
group who, either by compulsion or mistaken choice, had aligned

‘William of Tyre, the Muslim enemy and the problem of tolerance’, Tolerance and intol-
erance: Social conflict in the age of the Crusades, ed. M. Gervers and J. Powell (Syracuse,
NY: Syracuse University Press, 2001), p. 127. He does however note some exceptions,
see: Schwinges, Kreuzzugsideologie, p. 152.
259 For a contrasting view which argues that the crusaders sought to dehumanise their
enemy see: Cole, ‘O God, the Heathen have come into your inheritance’, p. 89.
260 GF, p. 21. 261 GF, pp. 55–56.
262 Incidentally, this passage from the Gesta Francorum closely parallels part of an inscrip-
tion found in Bohemond’s mausoleum which reads as follows: ‘I can’t call him a man;
I won’t call him a God’. The evident similarities between these two texts supplies
another indicator that the Gesta’s author was prepared to relay the laudatory discourse
propounded by the prince and his immediate circle. For the inscription see: A. Epstein,
‘The date and significance of the cathedral of Canosa in Apulia, South Italy’, Dumbar-
ton Oaks papers 37 (1983), 86.
263 See also Sweetenham, ‘Crusaders in a hall of mirrors’, p. 56.
264 GF, pp. 20, 88. 265 GF, p. 62; RA, p. 157.
266 GF, p. 19. In this context, ‘excommunicated’ seems to mean that this group was literally
cut off from communion with the Church. For wider discussion see: Nilsson, ‘Gratian
on pagans’, p. 156.
267 AA, p. 434. 268 PT, p. 108; GF, p. 66.
164 The First Crusade and the Conquest of Jerusalem

themselves with an ‘evil’ belief system. This impression is confirmed

by the descriptions of mosques where they are presented as houses of the
Devil, which underline the far harder attitude taken towards the Islamic
religion.269 Again, the widely-understood distinction made by contem-
poraries (see chapter 1) between non-Christian peoples and their beliefs
is much in evidence. Furthermore, whilst non-Christian Turks and Arabs
were evidently deemed capable of virtuous behaviour, their beliefs were
also presented as leaving them dangerously exposed to demonic sug-
gestion and sinful temptation. This idea is communicated clearly in the
Hystoria Antiochiae atque Ierusolymarum which speaks of a bearded old
Turkish warrior who was captured by the crusaders and then promised
to convert. The crusaders duly permitted him to join them, giving him
the name Hilarius. Nevertheless, the author explains that because his
race is ‘impious’ (impius) and ‘unbelieving’ (infidelis) the Devil was able
to enter his heart the moment he had doubts about the crusading army
and convince him to flee to Turkish-held Aleppo.270 This fascinating
story speaks of the authors’ conviction that the sinfulness of the Turkish
race as a whole rendered this individual acutely vulnerable to demonic
influence, even after his – admittedly very recent – conversion.271
Likewise, the conviction that non-Christian beliefs could leave their
adherents vulnerable to bodily temptations is also much in evidence.272
This was a long-standing view, present in both Eastern and western
Christian traditions, whose proponents had long advanced the idea that
‘Saracens’ were unrestrained in their enjoyment of bodily pleasures.
Scarfe Beckett has shown that this belief may date back to Jerome’s
association of the ‘Saracens’ with the worship of Venus.273 This theme
emerges both in the Gesta Francorum and Peter Tudebode’s chronicle,
which contain a letter purporting to have been written by Karbugha to the

269 PT, p. 77; GF, p. 42, 75.

270 HAI, p. 48. For recent discussion on this source see: L. Russo, ‘The Monte Cassino
tradition of the First Crusade: from the Chronica Monasterii Casinensis to the Hystoria
de Via et Recuperatione Antiochiae atque Ierusolymarum’, Writing the early Crusades: Text,
transmission and memory, ed. M. Bull and D. Kempf (Woodbridge: Boydell, 2014),
pp. 53–62.
271 Orderic Vitalis tells a similar story about a ‘Saracen’ convert, although in other places
he gives examples of Muslims who have converted successfully and become devout
Christians. See: OV, vol. 4, p. 22; (vol. 5), p. 158.
272 Daniel, Islam and the West, pp. 158–185.
273 Scarfe Beckett, Anglo-Saxon perceptions, pp. 1, 212–217; Ducellier, Chrétiens d’Orient,
pp. 160–161. This was to become a long-standing association but it is worth noting that
Muslim authors also connected their co-religionists with the planet Venus seemingly
because they worshipped on a Friday (the day of Venus). M. Ryan, A kingdom of
stargazers: Astrology and authority in the late medieval crown of Aragon (Ithaca, NY:
Cornell University Press, 2011), p. 170. See also Petrus Alfonsi, Dialogue against the
Jews, p. 156.
 Conversion, Evil, and the Problem of Hatred 165

caliph, sultan and knights of ‘Khurasan’. Following the salutation he cel-

ebrates with his addressees their shared love of gluttony, wanton luxury,
and destruction. The implication of this passage is that the unbelieving
Turks revelled in their sinful and ungodly passions.274 A similar message
is communicated within accounts of Peter the Hermit’s diplomatic mis-
sion to Karbugha outside the walls of Antioch. Having demanded that the
Turks convert and withdraw, Karbugha is said to have made a counter-
proposal. He offered land, titles, and wives to any crusader who was
prepared to deny his faith; thus the adoption of a non-Christian religion
is equated with the allure of material riches and the satiation of earthly
desires.275 The perceived link between non-Christian religious adherence
and increased vulnerability to sinful living is clear through both examples.
Likewise, Turks who die in a state of unbelief are described as passing
straight to Hell.276
∗∗∗
Changing ground slightly, a factor contextualising the crusaders’ atti-
tudes towards Muslims is their readiness to create treaties and alliances
with a variety of Turkish and Arab leaders.277 As shown earlier, while the
Turks were viewed as an obstacle to the crusade’s progress, their total
military defeat was not its main object. On many occasions the crusaders
attempted to secure their passage through Arab or Turkish territory
peacefully, by treaty, and without bloodshed. At other times co-operative
agreements were established voluntarily by both sides. These détentes
are listed in Table 2. Some of these relationships broke down, leading
to mistrust and hostility; a case in point being Baldwin of Boulogne’s
agreements with Turkish rulers in the vicinity of Edessa (see Table 2).
Nevertheless, this was not always the outcome and, to take one example,
after the conquest of Antioch, Godfrey of Bouillon formed an alliance
with the Omar, ruler of Azaz; later fending-off an attack by Ridwan of
Aleppo against the town.278
An important aspect of these agreements is that the crusaders generally
made them entirely voluntarily and not necessarily through force of cir-
cumstances. There were clearly some cities which they were determined
to seize (Nicaea, Antioch, and Jerusalem), and some of the crusade’s
leaders attempted to carve out principalities for themselves, but often

274 PT, p. 92.

275 PT, p. 109; Tolan, Saracens, p. 113. For another example see Peter Tudebode’s account
of the captivity and execution of Rainald Porchet, PT, p. 80.
276 GF, p. 40.
277 The major work on this subject is: Köhler, Alliances and treaties, passim.
278 RA, pp. 88–89; AA, pp. 344–354.
166 The First Crusade and the Conquest of Jerusalem

Table 2 Agreements and treaties formed between crusaders and Muslims,

1097–1099 (excluding negotiations concerning the surrender of towns and
castles) This table includes only those agreements which are mentioned in
participant narratives

Date Agreement Main Source

May/June 1097 – Fatimids See earlier

May 1099 For detailed discussion on the Franks
negotiations with the Fatimids see earlier.
Spring-Summer Balak and Balduk AA, pp. 176–178,
1098 Shortly after Baldwin of Boulogne became count 260, 360–362. See
of Edessa, the local Turkish ruler Balduk also: Köhler,
offered both to sell the town of Samosata to Alliances and
the Franks for 10,000 bezants and to enter treaties, pp. 37–38.
Baldwin’s service. Baldwin originally refused
but was later persuaded to agree to these
terms. Baldwin also asked Balduk for hostages,
but he prevaricated in handing them over.
Subsequently, another neighbouring Turkish
ruler Balak ibn Bahram approached Baldwin
suggesting that they should both attack a
‘Saracen’ town that was refusing to pay him
tribute. Baldwin agreed and prepared for an
attack but Balak attempted to play both sides
and suggested to the townspeople that they ask
Balduk for aid. Balduk duly arrived but the
citizens were so horrified by the sight of the
approaching Frankish army that they decided
to flee. Balduk then fled back to Baldwin
pretending that he had never intended any
disloyalty and Baldwin accepted his excuses.
Both warriors later joined Karbugha’s army.
After the defeat of Karbugha’s army, Balak
offered to serve Baldwin and to hand over the
fortress of ‘Amacha’, but Albert claims that
this offer was only made in an attempt to lure
Baldwin into an ambush. Balduk also
attempted to re-ingratiate himself with
Baldwin but was executed.
Summer 1098 Omar of Azaz RA, pp. 88–89; AA,
Omar of Azaz was in rebellion against Ridwan of pp. 344–354;
Aleppo, who was moving to besiege him in Kamal al-Din,
Azaz. Omar sought support from Godfrey of ‘Extraits de la
Bouillon who later came to his aid along with Chronique d’Alep’,
several other crusade commanders, who drove p. 586.
Ridwan away after suffering some casualties in
a surprise attack upon the army’s rear.
January 1099 Banu Munqidh of Shaizar GF, pp. 81–82; RA,
While the crusaders were besieging Ma’arra they p. 103.
were approached by the Munqidhs of Shaizar.
Their envoys offered the crusaders safe
 Conversion, Evil, and the Problem of Hatred 167

Table 2 (cont.)

Date Agreement Main Source

passage along with financial support. They

also promised to sell the crusaders food and
horses. Ali ibn Munqidh was subsequently
able to manage the crusaders’ transit through
his lands reasonably effectively.
February 1099 Jana ad-Daulah of Homs GF, p. 82; RA,
Jana ad-Daulah sent messengers to the crusaders, pp. 103, 107.
who made an agreement on his behalf. He
promised that he would do them no harm and
offered them horses and gold. They in turn
promised to respect his lands and interests.
Early 1099 The emir of Maraclea GF, p. 84
Observing the sustained crusader advance, the
emir of Maraclea made a treaty with the
Franks, permitting them entry into the town.
He also raised their banner over his ramparts.
March 1099 Jabala GF, p. 84; RA,
The crusaders began to besiege Jabala but having p. 111; AA,
received news from Raymond of Tripoli that a pp. 380–383.279
relief force would arrive imminently to attack
the main army in their encampment outside
Arqa they made a treaty with the emir in which
he granted them gold and horses in return for
their withdrawal from his walls. Albert of
Aachen claimed that Raymond of Tripoli had
knowingly issued a false warning about this
relief force having been paid a large sum of
money by the inhabitants of Jabala.
May 1099 Banu Ammar of Tripoli GF, pp. 83, 86; RA,
Fakhr al-Mulk of Tripoli approached the pp. 107, 111, 125;
crusaders at roughly the same time as Jana AA, pp. 386–390.
ad-Daulah. He gave the crusaders ten horses
and four mules along with some gold, but
(according to the Gesta Francorum) Raymond
of Toulouse said that he would not form an
agreement with the Tripolitarians unless they
converted to Christianity. Raymond then laid
siege of Arqa, but failed to capture the fortress.
(cont.)

279 John France believes that Albert’s allegation against Raymond may be probably spuri-
ous given his general hostility towards the count, see: J. France, ‘Moving to the goal,
June 1098-July 1099’, Jerusalem the golden: The origins and impact of the First Crusade,
ed. S. Edgington and L. Garcı́a-Guijarro, Outremer: studies in the Crusades and the
Latin East III (Turnhout: Brepols, 2014), p. 134. Ibn al-Athir states that the ruler
spread several rumours about incoming relief armies, although he also describes these
rumours to have been ineffective in their objective of compelling the Franks to lift the
siege: IAA, vol. 1, pp. 38–39.
168 The First Crusade and the Conquest of Jerusalem

Table 2 (cont.)

Date Agreement Main Source

Raymond of Aguilers gives a slightly different

account of events explaining that Count
Raymond formed an agreement with the men
of Tripoli but later attacked Arqa so that he
could extort more money.
Having laid siege of Arqa, negotiations with
Tripoli continued and the crusaders were
initially careful not to damage their crops.
Nevertheless, there were some skirmishes with
warriors from the city. Eventually, the
crusaders decided to press on to Jerusalem and
they formed an agreement with the Banu
Ammar. According to the Gesta, the Banu
Ammar agreed to: (1) release 300 prisoners (2)
grant the crusaders 15,000 bezants (3) and 15
valuable horses. The Tripolitarians also sold
the crusaders further mounts, pack animals
and food. Fakhr al-Mulk also promised to
become a Christian if the crusaders managed
to defeat the Fatimids and capture Jerusalem.
According to Raymond of Aguilers, the Banu
Ammar agreed to: (1) give the crusaders
15,000 gold pieces (2) horses (3) mules (4)
clothing (5) foods. He would also provide a
market and release his Christian captives.
May 1099 Beirut AA, p. 390.
The citizens of Beirut are said to have given the
crusaders gifts in exchange for their peaceful
passage past Beirut and its environs. They also
promised to serve them if they should
successfully capture Jerusalem. The crusaders
agreed to these terms.
May 1099 Acre RA, p. 135.
Fearing a siege, the ruler of Acre promised that
he would grant Acre to the crusaders if they
either: successfully captured Jerusalem;
remained in Judaea for 20 days; or defeated
the Fatimids. The crusaders duly departed.
July-August Ramla AA, pp. 458–460.
1099 Prior to the battle of Ascalon the governor of
Ramla made a treaty with Godfrey of Bouillon.
He explained some of the tactics that the
Fatimids were likely to use in their advance
upon the crusader forces in newly-conquered
Jerusalem. He then joined them in the ensuing
battle and may have been baptised.
 Conversion, Evil, and the Problem of Hatred 169

they were content to travel through a region fairly peacefully or even

to achieve some of their military goals with the support of Muslim
allies. Some individuals even visited Arab and Turkish ruled cities. The
priest Eberhard was in Tripoli while the crusaders were besieging Anti-
och, while others travelled to Caesarea and Turkish-held Homs to buy
horses.280 Certainly some of these treaties will have been viewed as tem-
porary measures driven by force of circumstances, but there is no sug-
gestion that this was deemed to be controversial by any of the parties
involved.
When defining the nature of the crusaders’ overall policy towards the
non-Christian rulers of the Near East, it is helpful to recall a rather
blunt passage from Orosius in his account of the Gothic and Hunnic
attacks on the Roman Empire at the time of the emperor Valens (d. 378).
Reflecting upon these attacks he wrote ‘whatever name any person may
shield himself with, if he is not associated with her [The Church], he
is alien; if he attacks her, he is an enemy’.281 Orosius’ approach closely
matches the crusaders’ perspectives. Hostile or not, the Turks and Arabs
were considered to be alieni but this factor alone did not generally qualify
them to become a military target. It was only when they opposed the
crusaders that they were viewed in this way.282 This structure seems to
hold true for much of the crusade, particularly once the pilgrims had
fallen out of favour with the Emperor Alexius and no-longer felt under
any compulsion to support his re-conquest of Asia Minor.
These factors contextualise an important aspect of the crusaders’ atti-
tudes towards Muslims: the issue of hatred. Many historians have con-
cluded that the crusaders harboured a deep-seated hatred for Muslims.
The language used in the crusading chronicles and the massacres com-
mitted during the course of the campaign are generally submitted as proof
for this contention. Nevertheless, on closer inspection this issue is not
clear-cut. Certainly, the crusaders undoubtedly harboured a passionate
enmity towards all non-Christian religions. This conviction is ubiquitous
across the chronicles which describe the Turks’ and Arabs’ faith in hostile
and demonic terms. Such an approach had the full weight of medieval
European theology behind it, and both Islam and many non-Christian
religions had long been presented in this way.283
The adherents of other religions, however, as shown earlier, were
viewed differently. They were characterised as manifestations of God’s

280 RA, pp. 117, 103. 281 Orosius, ‘Historiarum Libri Septem’, col. 1147.
282 See also Völkl, Muslime – Märtyrer – Militia Christi, pp. 161–166.
283 For similar statements concerning Slavic paganism see: Adam of Bremen, ‘Gesta
Hammaburgensis Ecclesiae Pontificum’, p. 78. For similar statements concerning
Islam in the centuries before the First Crusade see: Ermoldus Nigellus, Poème sur Louis,
p. 46.
170 The First Crusade and the Conquest of Jerusalem

creation, who were living under an evil influence. Here the theological
pressure was very different, steering medieval Christians to: accept their
foes’ status as God made beings acknowledge that they could still possess
virtues; and be prepared to accept these peoples into the faith should they
choose to convert. This approach may well have acted as a halter on any
inclination to hate their enemies and certainly their earlier-mentioned
ability both to form agreements with their enemies and to project virtues
onto their leaders chimes well with this conclusion.
Even so, whilst this spiritual frame of reference appears in various
forms throughout these chronicles, the crusaders’ attitudes towards their
Turkish opponents were not formed through theology alone. During the
course of the crusade, these authors witnessed, suffered, and perpetrated
many brutal acts and lived through a catalogue of horrific experiences. At
times, their angry reactions to these events seem to have chaffed against
the theological demands to view their enemies as human beings and led
them instead to take a darker view. Fulcher of Chartres very occasionally
used stronger terms in his chronicle to describe the Turks such as ‘degen-
erate’ (degener), which may imply a condemnation of them as an ethnic
group rather than simply their beliefs.284 Moreover, his rather grudging
acknowledgement at a later stage that some Turks could be permitted
to be baptised may suggest that his theology was in tension with a more
personal enmity.285 Still, even in these instances, Fulcher’s remarks con-
form closely with long-standing tropes which make it difficult to know
if he was giving voice to a personal enmity or simply namechecking an
established idea. The idea of ‘barbarian’ peoples being degenerate in
the eyes of Western authors predates both the crusade and Christianity
itself. Describing the Macedonian rulers of the Near East following the
conquests of Alexander the Great, Titus Livy explained that they had
‘degenerated’ from Macedonians into Syrians, Parthians, and Egyptians.
It is possible that Fulcher was simply referencing this presumption.286
Alternatively, he could have been citing the more spiritual conviction
that races which had not accepted Christ were more susceptible to vice
and therefore to moral degeneration.287 Thus it is difficult to gauge the
extent of his enmity from his language alone, which may simply be ref-
erencing long-standing discourses.
Moreover, there are tonal differences between the various contempo-
rary writers in their presentation of Turks and Arabs which have been

284 FC, p. 135. For the use of this term in connection to sin see: Alcuin of York, ‘Epistolae’,
pp. 55, 57, 88. See also Robert the Monks’ use of the term: RM, p. 29.
285 FC, pp. 227–228.
286 Livy, History of Rome, trans. E. T. Sage, Loeb classical library CCCXIII, vol. 11
(Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1936), p. 58.
287 See earlier.
 Conversion, Evil, and the Problem of Hatred 171

noted by several historians. The observation has been made that Ray-
mond of Aguilers’ language is somewhat stronger than that of the other
writers; France states that his words reflect the ‘pristine hatred’ of the
‘rank and file’.288 Even so, caution should be exercised before conclud-
ing that the language used by the crusaders betrays a sense of ‘hatred’.
The phrases which have often been cited as proof of this enmity are
terms such as ‘enemies of God’ (inimici Dei).289 Comparable language
is found in all the crusading chronicles and it is undoubtedly strong in
tone; nevertheless reflection is required before accepting it too swiftly
as evidence of hatred. The crusaders did not devise this terminology
themselves; it had a long pedigree. Christendom’s authors had described
their foes in this way for centuries.290 The famous Carolingian scholar
Alcuin of York (d. 804) wrote a poem reflecting upon the attacks of the
Norsemen in which he contemplated the destruction of great cities and
civilisations. Within this work he presented both the Islamic wars in Asia
and the Gothic invasions of the Roman Empire as acts committed by
enemies who were ‘hostile to God’.291 In the eleventh century, Adam
of Bremen described the Wends in precisely the same way.292 Thietmar
of Merseburg (d. 1018) labelled the Muslim forces who attacked Luna
in 1016 as ‘enemies of Christ’ (inimici Christi) who lived in hatred of
God.293 The Benedictine canoness Hrotsvit of Gandersheim (d.1002)
had similarly described Muslims as being slaves of demons.294 Like-
wise, the crusaders’ descriptions of mosques are comparable to earlier
Christian accounts of pagan shrines. Whilst narrating the martyrdom of
St Alban, the Venerable Bede spoke of pagans as ‘persecutors of the
Christian faith’, who were making sacrifices on the ‘Devil’s altars’.295
Even Christians could be described in similar terms. Benzo of Alba, an
advocate of Emperor Henry IV writing during the Investiture controversy,
described Pope Gregory VII as an ‘idol’ (hydolum), ‘sorcerer’ (magus),
and ‘stranger to the Catholic faith’ (alienus a fide catholica) among other

288 France, ‘The First Crusade and Islam’, 250–251. 289 GF, p. 62.
290 Menache, ‘Emotions in the Service of Politics’, pp. 252–253. For further discussion
on how the First Crusade altered the terminology used to describe Muslims see:
Schwinges, Kreuzzugsideologie, pp. 100–107.
291 Alcuin of York, ‘Carmina’, MGH: Poetae Latini, Aevi Carolini, ed. E. Duemmler, vol.
1 (Berlin, 1881), pp. 230–231. See also Alcuin of York, ‘Epistolae’, p. 347.
292 Adam of Bremen, ‘Gesta Hammaburgensis Ecclesiae Pontificum’, p. 126.
293 Thietmar of Merseburg, ‘Chronicon’, MGH: SRGNS, ed. R. Holtzmann, vol. 9
(Berlin, 1935), p. 452. For similarly hostile terminology that predates the crusades
see: Ademar of Chabannes, Chronicon: Ademari Cabannensis Opera Omnia Pars I, ed.
P. Bourgain and R. Landes, G. Pon, CCCM CXXIX (Turnhout: Brepols, 1999),
p. 63.
294 ‘Passio Sancti Pelagii Pretiosissimi Martiris’, p. 58.
295 Bede’s Ecclesiastical History, p. 30 (see also pp. 108, 122, 148).
172 The First Crusade and the Conquest of Jerusalem

things.296 The language he used is at least as strong as that employed by

the first crusaders concerning Muslims and is of a similar ilk.297 With this
long-standing literary tradition behind them, the authorial intent stimu-
lating the inclusion of such phrases is ambiguous. They could have been
employed as nothing more than standard topoi, referenced as a dispas-
sionate acknowledgement of long-standing traditions. Alternatively, they
could have been selected because they gave voice precisely to the writer’s
deep-felt sense of enmity. Either could be true, but certainly it is not
possible to make the assumption that these were simply the textual man-
ifestations of the crusaders’ heart-felt sense of hatred. A conclusion that
can be drawn from these stock phrases is that these authors rarely felt
the need to go beyond the established toolbox of terminology. Standard
language alone seems to have been deemed sufficient to communicate
their attitudes concerning their enemies. Thus, their presentation of the
Turks was generally derivative not innovative. This is not surprising; this
was, after all, the long-standing practice of monastic historicism. In many
ways the terminology of the crusading chronicles is analogous to the por-
trayals of Franks given in Islamic sources. As Hillenbrand points out,
Muslim authors frequently contextualised their descriptions of Latins
with stock phrases such as ‘May God curse them’ or ‘May God send
them to perdition’.298 Even writers such as Usama Ibn Munqidh (an
author often held-up as a paragon of inter-cultural discourse) used such
terminology.299 In such cases, as with the crusaders’ repeated portrayal of
Muslims as ‘enemies of God’, it is unclear whether the inclusion of these
terms was antagonistic and emotive or whether it was simply formulaic
and routine.300
Another important point that bears on this discussion on hatred is
that whilst the chroniclers clearly deemed the Turks and Arabs to be
particularly susceptible to demonic influences, they were not alone in
this condition. The crusaders perceived some within their own ranks to

296 Benzo of Alba, ‘Ad Heinricum IV. Imperatorem libri VII’, MGH: SRG, ed. H. Seyffert,
vol. 65 (Hanover, 1996), p. 596, 598, 602, 604. For discussion on the development
of papal rhetoric towards papal enemies under Gregory VII see: Flori, Pierre l’Ermite,
pp. 143–144.
297 Several historians have noted that deeply hostile attitudes towards the ‘Saracen’ reli-
gion long predated the First Crusade. See for example: Scarfe Beckett, Anglo-Saxon
perceptions, p. 1; Völkl, Muslime – Märtyrer – Militia Christi, pp. 178–181, 214; Flori,
La Guerre Sainte, pp. 238–260.
298 Hillenbrand, The Crusades, p. 303. For similar discussion on the chansons see: Daniel,
Heroes and Saracens, pp. 107–110.
299 Usama Ibn Munqidh, The book of contemplation, p. 160.
300 Hillenbrand, The Crusades, p. 303. See also N. Christie, ‘The origins of suffixed invo-
cations of God’s curse on the Franks in Muslim sources for the Crusades’, Arabica 48
(2001), 254–266.
 Conversion, Evil, and the Problem of Hatred 173

be instruments of evil. This theme is frequently referenced in all the

chronicles, but a clear example can be found in Raymond of Aguilers’
account of the visions experienced by crusaders during the siege of Arqa.
In one of these, Peter Bartholomew was visited by Jesus along with three
other figures including the apostles Peter and Andrew. Jesus then divided
the crusader army into five ranks, explaining that the first three ranks
consisted of those who served God, while the remaining two represented
those who had turned away from Him. The members of fourth rank
were likened to those who advocated Christ’s crucifixion, whilst those in
the final rank were compared to Judas or Pontius Pilate.301 Evidentially,
some within the crusader host were deemed to have served Christ faith-
fully whilst others rejected or even persecuted Him. They were certainly
not all considered to be faithful heroes, but were presented instead as
fallible human beings who were vulnerable to sin. Later in this conversa-
tion Jesus is said to have explained the serious consequences that befall
the ‘unbelieving’ among the Christian pilgrims.302 Shortly afterwards
Raymond of Aguilers again underlined the threat posed by ‘unbelievers’
among their fellow Christians in his report of a vision that appeared to
a priest named Bertrand of Le Puy.303 Thus, religious error and terms
such as ‘unbeliever’ were accusations that were not universally levelled
at Turks and ‘Saracens’, but could also be applied to the crusaders’
co-religionists. In a similar vein, Albert of Aachen described how the
crusaders had only been saved from their former ‘error’ by the crucifix-
ion; a statement which naturally accepts that they too had once been in
the same state of unbelief as the Turks and Arabs.304
During the siege of Antioch, the crusaders went to enormous lengths to
secure divine assistance through the avoidance of sin. Tight regulations
were imposed on the pilgrims’ behaviour and women were segregated
from the men.305 Their concern was to expel anything that might lead
them into sinful behaviour. Clearly they regarded sinfulness and demonic
influence as omnipresent and certainly not the sole preserve of the cru-
saders’ opponents. Even the landscape was described as having evil intent
at times. The Gesta Francorum, describing the mountainous region south
of Coxon, presented the range as ‘devilish’ (diabolicus), whilst Fulcher
of Chartres recalled how several pilgrims had been drowned in a river
known as the ‘river of the Demon’ (Daemonis flumen).306 Consequently,
whilst the Turks were undoubtedly the crusaders’ most powerful military
foe, their attacks were given as only one of the routes by which the Devil
301 RA, pp. 113–114. See Buc’s discussion on this point: Buc, Holy War, pp. 167–173.
302 RA, pp. 96, 115. 303 RA, p. 119. 304 AA, p. 460.
305 Riley-Smith, The First Crusade and the idea of crusading, p. 88.
306 GF, p. 27; FC, p. 172.
174 The First Crusade and the Conquest of Jerusalem

could challenge the crusade and prevent it from reaching Jerusalem. As

shown earlier, the campaign itself was understood as a divine test; one
which would assess the participants’ worthiness to reach the holy city. In
this endeavour they believed themselves to have been besieged at every
point in the journey by the Devil, to whom they were themselves vul-
nerable through their sin. Satan manifested his opposition through: the
challenges of the landscape, the threat from their enemies, the frailty of
their fellows, and their own weaknesses. In this way the crusaders may
have perceived their enemies to be an operating under an evil influence
and to have felt hostility towards them as a result; yet they were equally
aware that evil assailed them through the landscape, their fellows, and
even their own misdemeanors.
∗∗∗
Another dimension to this issue of ‘hatred’ is the pilgrims’ treatment of
the towns and cities which they captured. At Antioch, Ma’arra, Albara,
and Jerusalem the crusaders’ entry into the city was followed by a gen-
eral massacre of the populace. Their conduct could be savage in the
extreme and Raymond of Aguilers described how the fall of Ma’arra was
accompanied by looting, widespread killing, and torture. By the time the
crusaders left, the town it was in ruins.307 The brutality of these actions
was fully acknowledged by all the chroniclers, whose reactions varied
from celebration to anxiety and pragmatic acceptance. Likewise, in the
years following the conquest of Jerusalem, the populations of several
coastal cities were treated in a similar manner including Haifa in 1100
and Caesarea in 1101.
Among these massacres, it is the conquest of Jerusalem in particular
that has understandably attracted the most attention. The city fell on
15 July 1099 and, having broken through the outer walls, the crusaders
slaughtered the populace before, three days later, massacring many of
those who remained. The loss of life was not total and some inhabitants
survived the siege. There are tales of members of the Jewish community
being held to ransom while those who took refuge in the citadel along
with some other Muslim citizens seem to have survived; nevertheless,
there is no doubt that many people lost their lives.308
Probably the most debated questions raised by this massacre are the
fundamental issues of: how many people were killed? and why was it

307 RA, pp. 94–102.

308 For examples of survivors see: S. A. Mourad and J. E. Lindsay, The intensification and
reorientation of Sunni Jihad ideology in the crusader period (Leiden: Brill, 2013), pp. 38–
40. See also S. Goitein, A Mediterranean society: The Jewish communities of the Arab
world as portrayed in the documents of the Cairo Geniza, volume V the individual (Berkeley:
University of California Press, 1988), pp. 375–376.
 Conversion, Evil, and the Problem of Hatred 175

carried out? Regarding the first question, Jerusalem had been in steep
demographic decline for many decades prior to the crusade. It had been
fought over repeatedly by the Fatimids and Turks so estimates of tens of
thousands of casualties are almost certainly exaggerations. The number
advanced by the contemporary Andalusian writer Ibn al-‘Arabi of 3000
dead feels plausible.309 Still it is not without it problems. Hirschler has
raised two objections to this figure, noting firstly Ibn al-‘Arabi’s general
lack of statistical accuracy and secondly the fact that he suspiciously
supplied precisely the same figure when describing the earlier conquest of
the city by the Turkish warlord Atsiz (perhaps indicating that he conflated
the two incidents).310
Hirschler has recently raised another pertinent factor in this discussion,
examining the Arabic accounts of the Jerusalem massacre produced in
the decades after 1099. He notes that they report the incident briefly,
supplying little information and conveying little to suggest that this was
unlike any other successful siege. Just as importantly these writers do not
characterise the siege as a Christian/Frankish-Islamic religious conflict
but saw it as an encounter involving different ethnic/regional groups. Ibn
al-Qalanisi is a case in point, writing:
[The Franks] attacked the town and took possession of it. Some of the inhabitants
withdrew to David’s Tower and many were killed. The Jews assembled in the
synagogue and they burned it over their heads. They took possession of David’s
Tower under safe conduct on 22 Sha’bān [14 July] of this year. They destroyed
the shrines and the tomb of Abraham.311
Hirscher’s conclusion is that because such authors passed over the siege
and its massacre so briefly, making little remark about its scale or inten-
sity, this implies that the Franks’ behaviour at Jerusalem was not perceived
to be any different from the ‘usual practice of medieval warfare’.312 This
reasoning is thought-provoking, not least when it is coupled with the fact
that Muslim chroniclers (including Ibn al-Qalanisi) felt that it was the
crusaders’ treatment of the Jewish community (rather than the Muslim
population) that was particularly worthy of note. He goes on to argue that
the much more gory accounts of Jerusalem’s conquest written by Muslim

309 It has been claimed previously that some Muslim survivors managed to reach Dam-
ascus, but this has recently been disproved. For discussion on this point and a sam-
ple of the debate on the total number killed during the siege see: B. Kedar, ‘The
Jerusalem massacre of July 1099 in the western historiography of the Crusades’, Cru-
sades 3 (2004), 56–75; France, Victory in the east, p. 355; Housley, Fighting for the cross,
p. 218.
310 K. Hirschler, ‘The Jerusalem conquest of 492/1099 in the medieval Arabic historiogra-
phy of the Crusades: From regional plurality to Islamic narrative’, Crusades 13 (2014),
50–51.
311 Translation from Hirschler, ‘The Jerusalem conquest’, 42–43.
312 Hirschler, ‘The Jerusalem conquest’, 74.
176 The First Crusade and the Conquest of Jerusalem

authors in the late-twelfth/early-thirteenth century such as Ibn al-Jawzi

and Ibn al-Athir (including casualty figures of 70,000 dead) reflect the
changed political agenda of their time of writing rather than the actual
events of the late-eleventh century.313
The significance of Hirschler’s arguments cannot be understated. He
is essentially contesting the long-standing belief that the Jerusalem mas-
sacre was a bloodbath of colossal proportions. To some extent his argu-
ments serve as a valuable warning against exaggerating the crusaders’
actions during the city’s fall. Certainly these early Muslim writers lack
the horror that one would expect should there have been an unprece-
dented outpouring of violence (although this is in part an argument ex
silencio). The inflated figures of later centuries can certainly be dismissed.
It is also entirely plausible that the crusader-conquest was not perceived
as Christian vs. Muslim struggle by contemporary Muslims. This again
tallies with many of the findings offered earlier, which underline how
differently the various ethnic groups of the Near East responded to the
Frankish incursion. Still, it is instructive to consult – alongside the Arabic
histories – the accounts written by other cultures.
The best-known of these are naturally the Frankish accounts, partic-
ularly those written by eyewitnesses (or those based on their accounts).
These tell a very different story, depicting a Christian army cutting a
path through blood soaked streets in a welter of violence. The classic
account here is that offered by the Gesta Francorum where the massacring-
crusaders are famously portrayed in the Jerusalem Temple wading up to
their ankles in enemy blood.314 Other writers offer a similar account
of extreme violence including those with little/no textual relation to the
Gesta tradition. For example, Albert of Aachen depicts indiscriminate
killing and a cityscape strewn with corpses. Likewise, the letter written
to the faithful by Daimbert of Pisa again speaks of horsemen wading
through blood.315 Thus, multiple Frankish authors, writing in different
contexts, each portrayed the city’s sack in profoundly exceptional terms
(a marked contrast to the Arabic sources).316
Changing ground to the (non-Arabic) eastern Christian sources,
authors such as Anna Comnena, Michael the Syrian, and Matthew of
Edessa also described the conquest. Naturally each of these individuals
was writing with their own agenda and within the context of their own
theological/cultural framework, yet each draws their readers’ attention to

313 Hirschler, ‘The Jerusalem conquest’, 37–76. 314 GF, p. 91.

315 AA, p. 442; kb, 171. For discussion on Albert of Aachen’s relationship to other chron-
icles see: Rubenstein, ‘Three crusade chronicles intersect’, pp. 24–37.
316 For Hirschler’s discussion on this disparity see: Hirschler, ‘The Jerusalem conquest’,
74–75.
 Conversion, Evil, and the Problem of Hatred 177

the fact that a significant massacre took place in Jerusalem. Their allu-
sions are often brief, but they leave their audience in no doubt that a
brutal slaughter took place. Patriarch Michael speaks of the city being
full of bodies.317 He also corroborates the Frankish sources when he
describes how the dead were taken from the city and burnt.318 Anna
Comnena describes the siege as follows: ‘the walls were encircled and
repeatedly attacked, and after a siege of one lunar month it fell. Many
Saracens and Jews in the city were massacred’.319 Her narrative is brief,
but among the few details she chose to include it is the massacre that is
foregrounded. Matthew of Edessa is more detailed, giving a death toll
of 65,000.320 Again, this is a different narrative from the early Arabic
sources.
Reconciling these very different narratives poses many challenges. It is
highly unusual to have a situation where the perpetrator – rather then the
victim – foregrounds the extent of their own slaughter. As a first stage in
this process it is worth raising two contextual points. Firstly, Jerusalem
was a site of considerable importance within all these authors’ thought-
worlds and the possibility has to be considered that their descriptions of
slaughter were, at least partially, symbolic rather than serious attempts to
report lived experience. Raymond of Aguilers employed imagery drawn
from the book of Revelation (see 14:20) in his descriptions of the pil-
grims’ horses wading through blood, presumably in an attempt to set the
crusade in an epic or eschatological mould rather than self-consciously
reporting lived events.321 Other chroniclers may similarly have been bor-
rowing apocalyptic-type imagery to amplify the significance of the event.
Matthew of Edessa’s account was guided by the parallels he drew to Ves-
pasian’s conquest of Jerusalem in 70 ce. In both cases one might enquire
whether they were reporting an orgy of violence because this is what
actually happened, or whether they were drawing upon an established
repertoire of imagery to underline the spiritual magnitude of the event?
On this point it is impossible to know although it may be useful to recall
once again Adam of Bremen’s description of the pagan temple Uppsala.
As shown earlier, this temple may never have existed and yet its destruc-
tion played the important narrative role in his history, symbolising the
regional overthrow of paganism.322 It is possible in a similar vein that the
317 MS, vol. 3, p. 185. 318 GF, p. 92.
319 Translation from AC, p. 315. 320 ME, p. 173.
321 For discussion on whether these descriptions should be viewed as biblical analogy (not
designed to be taken as a serious piece of reportage) or factual observation see: Kedar,
‘The Jerusalem massacre’, 65; T. Madden, ‘Rivers of blood: an analysis of one aspect
of the crusader conquest of Jerusalem in 1099’, Revista Chilena de Estudios Medievales
1 (2012), 25–37.
322 See earlier.
178 The First Crusade and the Conquest of Jerusalem

lurid accounts of crusader violence in Jerusalem were offered to provide

suitable context for their authors’ vision of the epic spiritual overthrow
of the ‘Saracen religion’ and may not have been intended to reflect the
more mundane events that actually took place.
The second contextual point is that Jerusalem itself had changed hands
repeatedly during the late eleventh century. Prior to the arrival of the First
Crusade it was conquered on at least three – possibly four – occasions by
Turks, Fatimids, and local factions.323 The 1077 conquest in particular
seems to have been very bloody.324 Perhaps the brevity of the early Arabic
chronicles simply reflects a hardened familiarity with an ongoing cycle of
conquests of this period. The crusade was not the only bitter campaign
waged in the Levantine region during the eleventh century. There had
been Turcoman depredations, Bedouin attacks, infighting among Arab
tribes, and dynastic squabbles between the Turks. Most of the cities taken
by the crusaders in the Holy Land had fallen to at least one other power at
some point within two decades of the Franks’ arrival. Perhaps their rather
terse descriptions of Jerusalem’s fall in 1099 should guide us not to dial
down the intensity of the crusader conquest, but to dial up the intensity
of the Fatimid-Seljuk-Turcoman-Bedouin-Arab conflicts of the previous
half century; creating an environment in which yet another massacre did
not stand out as an exceptional event.
Synthesising the above, the line-of-best-fit here seems to be as fol-
lows. Most importantly, the crusaders did indeed commit a substantial
and bitter series of massacres which began immediately after they broke
through the wall on 15 July 1099. The correlation on this point between
the Frankish and eastern Christian sources cannot be overlooked. More-
over, as Kedar has observed, these massacres were of such intensity that
the crusaders surprised even themselves; the participant authors pre-
sented the intensity of the slaughter as ‘totally unprecedented’ and their
exceptionality is revealed by the fact that their authors felt the need to
justify them.325 He also draws attention to the fact that when Fulcher of
Chartres entered the city in December 1099 the piles of bodies, carried
out from the city after its conquest, were still unburied and decompos-
ing. There must therefore have been a very great number of cadavers.
These are all valid points.326 This does not mean that we should neces-
sarily believe the crusaders to have been literally wading in blood, yet the

323 For discussion on Jerusalem’s history during this period: Gat, ‘The Seljuks in
Jerusalem’, pp. 5–6.
324 Although as Kedar observes, it probably did not reach the same level of intensity as
the 1099 sack: Kedar, ‘The Jerusalem massacre’, 69–70.
325 Kedar, ‘The Jerusaelm massacre’, 68.
326 Kedar, ‘The Jerusaelm massacre’, 17, 68.
 Conversion, Evil, and the Problem of Hatred 179

fact that they conducted two, possibly three, massacres in the hours/days
following the city’s fall reveals the extraordinary nature of the event.327
The total number of killed, however (thus the scale of the massacre as
opposed to its intensity), was not even nearly as great as later authors
might claim. Jerusalem was a marginal, declining city, which had been
repeatedly conquered. The smallness of Jerusalem’s population might go
some way to explaining why the Arabic chroniclers paid the siege scant
attention, although this must be coupled with the fact that they were
living through an age long-accustomed to slaughter. After all, when the
crusaders entered the Levant in 1097 they were not intruding upon a
utopia, but stepping into a long-standing warzone.
Discussing the scale and intensity of the conquest provides vital con-
text when assessing the crusaders’ intentions – and the role of hatred
within them – towards Jerusalem’s population. Here again there are var-
ious schools of thought. For some, the Jerusalem massacre was simply a
manifestation of standard military practice employed against Christians
and non-Christians alike. France, for example, observes that William the
Conqueror’s capture of Mantes in 1087 and his harrying of the North
were accompanied by atrocities that were almost as brutal as crusaders’
actions in Jerusalem.328 Applying such notions to the question of hatred,
the crusaders’ behaviour could be explained away as straightforward mar-
tial practice, not indicative of any particular anti-Islamic hatred.
In some respects this explanation feels reasonable. Certainly the cru-
saders followed the same procedure when assaulting Jerusalem that they
had employed at Albara (Sept 1098) and Ma’arra (27 Nov–12 Dec
1098).329 In all cases they: offered surrender terms; these terms were
refused (although at Albara and Ma’arra there is some ambiguity about
the agreements that may or may not have been made); the crusaders
then took the city by storm. In this sense then the crusaders’ actions
could be interpreted as ‘customary’ and not suggestive of any particular
hatred. Even the third massacre which took place on the third day after

327 For discussion on the number of massacres perpetrated see: Kedar, ‘The Jerusalem
massacre’, 16–18, 22–23, 61.
328 France, Victory in the east, pp. 355–356. See also J. France, Western warfare in the age of
the Crusades: 1000–1300 (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1999), p. 227. Kedar
disputes the idea that some of the Christian-on-Christian massacres France offers as
comparisons reached the same level of intensity: Kedar, ‘The Jerusalem massacre’, 68.
For further discussion on this theme see: Kedar, ‘The Jerusalem massacre’, 63–75;
Housley, Fighting for the cross, pp. 213–21.
329 For references see: (Ma’arra) Ibn al-Qalanisi, The Damascus Chronicle, p. 47; RA,
pp. 94–102; Kamal al-Din, ‘Extraits de la Chronique d’Alep’, pp. 586–587; (Albara)
RA, p. 91. Kamal al-Din gives a slightly different account of the taking of Albara:
Kamal al-Din, ‘Extraits de la Chronique d’Alep’, p. 586. I am indebted to Ian Wilson
for his advice on this subject.
180 The First Crusade and the Conquest of Jerusalem

the city’s fall could be explained with this same martial logic, arguing
that – as France suggests (following Albert of Aachen) – the crusaders
had become aware that a Fatimid army would arrive imminently and they
could not afford to leave the remnants of a hostile populace in Jerusalem
in their rear.330
Nevertheless, the matter cannot be left here. As shown earlier, the
crusaders regarded their massacre to be profoundly exceptional and
unprecedented. Even if one rejects any claim that the apocalyptic-type
imagery drawn upon by multiple authors has much of a basis in reality, the
accounts of butchery and violence committed against non-combatants,
both on the day of conquest itself and over the days that followed, are
very unusual.331
Weighing up these various points, it seems likely that the crusaders’
behaviour can be ascribed in part to long-standing military traditions.
The crusaders’ conviction that they had rights over conquered cities
comes across clearly in the sources, not least when these rights were
denied in the aftermath of the conquest of Nicaea.332 Nevertheless, the
crusaders’ sense of martial entitlement was evidently dilated by additional
factors that drove them to go far beyond the bounds of conventional
behaviour. In part Flori is undoubtedly correct that the explanation for
this outpouring of violence, at least during the initial massacre, must
reflect the fact that the conquest of Jerusalem was the culmination of years
or toil, suffering, fear, disease, and hardship. Releasing the floodgates of
these pent-up longings and tensions may well have played its part in the
massacre of Jerusalem.333
There must also be a religious dimension.334 Both before and after
the conquest, the crusaders performed symbolic processions; indeed, the
Franks’ conduct during the entire siege spliced professional soldiering
with acts of spiritual devotion. In a similar vein, for several authors, the
massacre of Jerusalem represented a spiritual ‘cleansing’. The convic-
tion that Jerusalem was contaminated by a non-Christian presence is
referenced in sources produced before the crusade (the charters) and in
its aftermath (the chronicles). It was not simply a later interpretation.
Fulcher of Chartres, along with many writers, described the massacre
of Jerusalem in this way.335 One particularly noteworthy text, which

330 France, Victory in the east, p. 356; AA, p. 440. See also Murray, ‘The siege and capture
of Jerusalem’, p. 214.
331 Kedar, ‘The Jerusalem Massacre’, 15–75. See also, Kangas, ‘Deus Vult’, p. 164; Flori,
Pierre l’Ermite, p. 422.
332 OV, vol. 5, p. 56.
333 Flori, Pierre l’Ermite, pp. 419–421. See also, Mayer, The Crusades, p. 56.
334 Asbridge, The First Crusade, pp. 318–319.
335 FC, p. 306. See also RA, p. 145. For discussion see: Cole, ‘O God, the Heathen
have come into your inheritance’, p. 89; Schein, Gateway to the heavenly city, p. 16;
 Conversion, Evil, and the Problem of Hatred 181

references this theme is a charter written at the Aquitanian abbey of

Charroux in 1100. The document itself is not directly concerned with
crusading and was written up simply to record a donation to the abbey.
Nevertheless, it was dated to:

The second year after the most brave knights and footsoldiers of Christ under
Duke Godfrey, later appointed king of Jerusalem, and with him the most steadfast
Count Raymond and many others captured the aforesaid city with divine power
and virtue having killed no small number of Turks and pagans and cleansed that
most holy place of their filth.336

The use of such a passage, referencing the notion of spiritual pollution,

in a document dealing with the local concerns of an abbey in Western
Francia, suggests that both the conquest of Jerusalem and the conviction
that the massacre of its inhabitants constituted a spiritual cleansing had
become a standard reference point in that region at least. In general, the
fact that this theme of spiritual cleansing was foregrounded by so many
authors both at the outset of the campaign, in its immediate aftermath,
and in its later representation, suggests that this conviction played a role
in inspiring the massacre they committed in the city. Of course, the belief
that cities under non-Christian rule were polluted by their unbelieving
citizens was neither new nor exclusive to medieval Christianity; Emperor
Louis the Pious was shown to have ‘cleansed’ Barcelona when he wrested
it from Muslim control back in 801. At times Muslim sources described
the conquest of Christian cities in a similar way.337 Nevertheless, this
was a theme that was self-consciously prioritised in accounts of the First
Crusade.
Returning to the question of hatred, and reviewing the earlier discus-
sion, the deeds of 15–18 July 1099 might well appear to be indisputable
proof that the crusaders were driven more generally by a sense of anti–
Muslim loathing. Even so, this may not have been the case. Jerusalem
was and is a place of enormous spiritual potency for the members of
many religions. It is not a place that can be judged by ordinary rules, nor
can people’s behaviour within its walls be taken as a guide for how they
will behave elsewhere. This point is underlined by a basic acquaintance
with Jerusalem’s history in any period, but it is also confirmed by recent

Riley-Smith, ‘The idea of Crusading’, pp. 156–157; Kedar, ‘The Jerusaelm massacre’,
15–75; Akbari, Idols in the east, pp. 235–240.
336 Chartes et Documents pour servir a l’histoire de l’abbaye de Charroux, no. 22.
337 Ermoldus Nigellus, Poème sur Louis, pp. 34, 46. The theme of religious pollution is
also present in Islamic accounts of Christian-ruled Jerusalem. Following the crusader
conquest, Muslim authors described Jerusalem as being contaminated by the Chris-
tian presence, citing in particular the presence of pigs and alcohol. Latiff, ‘Qur’anic
Imagery’, p. 145; Mallett, Popular Muslim Reactions, pp. 66–67.
182 The First Crusade and the Conquest of Jerusalem

studies on the enormous psychological/spiritual/delusion-inducing effect

Jerusalem can have upon modern-day tourists; some of whom require
hospitalisation as a consequence.338 Returning to the medieval period,
it might be noted that even after many decades of Frankish rule, at a
time when strong diplomatic ties existed between the Latin East and its
Muslim neighbours, when Muslim communities lived peacefully under
Christian rule, Muslims were still barred from living in Jerusalem.339 It is
also striking that Albert of Aachen saw nothing strange in reporting that
‘Saracens, Arabs, and Turks’ were among the grief-stricken mourners
who attended Godfrey of Bouillon’s funeral in July 1100. Clearly, their
grief was both observed and valued, and yet this was the man whose forces
had cut a bloody path through the holy city only a year previously.340
Consequently, his troops’ behaviour in Jerusalem was exceptional and
did not prevent him building relationships with Muslims at other times.
It might be added that the pilgrims’ deeds in Jerusalem in 1099 are not
of-a-piece with their conduct in the earlier stages of the crusade, which
are punctuated with alliances, treaties, and even statements of admira-
tion. Thus, their behaviour in the holy city seems to have been governed
by a different set of priorities.
The key to this distinction seems to be an intense sense of Jerusalem’s
overwhelming spiritual significance. This was a place of long-standing
longing, not merely for the crusaders themselves, but for Christendom
as a whole. Its importance in the Bible requires no rehearsal. Throughout
the eleventh century, growing veneration for Jerusalem in western Chris-
tendom had drawn the holy city into the centre-ground of contemporary
piety; a fact which rendered its continued occupation by non-Christians
increasingly intolerable. Religious buildings across western Europe were
dedicated to the Holy Sepulchre, while others seem to have aped the
rotunda (Anastasis) of the Holy Sepulchre; relics were transported from
the east in ever increasing numbers; and there was a rising traffic on
the pilgrim roads to the east at the very time when these same routes
were coming under greater threat.341 By 1095 the presence of a non-
Christian power was deemed – even at the outset of the campaign – to be
an unacceptable pollutant. This conviction comes across clearly in the
crusade charters, several of which describe the need to cast out pagans
338 M. Kalian and E. Witztum, ‘Facing a holy space: Psychiatric hospitalization of tourists
in Jerusalem’, Sacred space: shrine, city, land, ed. B. Kedar and R. Zwi Werblowsky
(Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1998), pp. 316–330. I am indebted to Professor Kedar for
drawing my attention to this article. See also Rubenstein, Armies of Heaven, p. 279.
339 WT, vol. 1, 536.
340 AA, p. 516. A similar situation is reported by Orderic Vitalis after the death of Robert
II, count of Flanders. See: OV, vol. 6, p. 162.
341 Morris, The sepulchre of Christ, pp. 134–179.
 Conclusion 183

and liberate Jerusalem from its non-Christian masters.342 By extension,

the crusaders’ belief that the successful conclusion of the crusade con-
stituted an unambiguous disproof of paganism may imply that its former
occupation by Islam was similarly perceived as a spiritual barrier block-
ing the sustained advance of Christianity.343 Certainly the conquest itself
was viewed as a liberation from tyranny.344 Evidently it was deemed
insufficient for Christians to simply have visiting rights to Jerusalem, par-
ticularly if these same rights were being threatened by Turkish attacks.
All these factors seem to have played their part in the resulting sack of
the city.
Viewed from this perspective, whatever the crusaders might have
thought about the non-Christians they encountered, Jerusalem existed
in a unique spiritual environment; one that was governed by different
rules and – for specific reasons that actually had very little connection
to the crusaders’ attitudes towards Muslims – it was deemed essential to
eradicate any non-Christian presence. When these spiritual convictions
are spliced with the pent up emotions of three years of suffering and
death and the martial conviction that a city which had refused to sur-
render could rightfully be taken by storm, the resulting mix goes some
way to explaining what happened on those three days. Within this, it
seems likely that the specific religious identity of Jerusalem’s defenders
was largely irrelevant beyond the fact that they were not Christian.
Jerusalem was and is different.

Conclusion
“God does not make miracles for believers, but for the unbelievers.”
Caffaro of Genoa345

Shortly before the First Crusade, (1050–1070) William of Jumieges

wrote a history of the dukes of Normandy. This work, the Gesta Nor-
mannorum Ducum, was dedicated to William I of England and covered
the history and heroic deeds of his forebears. According to his nar-
rative the duke’s actions and those of his ancestors had earned them
the right to be described as ‘most steadfast knights of Christ’346 Like-
wise, those who rebelled against them were portrayed as having been

342 Examples: Actes des comtes de Flandre, 1071–1128, no. 20; Cartulaire de l’abbaye de
Saint-Victor de Marseille, vol. 1, no. 143; ‘Cartulaire du prieuré de Saint-Pierre de La
Réole’, Archives historiques du départment de la Gironde, ed. C. Grellet-Balguerie, vol. 5
(Paris and Bordeaux, 1863), p. 140.
343 RA, p. 151. 344 Kb, pp. 178–179, 180. 345 Caffaro, Annali Genovesi, p. 8.
346 The Gesta Normannorum Ducum of William of Jumièges, Orderic Vitalis and Robert of
Torigni, ed. E. Van Houts, vol. 1 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1992–1995), p. 6.
184 The First Crusade and the Conquest of Jerusalem

incited by the Devil.347 Their enemies – the counts of Flanders in par-

ticular – are described as evil, wicked, cunning, Judas-like, and at one
point ‘breathing out dreadful venom’.348 The murderers of Duke William
Longsword (d.‘942) received especial scorn and were presented as ‘sons
of the Devil’.349 Had these enemies been non-Christians, especially Mus-
lims, there would be a prima facie case for claiming that the author had
adopted a structure of binary opposition between Christians and Mus-
lims; one which intentionally sought to demonise and dehumanise the
non-Christian ‘other’. Nevertheless, all these protagonists are Christian.
True, the use of such terminology leaves the reader in no doubt about
where their sympathies should lie, but it also demonstrates that this kind
of language – used so frequently by First Crusade chroniclers – was in
no way reserved for wars against non-Christians.350
There is a binary-opposition structure that runs through both William
of Jumieges’ chronicle and those of the First Crusade but the dividing line
between good and evil is not simply Christians-versus-non-Christians.
The difference instead is defined by adherence to the will and word of
God.351 Those who recognise and walk in conformity with God’s will are
deemed eligible for an artist’s palate of eulogy and celebration. Those
who are described either to have turned away from God’s law or who live
in isolation from it are judged to be leading a sinful life, vulnerable to
demonic influence. Thus William of Jumieges, a determined advocate of
his patron’s family and forebears, goes to great pains to demonstrate the
Normans’ pious subordination to God’s will, whilst stressing the demonic
inspiration, and stubborn impiety of their foes. His general message is
that: the dukes of Normandy conduct God’s will; their enemies rebel
against it. This is his definition of good and evil. The First Crusade
narratives paint exactly the same picture. There are moments when indi-
viduals are celebrated for having followed God’s will, thus their behaviour
sits on the ‘good’ side of this binary structure. These naturally include
many crusaders and the mere fact that Guibert of Nogent chose the title
Dei Gesta per Francos for his chronicle makes this point exactly. Some
Muslims also fall into this category. To some extent Karbugha’s mother
fulfils this role. She is described positively because she was deemed both
to have successfully identified the spiritual significance of God’s work
through the crusade and to have attempted to prevent her son from

347 Gesta Normannorum Ducum, vol. 1, p. 78.

348 Gesta Normannorum Ducum, vol. 1, p. 90.
349 Gesta Normannorum Ducum, vol. 1, p. 92.
350 This approach is can be found in many chronicles see: Bachrach, Religion and the
conduct of war, pp. 70–71.
351 Kangas, ‘Deus Vult’, p. 169.
 Conclusion 185

marching against the Franks.352 Qilij Arslan and Ahmed ibn Marwan
also fall comfortably into this category. On the other hand, chroniclers
also dwelt upon those who had failed to respond to God’s commands.
These include some Turkish rulers who are shown to embody the vices
of pride and arrogance; terms which denote the idea of rebellion against
God. Karbugha especially is shown as prideful for failing to recognise
that the crusaders’ fought for the true God.353 There were also many
crusaders depicted in this way.
This fundamental structure, defined by an individual’s responsiveness
to God’s will, is expressed through many linked metaphors: good against
evil; cleanliness against pollution; health against sickness but – again – the
dividing line is not synonymous with Christian/non-Christian. Certainly
many Turkish leaders are shown to be evil, but some crusaders are too. As
mentioned earlier, Raymond of Aguilers includes an account of a vision
of Christ in which He divides the crusaders into five ranks. The first rank
contains the most faithful of the crusaders whilst the later ranks are popu-
lated by those who are increasingly lukewarm or are even, by the time He
reaches the fifth rank, traitors to the faith.354 Likewise, as shown earlier,
the Turks are frequently depicted as contaminated or polluted by their
beliefs and their actions are shown to be depraved, but some crusaders
are also presented in precisely these terms. Albert of Aachen described
how the pilgrims’ decision to tightly regulate their moral behaviour at
Antioch was an attempt to rid themselves of ‘filth and impurity’.355 Ray-
mond of Aguilers reported a speech made by some leading crusaders
who complained that the crusaders had alienated themselves from God
through their ‘depraved’ (pravus) actions.356 He also recalled that the late
Adhemar of Le Puy appeared to Peter Desiderius in a vision and incited
the crusaders to worship God and cast off all their depravity.357 Thus it
was entirely possible for anyone of any religion to be described in this way;
the dividing line between them was their acknowledgement of God’s will,
not solely the faith boundary.
The spiritual picture painted by the various chroniclers does show
variations between authors, but there is much that they had in common.
In general Christians, Turks, and Arabs alike are shown to be imper-
fect human beings standing before God. Their imperfections and their
propensity for sinfulness have the potential to lead them any of them into

352 GF, pp. 53–56.

353 AA, pp. 254, 258, 330, 320; GF, p. 66. For wider discussion see: Völkl, Muslime –
Märtyrer – Militia Christi, p. 187–188; Schwinges, Kreuzzugsideologie, p. 164.
354 RA, pp. 68–69. 355 Translation taken from AA, p. 228.
356 RA, p. 144. 357 RA, p. 144.
186 The First Crusade and the Conquest of Jerusalem

depravity and alienation from God.358 Likewise, through their common

sinfulness, the Devil can exert his influence upon all parties. Turks and
Arabs – because they have not committed themselves to the Christian
religion – are shown to be especially vulnerable to demonic suggestion
because they are not under the same divine protection, but they too
are shown as capable of grasping spiritual truths; most importantly the
spiritual significance of the crusade. They are also capable of virtuous
behaviour and redemption. The crusaders are far more likely to be shown
as righteous and pious, but they are also capable of turning their back on
God and aligning themselves with the Devil.
Consequently, a sense of binary opposition between good and evil is
present but it is transcendental – God against the Devil – not simply
crusader against Muslim. Nevertheless, whilst Turks and Arabs were
deemed capable of responding positively to God’s will, they were always
shown to do so through actions that drew them closer to Christianity
and away from their own beliefs. A case in point is Ahmed ibn Marwan,
whose virtues and discernment are said to lead him eventually to convert.
The Muslim religion itself, by contrast, was perceived as irredeemably
evil and a direct manifestation of demonic influence. Thus, the crusaders
maintained the believer/belief dichotomy described earlier. Viewed from
this perspective, it was not especially important what the Turks and Arabs
believed. Indeed, knowledge of the tenets of non-Christian religions were
deemed by some contemporaries to be inherently dangerous; a form of
dabbling with evil.359 It was sufficient to know that they did not accept
Christianity as the complete truth. Baldric of Bourgueil expressed this
concern explicitly in the prologue to his chronicle, stating that he would
not write anything down which might draw his fellow Christians into
error.360
The bulk of the more hostile statements made against non-Christians
are directed against Turks. They were the crusade’s principal foe and
whilst the Franks were fully persuaded of their prowess, they were also:
horrified by their barbarity; terrified by their tactics; and appalled by
their prior conduct in Asia Minor and Syria. The Arabs were viewed and
treated very differently. The pilgrims went to great lengths to avoid con-
flict with the Arabs and they made strenuous attempts to form a détente
with the Fatimids. Within these diplomatic dealings, the crusaders even

358 See also S. Throop, Crusading as an act of vengeance, 1095–1216 (Aldershot: Ashgate,
2011), pp. 55–56. See also Buc’s comments: Buc, Holy War, p. 178.
359 See: Liudprand of Cremona, ‘Antapodosis’, p. 5; Housley, ‘The Crusades and Islam’,
198.
360 BB, p. 4.
 Conclusion 187

floated the idea of permanent co-operation between Christian Europe

and Fatimid Egypt. The fact that Jerusalem was ultimately besieged and
taken by storm should not belie that fact that this was very much a last
resort. The distinctions between the crusaders’ attitudes and behaviour
towards Turks and Arabs demonstrate that their perceived enemy was
not Muslims or even non-Christians en bloc, but rather the partially
Islamicised Turks. They knew that the Arabs, like the Armenians and
Byzantines, had suffered considerably during the Saljuq invasions and
they seem to have hoped to make common cause with them against this
foe.
Drawing these factors together, Islam’s role (or the ‘laws of
Mohammed’ as Raymond of Aguilers describes the ‘Saracen’ faith) in
the crusaders’ thought world was tangential.361 It was vaguely identified
as the belief system of their main opponents and some elements of cru-
sade propaganda spoke of the need to defeat ‘Saracens’ (which in this
context was a religious rather than an ethnic descriptor). Nevertheless,
the crusaders did not direct their energies to seeking out the centres of
Muslim power.362 The many battles they fought along the way were per-
ceived as spiritual hurdles that had to be overcome in the achievement of
their goal: Jerusalem.
∗∗∗
Changing ground to the First Crusade’s wider status, to date, several
historians have positioned the First Crusade, in a longue-durée context,
as part of a wider Christian retaliatory campaign against centuries of
Islamic aggression. To this end, the crusade has been grouped with other
eleventh-century ventures such as the reconquest of Sicily, the Christian
advances into Northern Iberia, and the growing Italian dominance in the
Mediterranean as part of a wider anti-Islamic offensive. This argument
has been reinforced with the observation that the First Crusade, like these
other campaigns, was wreathed by the language of liberation; a shared
terminology common to these ventures.363 Likewise, from a medieval

361 RA, p. 149. 362 See also Asbridge, ‘Knowing the enemy’, p. 17.
363 For discussion on this theme see: Riley-Smith, The First Crusade and the idea of crusad-
ing, pp. 16–18; S. Kangas, ‘Inimicus Dei et Sanctae Christianitatis? Saracens and their
Prophet in twelfth-century crusade propaganda and western travesties of Muhammed’s
life’, The Crusades and the Near East: cultural histories, ed. C. Kostick (London: Rout-
ledge, 2011), p. 132; Mastnak, Crusading peace, p. 120; Morris, The sepulchre of Christ,
p. 173–174; Riley-Smith, ‘The idea of Crusading’, p. 156. For a particularly convincing
study, which makes a similar point whilst discussing Urban’s use of Daniel 2:21 see:
M. Gabriele, ‘The last Carolingian exegete: Pope Urban II, the weight of tradition,
and Christian reconquest’, Church History, 81.4 (2012), 796–814.
188 The First Crusade and the Conquest of Jerusalem

Islamic perspective, several authors including al-Sulami and later Ibn

al-Athir also felt that the crusade was simply an extension of European
expansionism in the Mediterranean.364
These ideas are all perfectly accurate – as far as they go – and they
do play their part in describing the crusaders’ thought-worlds; even so,
there are objections to positioning the crusade too squarely within a
vector of expanding European power. There are grounds for seeing the
expedition as a discontinuation at least as much as it was a continuation
of this trend. The crusade’s fundamental objective was not wide-scale
territorial conquest, but the recapture of a single city. The fact that
the crusade succeeded in establishing four states in the Middle East
does not imply that this was the expedition’s basic purpose. Indeed, if
regional takeover was their main object, then these highly-experienced
commanders showed little strategic logic when they marched hundreds of
miles into hostile territory – far from help – and only then began to pursue
this objective. In all probability, the permanent conquest of any region,
bar Jerusalem itself, seems to have been an opportunistic side-effect of
the campaign, rather than its objective. Likewise, the plain fact that the
vast majority of crusaders did not settle, but returned home, reinforces
the idea that they were concerned primarily with their personal piety and
Jerusalem itself.
Even so, it is not surprising that, to a contemporary Muslim eye, the
crusaders were perceived to be intent on conquest. Whatever the cru-
saders’ intentions may have been, ultimately they did seize thousands
of square miles of territories at a time when their co-religionists were
advancing on many fronts. Thus the decision to judge the crusade by
its consequences was perfectly logical, even if it does not bring the cru-
saders’ initial intentions into focus. Another important discontinuity is
the nature of the crusaders’ enemy. Both the papacy and the crusaders
fully understood that the Turks were a fundamentally new force, whose
origins lay in distant lands. Peter the Venerable explicitly labelled them
‘new enemies of the Christian name’ (novi hostes Christiani nominis).365
Whilst they may have been at least partially Islamicised, the Franks did
grasp the fact that the Turks were also a very different kind of foe; one
which was not simply synonymous with their old Muslim sparring part-
ners. Indeed, the crusaders recognised that the Arabs felt every bit as
threatened by the Turks as they did themselves. For this reason also

364 The book of the Jihad of ‘Ali ibn Tahir al-Sulami (d. 1106): text, translation and commentary,
ed. and trans. N. Christie (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2015), 206–207; IAA, vol. 1, p. 13.
For discussion on this passage see: Micheau, ‘Ibn al-Athı̄r’, pp. 60–62. See also WM,
vol. 1, p. 134. See also Bar Hebraeus, The chronography, vol. 1, 234.
365 The letters of Peter the Venerable, vol. 1, p. 208.
 Conclusion 189

the crusade was discontinued. Drawing these factors together, there is

something very enigmatic about the crusade. It was in many ways a
manifestation of resurgent Christendom and it was certainly enabled by
an expanding culture of territorial expansion. Any yet it was also very
different; characterised by a highly distinctive goal and separated both
geographically and in some respects ideologically from the wars of the
western Mediterranean.
4 Aftermath

Introduction
In the months and years following the fall of Jerusalem, as the pall of
smoke dissipated over its hallowed grounds and the carrion birds ceased
to circle over the bodies of the fallen, the peoples of western Christendom,
Byzantium, Armenia, Georgia, and the Islamic World were confronted by
a single indisputable fact: Jerusalem was now in western Christian hands.
For many in western Christendom, this was a source of unparalleled
rejoicing. Still, once the initial shock had worn off, churchmen seem to
have realised that they were now confronted with a series of very impor-
tant questions that it was specifically their responsibility to answer. Chief
among these was the overriding need to determine what exactly God had
just done through the crusaders? The conviction that the crusade was
an outworking of divine will was so ubiquitous as to be almost banal.
But the question of the crusade’s significance as a milestone in world
history, from creation to Apocalypse, was a much more complex issue
that required inspection. There were also a host of linked issues for these
theologians to ponder including: How would the ‘pagans’ react to their
sustained defeats? Was the crusade a sign that the end of the world was
near? Was the crusade a fulfilment of biblical prophecy? (And, if so, which
prophesies did it fulfil?) Alongside these questions were the problems sur-
rounding this newly-encountered people: the Turks. For these clerics the
process of identifying the Turks was not simply a matter of learning the
names of their leaders, customs, and warcraft; this problem had spiri-
tual implications. The Turks were not mentioned in Genesis among the
peoples descended from Noah and his sons, nor were they listed in sub-
sequent authoritative works, such as Isidore’s Etymologiae; so who were
they? Such concerns seem to have become a source of intense debate,
particularly in monastic circles, as intellectuals and thinkers pored over
the Bible, patristic works, and classical histories in search of answers. For
many it was evidently not deemed sufficient simply to accept the obser-
vations made in the participant narratives; these were far too vague on

190
 Introduction 191

such crucial points of theology. Guibert of Nogent in particular was dis-

missive of the Gesta Francorum’s simplicity and offered a distinctly hostile
critique of Fulcher of Chartres’ chronicle.1 For him, at least, a new more
learned explanation had to be given. Many other writers similarly felt
that these accounts were unsatisfactory and offered either new works of
their own devising or redactions based on existing chronicles.
Consequently, many narratives were produced in the decades following
the crusade. They were often the products of long reflection during which
monastic authors had first consumed the tales supplied by returning
pilgrims (whether orally or in their ‘simple’ textual accounts) and then
rendered them into highly erudite treatises that would satisfy the pressing
theological questions that had emerged in the wake of the campaign. The
fruits of their labours were a series of artistic masterpieces, painstakingly
created from the charcoal sketches provided by the participants.
This chapter will discuss these works focusing specifically upon the
conclusions they reached about the non-Christian peoples encountered
by the crusaders. In some cases their views were simply more explicit
and expanded versions of what the participant authors had already con-
cluded themselves (which actually could be fairly sophisticated). They
too presented the crusade as a test ordained by God, one which had
both elevated some to the status of Christian champions whilst find-
ing others wanting. Robert the Monk, for example, depicted Bohemond
haranguing those pilgrims who were contemplating desertion during the
famines experienced outside Antioch saying plainly, ‘He [God] often
tempts those faithful to him, so that he might know whether they love
him. Now he tempts you through the vexation of poverty and bur-
dens you with the relentless attacks of enemies’.2 Likewise, Robert had
also clearly internalised the belief, seemingly common among partic-
ipants, that the crusade’s undeniable success would lead some ‘Sara-
cens’ to embrace Christianity. On several occasions he depicts Turks
and Arabs crying out to Mohammed for aid, but then coming to the
realisation that no help would be forthcoming.3 Ralph of Caen drew the
same conclusions announcing that the campaign had destroyed ‘idolatry’
(idolatria).4 As we have seen these themes are central to the participant
narratives.
Nevertheless, a common feature of these later works, one which sep-
arates them from the participant narratives, is their lack of precision in
descriptions of the Turks, Arabs, and other peoples encountered by the
crusaders. On occasion these inconsistencies take the form of minor fac-
tual errors. Henry of Huntingdon, for example, speaks of the ‘Agulani’

1 GN, pp. 79, 329–332. 2 RM, p. 39. 3 RM, pp. 46, 107. 4 RC, p. 3.
192 Aftermath

(Ghulam – slave soldiers) being armed with spears, when the Gesta Fran-
corum states plainly that whilst heavily-armoured they were armed only
with swords.5 Likewise William of Malmesbury, discussing the earlier
journey of Bernard the Monk to the Holy Land in the ninth century,
stated that the land was under Turkish rule.6 Seemingly he was unaware
that the Turkish conquest of the Near East was an eleventh-century phe-
nomenon. In other cases, these authors did not draw distinctions between
ethnic/religious/political groups with anything like the same confidence
as the crusaders themselves. They lacked the crusaders’ experience and,
besides, their purpose was not to produce technically accurate accounts
of the pilgrims’ day-to-day progress, but to ponder the spiritual truths
made manifest through their actions. Naturally, none of these mistakes
would have been made by participants for whom such information was
not merely interesting detail, but knowledge contingent to their survival.
These later authors compensated for their lack of direct experience with
a deep contextual knowledge of biblical, classical, and patristic sources.
With a solid grounding in these works they were often better able to
grasp the historical and religious significance of the various sites visited
by the crusaders, than the pilgrims themselves. They were also more
familiar with the earlier chronicle histories describing Christendom’s
prior relations with the ‘Saracen’ world; texts which enabled them to
set their own works within the broader canvas of the events of earlier
centuries.
The level of interest and hostility shown to the Turks and ‘Saracens’ in
these narratives varies considerably between authors. Robert the Monk’s
chronicle, for example, dwells frequently upon the details of battle and
individual combat. It is filled with accounts of mighty sword blows, spear
thrusts, and heroic encounters. In this case, as Sweetenham has demon-
strated, his chronicle owes much to the interests of the knightly classes
and the influence of the chansons de geste.7 A similar proclivity can be
found in Orderic Vitalis’ work where at one point he brings to life a mar-
tial encounter at the siege of Antioch by showing how Godfrey of Bouillon
cut his Turkish opponent in half ‘like a tender leek’.8 Interestingly, their
terminology – Robert’s in particular – is often more jocularly aggressive
towards the crusade’s opponents than the participant narratives them-
selves. A further theme that begins to creep into some chronicles is that
of physiological stereotyping. Derogatory descriptions of ‘monstrous’

5 Henry of Huntingdon, Historia Anglorum (history of the English people), ed. and trans. D.
Greenway, OMT (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1996), p. 426; GF, p. 49.
6 WM, vol. 1, p. 642. 7 Sweetenham, ‘Crusaders in a hall of mirrors’, pp. 49–64.
8 OV, vol. 5, p. 84.
 Introduction 193

enemies or hostile references to skin colour (of the kind found in chansons)
are almost entirely absent from the participant narratives, but they are
present – albeit very rarely – in the later chronicles.9 Ralph of Caen, for
example, in his description of a group of Franks ramming Turkish heads
onto stakes, explains how one Turk’s eyes were half-a-foot apart.10 It is
possible that in this passage he is simply offering an exaggerated report
of an extraordinary individual, certainly he does not turn this statement
into an ethnic generalisation. On balance, however, it seems likely that
he was attributing ‘monstrous’ qualities to his foes, of the kind found
commonly in chansons. Certainly in the Chanson of Roland one of the
Saracen king Marsile’s dukes is described as having precisely the same
physical attribute.11 This is unlikely to be a coincidence. Gilo of Paris
also refers briefly to the Turks’ skin as being ferrugo tinctus, although
he makes no judgement – hostile or otherwise – on this point.12 This,
however, is the sum of the passages found in crusade histories (excluding
chansons) to touch upon this issue and perhaps their most striking feature
is their scarcity. Many studies, particularly those discussing chansons, have
placed skin colour at the heart of Europe’s representations of Muslims
and yet, even though the First Crusade histories were shot-through with
motifs drawn directly from such epic poems, these authors manifested
little interest in their enemies’ physical features.
Many authors predictably took a more theological approach to the cru-
sade’s enemies and these include Ekkehard of Aura in his Hierosolimita.
This short work touches only briefly on the pilgrims’ opponents, but
it does so in a particularly striking way. He described how the crusade
had cleared the road to Jerusalem, by removing the ‘obstacles of pagan
hearts, which are harder than stones’.13 This reference to hearts that
are ‘harder than stones’ (duriora saxis) draws upon an important bibli-
cal theme that was widely discussed in medieval exegesis. In both the
Old and New Testaments the stone-hearted are given as those who have
heard God’s commands but have refused to listen. They have therefore
separated themselves from God through their wilful independence. Such
scriptural passages often express the hope or prophetically foretell that
God will transform their stone hearts into ‘hearts of flesh’ which will be
responsive to God’s word. In Ezekiel 11 19–21, for example, it is written:

9 It is interesting to note that the crusaders were not isolated in this approach and Epstein
has demonstrated that some of the early emissaries/missionaries to the Mongols revealed
little interest in skin colour. Epstein, Purity lost, pp. 31, 51. There is one reference to
skin colour in Fulcher of Chartres’ chronicle, but it concerns the inhabitants of a village
near the Dead Sea and not the crusaders’ enemies. See: FC, p. 379.
10 RC, p. 56. 11 SR, p. 72. 12 GP, p. 80.
13 Ekkehard of Aura, ‘Hierosolimita’, FE, p. 330.
194 Aftermath

I will give them one heart, and put a new spirit within them; I will remove the
heart of stone from their flesh and give them a heart of flesh, so that they may
follow my statutes and keep my ordinances and obey them. Then they shall be
my people, and I will be their God. But as for those whose heart goes after their
detestable things and their abominations, I will bring their deeds upon their own
heads, says the Lord God.

This theme was referenced frequently by patristic writers and in a homily

on Luke 3, Pope Gregory I explained how the teaching of Christ had
enabled those Jews and gentiles who followed Him to leave behind their
‘hearts of stone’.14 In another homily on Matthew 2, Gregory focused on
those Jews at the time of Christ, who had both heard the Old Testament
prophecies and knew of Jesus’ miracles, but who had not acknowledged
him as God. He then described them as having hearts that are ‘harder
than stone’ (duriora saxis).15 This is exactly the same formulation of
words as that found in Ekkehard’s Hierosolimita; a point that suggests
that Ekkehard was inspired by this homily.16 Seemingly he transposed
this idea onto the Crusades. Given that this term duriora saxis refers to
those who have heard the truth but refused to listen, Ekkehard’s mes-
sage seems to be that the crusaders’ opponents had failed to recognise
the crusade’s significance as a divinely-led pilgrimage and persisted in
their unbelief. This denial then left the crusaders with no alternative but
to drive them away like boulders from a path. Ekkehard’s message is
substantially more pessimistic than that contained in many of the ear-
lier crusading narratives. In these works, as shown earlier, there was a
widespread hope that the crusade’s opponents would recognise the cru-
sade’s spiritual significance and convert. Still Ekkehard describes no such
expectation. Writing decades after the crusade, he seems to have aban-
doned the dream that a widespread conversion would take place.17
Consequently, the texts under discussion in this chapter are an eclec-
tic group. They are manifestations of an ongoing conversation between
monastic writers concerning the significance and implications of the First
Crusade. They describe a process of theological rationalisation and con-
textualisation by which these authors first sifted and filtered the returning
crusaders’ information (and often quite sophisticated theology) and then
worked it into their existing framework of ecclesiastical and scientific
14 Gregory I, Homiliae in Evangelia, ed. R. Étaix, CCSL CXLI (Turnhout: Brepols, 1999),
p. 160.
15 Gregory I, Homiliae in Evangelia, p. 67.
16 Certainly McCarthy believes he is drawing upon this sermon see: T. McCarthy, Chron-
icles of the Investiture Contest: Frutolf of Michelsberg and his continuators (Manchester:
Manchester University Press, 2014), p. 257 (footnote 307).
17 Baldric of Bourgueil similarly observes that Turks are difficult to convert because their
non-Christian faith has rendered them spiritual blind. BB, p. 8.
 Identifying the Turks 195

knowledge. The major authors to be discussed here will be Guibert of

Nogent, Bartolf of Nangis, Henry of Huntingdon, Ekkehard of Aura,
Ralph of Caen, Robert the Monk, Baldric of Bourgueil, Gilo of Paris
(and the so-called Charleville poet), and William of Malmesbury. Repre-
sentations of the crusade expressed through epic verse will be considered
briefly in the next chapter.

Identifying the Turks

Even before the completion of the crusade, the pilgrims seem to have
become curious about the Turks’ racial origins and, as they returned
home bearing both palm branches and news of strange lands, many
thinkers in the monastic establishment interested themselves in this new
people and their origins. Their response to this problem was to delve
into their archives in the search of clues or references to a race that for
many was evidently entirely unknown. One of the most learned of these
writers was Guibert of Nogent. His account (written in 1107/8 at the
monastery of Saint-Germer de Fly) drew heavily upon the Gesta Fran-
corum, although he also consulted returning pilgrims and other written
accounts. Like many others, he seems previously to have been unfamiliar
with the ‘Turks’ and he too consulted the works of late antiquity that
deal with the origins of different ethnic groups in search of answers. At
the end of his history he named the main texts that he had examined
as: Solinus’ De Mirabilibus mundi, Trogus-Pompeius’ Historiae Philippi-
cae (which survives only in third-century abbreviation by Justin), and
Jordanes’ Getica.18 Having conducted his background reading, Guibert
delivered himself of the verdict that the Turks were originally Parthians.
Admittedly, this may not have been a conclusion he reached indepen-
dently, rather his work suggests that he had discussed their origins and
nomenclature with his monastic peers; still his background reading seems
to have informed his view.19
Judged by contemporary reasoning, this conclusion was well-founded.
He learnt from Pompeius Trogus that the Parthians had been a tribal
group of highly-skilled archers from the east, who had conquered all
the neighbouring civilisations. Pompeius Trogus noted in particular their
use of feigned-flight tactics, slave-soldiers and also their general barbaric
way of life.20 These qualities certainly matched the descriptions Guibert

18 GN, p. 352.
19 Apparently he was advised to use the name ‘Parthians’ as his preferred term for Turks,
but he rejected this counsel, using the word sparing. GN, p. 83.
20 Justin: Epitome of the Philippic history of Pompeius Trogus, trans. J. Yardley (Atlanta, GA:
Scholars Press, 1994), pp. 254–255; Loutchitskaja, ‘Barbarae Nationes’, p. 102.
196 Aftermath

had received from the first crusaders and seem to have given him the
confidence to draw connections between the two. He wrote for example:
‘The kingdom of the Parthians, who we identify by the corrupt name
‘Turks’, excels in military matters and equestrian ability and also in the
virtue of courage’.21
Pompeius Trogus also claimed that the Parthians were descended from
the Scythians. Jordanes tells a similar tale describing how the Parthians
were descended from the Goths, who had themselves lived for a long time
in a Scythian territory. He described how this land lay near the Maeotic
Lake, which was itself next to the territory of the Amazons. According
to Jordanes’ account, a long time ago, the Goths advanced into Asia
following a victorious war fought against the Egyptians. The Goths then
gave the rule of their newly conquered land to the king of the Medes.
The name ‘Parthians’ was apparently given to those Goths who chose to
remain in this conquered Asian territory with the Medes. In the Scythian
tongue the name ‘Parthians’ was said to make reference to the fact that
they had deserted the land of their birth.22 Again Jordanes’ account may
have confirmed Guibert in his view that the Turks were Parthians because
the Gesta Francorum identified Amazonian territory on the borders of
Turkish land. More suggestively, in one of his lesser works on the reign of
Baldwin I, Guibert described the Turks as ‘Parthians and Medes’.23 The
fact that he grouped the two together in this way suggests an awareness
of the tradition, alluded to earlier, which stressed the links between these
peoples.
The notion that the Turks were latter-day Parthians is widely refer-
enced in many later narratives including those by Robert the Monk24
and Bartolf of Nangis.25 Henry of Huntingdon, like Guibert, also made
this connection explicitly speaking of ‘Parthians, who now are called
Turks’.26 The so-called Charleville Poet even elaborated on this associ-
ation naming the Turks as ‘Arsacids’ (descendants of Arsaces, the first
ruler of Parthia).27 In Robert the Monk’s chronicle this association only
appears once, in a description of the Karbugha’s siege of crusade-held
Antioch.28 Here it is used to refer to the Turks without explanation

21 GN, p. 100.
22 Jordanes, ‘Getica’, MGH: Auctorum Antiquissimorum, ed. T. Mommsen, vol. 5.1 (Berlin,
1882), pp. 65–67.
23 Guibert of Nogent, ‘Petite Chronique du Règne de Baudouin Ier’, GN, p. 363.
24 For discussion see: D. Kempf and M. Bull, ‘Introduction’, The Historia Iherosolimitana
of Robert the Monk (Woodbridge: Boydell, 2013), pp. xvii–xl.
25 Bartolf of Nangis, ‘Gesta Francorum Expugnantium Iherusalem’, pp. 495, 504.
26 Henry of Huntingdon, Historia Anglorum, p. 426 (see also, 428). For a similar statement
see GP, p. 82.
27 GP, p. 138. 28 RM, p. 84.
 Identifying the Turks 197

or context. Seemingly Robert was sufficiently confident that his reader

would follow the logic of his terminology without further explanation.
More suggestive are his references to ‘Medes’ among the ranks of his
Turkish enemies. Medes are said, both by him and others, to have been
among the warriors who opposed the crusaders at Dorylaeum, during
the so-called Foraging Battle, and finally in their struggle against Kar-
bugha’s army.29 This identification of ‘Medes’ among his foes implies
that he too was applying the same reasoning as Guibert (founded ulti-
mately on Jordanes) which drew a link between the two. Gilo of Paris
likewise described the Turks as ‘Parthians’, although unlike Robert he
explained the relationship between these two groups writing: ‘for those
who are now called Turks are the Parthians of old, and trusting in their
arrows while fleeing away is their custom’.30 In this description he drew
upon Virgil’s Georgics, which describes Parthian tactics in this way.31 He
too includes the Medes among the enemy ranks.32
Unlike so many aspects of the crusaders’ attitudes towards the Turks,
the conviction that the Turks were latter-day Parthians seems to have
been reached unilaterally by western Christian authors, without east-
ern Christian assistance. This association does not appear in Byzantine
sources where the general consensus seems to have been that the Turks
were descended from the Huns. As shown earlier, at other times Greek
authors described them as ‘Persians’. Moreover, many of the later writ-
ers to describe the Turks as ‘Parthians’, such as Robert the Monk, were
associated with Guibert (a fellow Benedictine) in some way, suggesting
that this identification was a product of conversations being held among
senior circles of monastic intellectuals. The abbey of Nogent, for exam-
ple, had close links with Robert’s abbey of St-Remi.33
Consequently, Western authors were evidently attempting to make
sense of the Turks, by fitting them into the established ethnographi-
cal structures formed in late antiquity.34 Their conclusions were clearly
influential and many later writers followed their lead, including – remark-
ably – writers in the crusader states. As we have seen, none of the crusade
narratives, written by participants in the immediate aftermath of the cam-
paign characterised the Turks as either Parthians or Medes, nor did the
Byzantines or the other Christian peoples of the eastern Mediterranean.
29 RM, pp. 27, 37, 58; Bartolf of Nangis, ‘Gesta Francorum Expugnantium Iherusalem’,
p. 504.
30 Translation from GP, p. 82.
31 Virgil, Georgics, trans. P. Fallon (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006), p. 50.
32 GP, p. 7. Orderic Vitalis also described the Medes among the crusaders’ enemies’ ranks.
See: OV, vol. 6, pp. 120–122.
33 Kempf and Bull, ‘Introduction’, p. xli.
34 Loutchitskaja, ‘Barbarae Nationes’, pp. 102–103.
198 Aftermath

Nevertheless, the Antioch-based author Walter the Chancellor (writing

about the Antiochene wars of the 1110s) used this terminology frequently
and, more importantly, so too did Fulcher of Chartres in the later parts
of his history.35 Fulcher’s account is of especial interest because his work
was written in phases. The first books, written directly after the First
Crusade, did not describe the Turks as Parthians, but his later books
dealing with the history of the Latin East (written between 1110 and
1127) occasionally refer to them in this way and also include references
to ‘Medes’ within the Turkish ranks.36 This can be seen in his account
of King Baldwin II’s attempt to relieve the besieged fortress of Zardana
in 1122. Describing the subsequent skirmish he provided an account of
Turkish tactics, naming them as a ‘Parthian race’ (gens Parthica).37 The
sudden injection of this terminology suggests that he learnt to describe
the Turks and their allies in this way in the years following the crusade,
presumably from a western source.38 Certainly the identification of the
Turks as Parthians allied to Medes has strong resonances with the earlier-
mentioned works produced by Guibert and Robert. The possibility has to
be entertained therefore that both Fulcher and Walter were relying upon
the findings of western European intellectuals to help them to identify
their Turkish neighbours. This is not implausible and some lines of trans-
mission can be suggested. To take one example, Ralph of Caen, author
of the Gesta Tancredi, travelled to the Latin East with Bohemond on his
Greek campaign in 1107 and he later took service with Tancred. It is
quite possible that whilst at Antioch he reported the growing consensus
that the Turks were derived from Parthian stock; certainly he references
this connection in his own chronicle.39 Presumably he would have known
Walter the Chancellor in person; they were in the same place at the same
time. Kempf and Bull have also raised the possibility that Robert the
Monk might have made a pilgrimage to the east.40 Thus it seems that
some individuals, who were well versed in the debates circulating in west-
ern Europe concerning the Turks’ origins, subsequently visited the Latin
East, informing the local churchmen and writers of their research-based
deductions. If this interpretation is correct then it reflects an astonishing
willingness among those, who lived only miles from the Turkish frontier,

35 Walter the Chancellor, Bella Antiochena, p. 62 and passim.

36 For references to Parthians and/or Medes see: FC, pp. 468, 631, 649–650, 653.
37 FC, pp. 649–650.
38 Other historians have similarly noted that elements of Fulcher’s terminology change in
the second part of his chronicle, see: Kostick, Social structure, p. 218.
39 RC, pp. 75, 79; B. Bachrach and D. Bachrach, ‘Introduction’, The Gesta Tancredi of
Ralph of Caen: A history of the Normans on the First Crusade, Crusade texts in translation
XII (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2010), pp. 2–3.
40 Kempf and Bull, ‘introduction’, p. xviii.
 Identifying the Turks 199

to rely upon the authority of thinkers living thousands of miles away, who
had never encountered the Turks personally.41
The belief that the Turks were descended from the Parthians is refer-
enced in the majority of western Christian sources produced following
the crusade, but there was a different, if less popular, explanation in cir-
culation. As shown earlier, the Byzantines did not describe the Turks as
‘Parthians’. They thought them to be descended from the Hephthalite
Huns; a people who had ruled much of Central Asia and Northern India
during the fifth–sixth centuries AD.42 The Byzantines believed that the
Huns themselves could be divided into two parts; a western group com-
prising peoples such as the Avars and Hungarians and an eastern group
including the Khazars and eventually the Saljuq Turks. Many Byzan-
tine chroniclers, both before and after the first millennium, pause in
their narratives to explain that the Huns are more typically known as
Turks.43
The Byzantines were quite correct in their identification of strong
bonds, whether cultural and/or ethnic, between the Saljuqs and the
nomadic groups pressing on their Danube border. They had, after all,
long experience in their dealings with these peoples. Even so, the cru-
saders, for the most part, seem only vaguely aware of any link uniting
the tribes of the western Black Sea region to the Saljuqs. No participant
narrative identifies a common ancestry between the two and none of
them describes the Turks as ‘Huns’. The tribes they encountered on their
journey to Constantinople are named as Pechenegs, Cumans, or Bulgars,
with no reference made to any relationship with the Saljuqs.44 Having
said this, there are a few implicit clues that these authors did come to see
some kind of affinity between these peoples. Albert of Aachen noted that
both the Saljuqs Turks and the Pechenegs used bows of ‘horn and bone’,
while Fulcher’s description of the Saljuqs as ‘Eastern Turks’ may imply
that he was taking the Byzantine approach of dividing the Turks/Huns
into western and eastern halves.45 A slightly more promising reference
however occurs in Peter Tudebode’s Historia. In his account of Raymond
of Toulouse’s difficult journey through Slavonia he shows how the count
was persistently waylaid by the ambushes of ‘Turks, Pechenegs, Cumans,

41 For discussion on a similar theme see: Lapina, Warfare and the miraculous, p. 36.
42 MA, p. 77. Certainly these two peoples did have some common history and consequently
were frequently conflated in eastern Christian source. For example in 559–560 the Turks
conquered the Hephthalite Huns. See: Dickens, ‘Turkāyē: turkic Peoples’, pp. 15, 63;
Beihammer, ‘Die Ethnogenese’, 597.
43 See for example, The chronicle of Theophanes Confessor, p. 362; The history of Theophylact
of Simocatta, trans. M. and M. Whitby (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1986), p. 30.
44 See for example, GF, p. 6; AA, pp. 18–20; 45 FC, p. 180; AA, p. 20.
200 Aftermath

Slavs, Uzes and Athenasi’.46 In this reference to ‘Turks’ he clearly did

not mean the imperial turcopoles, who are described separately and his
placement of Turks in this list of peoples, who in all other cases lived in
the Black Sea region, may indicate an awareness of a connection between
the two. Still it is equally possible that he was simply listing groups of
Byzantine auxiliaries. Consequently, there is little here to suggest that
the participants saw any relationship between the Turks and the peoples
they encountered in the Balkans.
Most of the later chroniclers of the crusade similarly draw no com-
parison between the Turks and Huns but there are a few exceptions. In
its account of the First Crusade, the Chronicle of Montecassino described
Qilij Arslan, sultan of Rum, as ‘king of Huns, who now we call Turks’.47
This work mirrors the Byzantine practice both of describing the Turks
as Huns and also explaining that the name Turks is the more up-to-date
term. In his case at least he seems to have been guided in his presenta-
tion of the Turks by long-standing Byzantine practices. To take another
instance, Frutolf of Michelsberg does not link the Turks explicitly to the
Huns, but he does seem to have believed that there was some association
with the Turks and their kin living north of the Danube. In his entry
for the year 766 he mentioned briefly a war fought between the Turks
who emerged ‘a Caspiis portis’ and the Avars.48 This very brief reference
suggests an awareness on his part that the Turks’ operations were not
confined to the Near East alone. Again, this reference reveals a depen-
dency on Byzantine authorities. As Meserve has demonstrated, Frutolf
was drawing upon the work of Landulphus Sagax, who was in turn draw-
ing upon Anastasius’ translation of Theophanes’ Chronographia.49

Identifying the Turks’ Allies

A distinctive feature of the later First Crusade accounts is their lengthy
lists of Turkish allies. As shown earlier, the Gesta Francorum identified
contingents of Azymites (Armenians), Agulani (Ghulam slave-soldiers),
Publicans (Paulicians) in the Turkish armies encountered by the pil-
grims along with the more recognisable Persians and Arabs. Nevertheless,

46 PT, p. 44. For discussion on the term ‘Athenasi’ see: PT, p. 44 (footnote 32); Loutchit-
skaja, ‘Barbarae Nationes’, p. 104.
47 ‘Chronica Monasterii Casinensis’, MGHS, ed. H. Hoffmann, vol. 34 (Hanover, 1980),
p. 478.
48 Frutolf of Michelsberg, ‘Chronicon’, p. 160.
49 Although as Meserve points out that some elements of Theophanes’ original text were
blurred or altered in the retelling. Meserve, ‘Medieval sources for Renaissance theories’,
pp. 430–431. See also Sigebert of Gembloux, ‘Chronica’, MGHS, ed. G. Pertz, vol. 6
(Hanover, 1844), p. 302; Meserve, Empires of Islam, p. 79.
 Identifying the Turks’ Allies 201

later authors list many more peoples among their enemies’ ranks. These
include Medes and Parthians, but some writers also mention Elamites.50
The Elamites themselves were an ancient people who lived in the south-
west of what would later be called Iran, with their main city at Fars. The
origins of their civilisation lie in the fourth millennium bc. They were
later displaced by the Assyrians, who waged a series of decisive campaigns
against them in the seventh century bc.51 Naturally little of this would
have been known to the crusaders. Their main source of information
would have been the Bible. In the Old Testament the Elamites appear
occasionally, for example in Jeremiah 49:35: ‘Thus says the Lord of hosts:
I am going to break the bow of Elam, the mainstay of their might’, and Isa-
iah 22: 6 ‘Elam bore the quiver with chariots and cavalry’. The Elamites’
association with archery may have recommended them to the chroniclers
as a people connected to the Turks, but a more convincing link can be
found in the book of Genesis. This lists Elam among the sons of Shem
(son of Noah).52 According to Isidore of Seville, Elam’s descendants were
the Elamites, and he was known as the ‘prince of the Persians’.53 In this
way he may have been deemed to have been an ancestor of the Turks, who
as shown earlier were often described as ‘Persians’. Another possible link
can be found in Acts 2:9 in its description of the day of Pentecost. In this
account the author expresses his wonderment at the ability of the many
peoples there-present to understand one another’s languages through the
intervention of the Holy Spirit. Listing the peoples who were present he
names side by side ‘Parthians, Medes and Elamites’ (Acts 2:9). Again
this association may have reinforced the perceived links between these
groups as ‘eastern’ peoples. Thus it could be concluded that, as with the
association with the Parthians, these western European authors allied the
Turks to the Elamites based on their scriptural knowledge.
There is another explanation. Turks and Muslims are occasionally
described as Elamites in the Armenian tradition. Matthew of Edessa
presented the Turks in this way and it is possible that the early twelfth-
century Sermo de Antichristo made this same association.54 We learn little

50 GP, p. 6; RC, p. 107; Bartolf of Nangis, ‘Gesta Francorum Expugnantium Iherusalem’,

pp. 495, 504.
51 M. Waters, Ancient Persia: a concise history of the Achaemenid empire, 550–330 BC (Cam-
bridge: Cambridge University Press, 2014), pp. 21–25.
52 Genesis, 10:22. 53 Translation from Isidore of Seville, The etymologies, p. 192.
54 Pseudo Epiphanii Sermo de Antichristo, ed. G. Frasson, Bibliotheca Armenica: Textus et
Studia II (Venice, 1976), p. 17; Z. Pogossian, ‘The last emperor or the last Armenian
king? Some considerations on Armenian apocalyptic literature from the Cilician period’,
The Armenian apocalyptic tradition: a comparative perspective: essays presented in honor of
Professor Robert W. Thomson on the occasion of his eightieth birthday, ed. K. Bardakjian and
S. La Porta (Leiden: Brill, 2014), p. 483.
202 Aftermath

from these references about their rationale for establishing such a con-
nection but the notion must be entertained that, as with so many of
their ideas concerning their Turkish enemies, these authors were guided,
in these cases probably at second hand, by their contacts with eastern
Christians.55
Other groups whose cohorts reportedly marched within the Turk-
ish hordes against the first crusaders include: Indians,56 Chaldeans,57
Assyrians,58 Philistines,59 Libyans,60 Phoenicians,61 Cilicians,62 and
Caspiadeans.63 Some of these names require only a brief explanation.
The inclusion of Philistines surely references the crusaders’ widely-held
conviction that they were imitating or even recreating the Old Testa-
ment wars. Indians, Assyrians, Phoenicians, and Libyans are likely to
have been included for no other reason than they were peoples who were
thought to have originated in the Near East, East and/or North Africa.
Indeed, it seems that in some cases the author’s purpose in supplying
such voluminous lists of enemy peoples was more to give the impression
of a vast agglomeration of foes confronting the crusader host than to
make a specific theological or ethnological point through each of their
constituent names. The Charleville poet, for example, claims that the
crusaders were opposed by a thousand different races of people, who
dwelt in the Euphrates, Nile, and Tigris river basins.64 Describing the
battle of Antioch, Ralph of Caen gives the names of ten races arrayed
against the pilgrims, but goes on to say that he has supplied a mere sam-
ple of the total.65 Likewise in his version of the battle of Dorylaeum,
Robert the Monk, drawing upon Psalm 105, presents the enemy host
as locusts, who ‘covered the surface of the land’.66 By the time that the
Chanson d’Antioche came to be written down, the Turks were said to have

55 ME, p. 83. 56 RC, pp. 75, 79. 57 See discussion later in this chapter.
58 RC, pp. 75, 124; GN, p. 300. Baldric later compared the Turks to the Jebusites. He pre-
sumably selected this particular Old Testament people because the Jebusites controlled
Jerusalem at the time when the Israelites reached the Promised Land (BB, p. 9).
59 GP, p. 6. Note also that Orderic Vitalis referred to the Turks/‘Saracens’ as Allophilos
(see, for example: OV, vol. 4, p. 166). There has been some discussion on what precisely
this word means. Throop is of the opinion that it can be translated as ‘lovers of dirt’
(Throop, Crusading as an act of vengeance, p. 50). Nevertheless, Forester who translated
Orderic’s work back in the mid-nineteenth century advanced the case that it is biblical in
origin and intimates that a individual/group is ‘of another race’. He also points out that
Sulpitius Severus used the similar term ‘Allophyli’ to describe Philistines and Syrians:
T. Forester, The ecclesiastical history of England and Normandy by Ordericus Vitalis, vol. 3
(London, 1854), p. 178.
60 RC, p. 75.
61 RC, p. 75. Note that Liudprand of Cremona refers to Muslims as ‘Phoencians’ in his
chronicle: Liudprand of Cremona, ‘Antapodosis’, pp. 55, 98.
62 Henry of Huntingdon, Historia Anglorum, p. 426. 63 GP, p. 6.
64 GP, p. 6. 65 RC, pp. 75–76. 66 RM, p. 27.
 ‘Chaldeans’ and Descriptions of the ‘Saracen’ Religion 203

confronted the crusaders assisted by Slavic auxiliaries. This inclusion is

probably sheer fantasy, although the possibility remains that it reflects
the sustained employment of Slavic warriors by various Muslim rulers in
the eastern Mediterranean.67 In any event, these listed names have the
effect of depicting an overwhelmingly powerful enemy, whose eventual
defeat naturally makes the crusaders’ own victory more spectacular.
Having said this, whilst some of the names seem to have been included
primarily to ‘bulk-out’ the enemy host, a few of the peoples included
in these lists warrant further attention, in particular the ‘Caspiadeans’
and ‘Chaldeans’. The Caspiadae do not make a regular appearance in
the sources for either the Middle Ages (i.e. a keyword search on the
MGH database will return no references) or the Classical period and
this alone makes them unusual. Only one crusading chronicler mentions
them in his list of Turkish allies and this is the so-called Charleville poet.68
His most obvious source was Valerius Flaccus’ work Argonautica, which
retells the story of Jason and the Argonauts. The Caspiadae appear in the
ranks of Perses, usurper to the throne of Colchis (a kingdom situated
on the east coast of the Black Sea).69 Nothing more is said about them
in this text, but they are surrounded by Scythian peoples which alone
is significant. Seemingly the Charleville poet was stressing the Turks’
supposed Scythian connections.

‘Chaldeans’ and Descriptions of the ‘Saracen’ Religion

Fulcher of Chartres and Robert the Monk also number Chaldeans within
the ranks of their Turkish enemies and these references too deserve closer
scrutiny.70 The Chaldeans were an ancient Babylonian people, famed for
their magical arts, who settled on the northern shores of the Persian
Gulf at the beginning of the first millennium bc. Following the fall of the
Assyrian Empire in the seventh century bc, the Chaldeans and Medes
established the Neo-Babylonian Empire which reached the height of

67 ‘La Chanson d’Antioche’, p. 65 and passim; J. Moran-Cruz, ‘Popular attitudes towards

Islam in medieval Europe’, Western views of Islam in medieval and early modern Europe,
ed. D. Blanks and M. Frassetto (Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1999), p. 57. See also D.
Pipes, Slave soldiers and Islam: the genesis of a military system (New Haven, CT: Yale
University Press, 1981), pp. 47, 183.
68 GP, p. 6.
69 Valerius Flaccus, Argonautica, ed. and trans. J. Mozley, Loeb classical library
CCLXXXVI (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1963), p. 308.
70 Fulcher of Chartres identifies them in his account of the early history of the Latin East:
FC, p. 468. Robert the Monk includes a group called the Candei in his list of enemies
present at Dorylaeum. Sweetenham has noted that in some manuscripts this name is
given as ‘Chaldeans’, see RM, p. 27; Sweetenham, Robert the Monk’s history of the First
Crusade: Historia Iherosolimitana, p. 111.
204 Aftermath

its power under the command of the famous Nebuchadnezzar (604–

561BC).
The most likely explanation for references to this people among the
Turkish armies in the crusade sources lies in their contemporary asso-
ciations, both with the magical arts and with Islam.71 Certainly the
Chaldeans’ knowledge of magic and astrology was widely acknowledged
and Isidore of Seville observed that whilst the Egyptians were the first to
learn astronomy, the Chaldeans had been the first to teach astrology.72
This link also has a biblical basis. One particularly important reference
can be found in the book of Daniel, where the young Jewish captive Daniel
succeeded in interpreting King Nebuchadnezzar’s prophetic dream fol-
lowing the failure of his magicians and ‘Chaldeans’ to render any sat-
isfactory explanation (Daniel 2, 1–45). Again they appear here in the
company of sorcerers.
The connection drawn between Chaldeans and Muslims similarly pre-
dates the crusade and has its roots in early-medieval Iberia. Many writers
in the ninth century used Chaldean as a synonym for Muslim, includ-
ing Eulogius of Cordoba and Paul Alvarus.73 Tieszen’s explains this
link by suggesting that the Iberian Christians may have drawn paral-
lels between their own plight under Islam and that of the Israelites and
King Nebuchadnezzar.74 The Chaldean association with magic may also
have resonated with these authors who frequently linked the ‘Saracens’
with sorcery, divination, and the occult. As shown earlier, magic and
the occult practices were widely attributed to the ‘Saracens’. Karbugha’s
mother, for example, is ubiquitously represented as a practitioner of
astrology, who consulted omens and the signs of the Zodiac.75 Robert
the Monk likewise depicted her immersed in ancient prophesies and
all kinds of pagan superstitions.76 Other allegations of occult practices
are made by Raymond of Aguilers who described two women hurling
down curses upon one of the crusaders’ catapults during the siege of
Jerusalem.77 He later identified astrologers (constellatores) and soothsay-
ers (augures) among Fatimid army.78 Albert of Aachen notes the discov-
ery of occult texts in Karbugha’s camp following the crusaders’ victory
at Antioch.79 Describing later events, Orderic Vitalis’ chronicle included

71 It is not impossible that these were references to Nestorian Christians (often described
as ‘Chaldeans’) but this is not likely given that they do not seem to have been a major
presence in the Levantine region and that they are not generally described as hostile by
later authors.
72 Isidore of Seville, The etymologies, p. 99.
73 Tolan, Saracens, pp. 88, 94, 99–100; C. Tieszen, Christian identity amid Islam in medieval
Spain, Studies on the Children of Abraham III (Leiden: Brill, 2013), pp. 81, 127.
74 Tieszen, Christian identity, p. 127. 75 GF, p. 55. 76 RM, p. 63.
77 RA, p. 149. 78 RA, p. 158. 79 AA, p. 336.
 ‘Chaldeans’ and Descriptions of the ‘Saracen’ Religion 205

the tale of a Turkish sorceress using astrology to foretell the death of

Geoffrey, lord of Marash, and her own brother Balak of Sororgia.80
Reflecting upon these examples it is likely that the listing of Chaldeans
within Turkish armies reflects a widely-held belief among western Chris-
tians that the ‘Saracens’ were latter-day Chaldeans with a penchant for
magic.
They may also have been encouraged to associate Muslims with magic
by the Byzantines. Greek authors frequently make observations of this
kind. Leo the Deacon, for example, retelling the Byzantine siege of Can-
dia (Crete) in 961, speaks of a prostitute among the Muslim defenders,
behaving shamelessly, casting spells, and making incantations. He points
out that the Cretens often practiced ‘divination’ and ‘wrongful beliefs’
which they learned from the ‘Manicheans and from Muhammed’.81 The
Byzantines were not alone among the eastern Christians to hold such
views. The Armenians also report such practices. Matthew of Edessa’s
chronicle includes an account of the transportation of Armenian captives
to Persia following a Turkish attack in the 1060s. He explained that having
arrived in Persia, the Muslim women of that land asked the Armenian
captives why they had not responded to various signs foretelling their
defeat and capture. They pointed out that during the previous evening
a cock had crowed and sheep had ‘squatted to defecate’; tell-tale signs
apparently of impending assault.82
In a similar vein, the broad association of eastern religions with the
astrology had a long pedigree in western Christendom. In both classical
and patristic texts the east is often represented as a hotbed of astrol-
ogy and sorcery and it maintained this reputation well into the medieval
period.83 The New Testament itself helped to embed this view with the
gospel of Matthew’s account of the Magi from the east, who followed the
star to bring gifts to the baby Jesus. These Magi were long thought to have
been astrologers who had used their arts to locate Christ; a point which
provoked much debate among the patristic writers. The fact that these
travellers had successfully followed a star to locate Christ drew a great
deal of interest. Most intellectuals were generally at pains to emphasise

80 OV, vol. 6, p. 124. See also Walter the Chancellor, Bella Antiochena, pp. 66–67.
81 Translation from The history of Leo the Deacon, pp. 76–77. Ducellier, Chretiens d’Orient,
p. 64. See also Brand, ‘The Turkish element’, 7.
82 Translation from ME, p. 99. See also MS, vol. 3, p. 183. Several other Latin East-
ern/crusading narratives describe female Islamic mystics, see: N. Hodgson, Women,
crusading and the Holy Land in historical narrative (Woodbridge: Boydell, 2007), p. 193.
It might be worth pointing out that the pre-Islamic Turks also studied astrology. See:
Peacock, Early Seljūq History, p. 125.
83 C. Saunders, Magic and the supernatural in medieval English romance (Cambridge: D.S.
Brewer, 2010), pp. 14–50.
206 Aftermath

that the guidance provided by Magi’s star did not constitute proof of the
efficacy of astrology. St Peter Chrysologus (First metropolitan bishop of
Ravenna, d. 454) tackled this topic in his sermons. He presented the
Magi as spiritual travellers, passing from the darkness of their former
astrological superstitions to the light of Christ. He wrote ‘Christ trans-
formed standard-bearers of the Devil, that is, the Magi, into his own most
loyal generals’.84 He showed how Herod (representing the Devil’s will)
attempted to manipulate them, but to no avail. He explains the star’s role
in guiding the Magi, with reference to God’s omnipotent control over
all creation (including the star). He reminds his audience that the stars
do not establish a fatalistic structure for mens’ lives (in the astrological
sense); they are not co-equal with God in ruling mankind, but rather are
instruments of God’s will to be deployed according to His will.85 Ignatius
of Antioch similarly argued that the presence of the star did not serve to
endorse astrology, but marked the end of this practice through the com-
ing of Christ.86 Pope Gregory I observed likewise that the star was God’s
chosen beacon to the gentiles revealing the coming of Christ.87 Thus the
thrust of patristic wisdom was to confirm that the east did dabble with
astrology, but that these practices were evil and dangerous and had been
conspicuously negated by the birth of Jesus.
Eastern astrology would continue to fascinate western Christendom’s
theologians and intellectuals for centuries and the Islamic world played a
pivotal role in stoking this attraction. By the time of the crusade, astrol-
ogy was viewed by most as a science – one of the liberal arts – rather than
a magical practice, although its pursuit remained hedged in theological
anxiety.88 The Islamic world helped to stimulate this interest through
the provision of its own astrological texts, which were themselves adap-
tations of earlier Persian, Indian, and Greek works.89 The Islamic poli-
ties of Iberia seem to have been western Europe’s main source of such
manuscripts – a point which may help to explain why Iberian Christian
intellectuals came to refer to their Muslim neighbours as Chaldeans.
William of Malmesbury referenced this association of Iberian Islam with
astrology when he told a scurrilous tale of a renegade monk (who would
later rise to claim the papacy) sneaking away from his monastery to learn

84 Translation from St. Peter Chrysologus: selected sermons volume 3, trans. W. Palardy (Wash-
ington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, 2005), p. 254.
85 St. Peter Chrysologus: selected sermons, pp. 254, 275–276, 268–269.
86 Saunders, Magic and the supernatural, p. 47.
87 Gregory I, Homiliae in Evangelia, pp. 66–67.
88 Gilbert, bishop of Lisieux, is said to have made astrological predictions about the future
course of the First Crusade (see: OV, vol. 5, p. 8).
89 R. Kieckhefer, Magic in the Middle Ages (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
1989), pp. 116–119.
 ‘Chaldeans’ and Descriptions of the ‘Saracen’ Religion 207

astrology from the Muslims of Seville who – so he claims – customarily

conduct such occult practices.90 Many of the crusade authors them-
selves seem to have been thoroughly familiar with astrology and Fulcher
of Chartres’ chronicle frequently (and at times Ralph of Caen’s Gesta)
includes astrological terminology.91 Thus is seems likely whilst Christen-
dom’s authors knew little enough about Islam or the lands of the east,
they probably did approach these parts holding the conviction that its
inhabitants conducted astrological practices.
One significant element in the crusaders’ descriptions of Islamic astrol-
ogy is that it is often depicted as accurate. Karbugha’s mother is ubiq-
uitously portrayed correctly predicting her son’s downfall. Curiously, in
some versions she is shown attempting to dissuade her son from march-
ing on the crusaders, using arguments supported both by scripture and
conclusions drawn from pagan auguries.92 Guibert of Nogent took a par-
ticular interest in this subject. He discussed the episode with Karbugha’s
mother, but he also explained that before the crusade an old ‘Saracen’
man made the astrological prediction for Count Robert of Flanders (then
on pilgrimage) that the Christians would shortly be victorious in that
region. Guibert then offered a brief defence of such astrological practices.
His argument was rooted in the earlier employment of such practices by
famous figures in the Christian tradition, such as the Emperor Heraclius
and the Three Magi. In this case he outlined a very different stance on
this topic to the earlier-mentioned patristic sources, and he seems to have
felt that such superstitions were compatible with the Christian faith.93
His tone in this passage, however, is defensive (answering his critics);
thus it seems that he knew he was not simply name-checking a normative
truth, but championing views that would have furrowed the brows of his
intended readership.94
From these points it seems that the inclusion of Chaldeans reflects
a widely held conviction among these authors – both participants and
later commentators – that the crusade had entered a very different spiri-
tual topography when it crossed into ‘Saracen’ territory, in which it was
believed that there was a widespread fascination with astrology and the
occult.

90 WM, vol. 1, p. 280. 91 RC, pp. 54, 73. 92 RM, p. 63.

93 GN, pp. 319–321. Incidentally other Christian sources depict Muslims correctly fore-
telling future events. In the epic poem Gormont and Isembart, the renegade Christian
knight Isembart whilst on the point of death explained how Moorish fortune-tellers had
correctly foreseen his death. Gormont et Isembart: Fragment de Chanson de Geste du XIIe
Siècle, ed. A. Bayot (Paris: Librairie Ancienne Honore Champion, 1914), p. 59.
94 Another Magi-related story is told by Michael the Syrian in which a dog led the Turks
during their incursions into the Near East. He later compared the dog to the star which
guided the Magi. Dickens, ‘The sons of Magog’, 441–442; MS, vol. 3, pp. 153–155.
208 Aftermath

At this point it is necessary to offer one point of caution. This is

that it should not be assumed from the foregoing that peoples such as
Chaldeans and Medes were included in these lists of foes simply for
narrative purposes or to make a theological point. It is quite possible that
these authors sincerely believed that they were quite literarily describing
‘living’ peoples. Strikingly, well over a century later in 1260, in a decidedly
no-nonsense letter, the Templar Master, Thomas Bérard (master, 1256–
1273), wrote to the west underlining the threat posed by the Mongols. His
correspondence had few literary pretentions; this was a military report
dealing in tactical specifics and containing a dire warning. Even so, he
still listed Persians, Medes, Assyrians, and Chaldeans among the peoples
recently conquered by the Mongols.95 Clearly, he at least thought that
there were really peoples to the east who bore these names. Thus, if the
head of an institution, which could draw upon well over a century of
experience in dealing in eastern affairs, could seriously believe that there
were such peoples out there then the possibility must be entertained that
the First Crusade authors thought so too.
In addition to their presentation as practitioners of the occult, Mus-
lims were also often depicted as adherents of the pantheistic religions
of Ancient Greece and Rome. This trend surfaces occasionally in the
participant narratives but also in the later texts.96 The Gesta Francorum,
for example, includes an accusation made by Karbugha to his mother
that she has been influenced by the ‘furies’.97 Likewise, the Gesta Tan-
credi alluded to Pluto, Mars, and Apollo in its representations of the
religious practices and afterlife of ‘Saracens’ and Turks.98 In his descrip-
tion of the ‘idol’ of Mohammed in the Templum Domini Ralph of Caen
also asked rhetorically whether it was a statue to Mars or Apollo before
stating that it was a portrayal of Mohammed. Mohammed himself is
described immediately afterwards as a ‘slave of Pluto’.99 The chroniclers
are not uniform in their employment of such terminology and Ralph
of Caen is exceptional in his enthusiasm for linking Islam with classical
religions, still it is necessary to weigh the seriousness with which these
authors advanced these ideas. On one hand it could be concluded that
they are simply rhetorical flourishes intended to show off the authors’
classically-educated credentials; on the other, these authors may actu-
ally have believed that the ‘Saracen’ religion was rooted in classical
paganism.

95 ‘Annales Monasterii de Burton’, Annales Monastici, ed. H. Luard, Rolls Series XXXVI,
vol. 1 (London, 1864), p. 492.
96 For further discussion on this theme see: Völkl, Muslime – Märtyrer – Militia Christi,
pp. 189–214.
97 GF, p. 53. 98 RC, pp. 79, 107. 99 RC, p. 107.
 ‘Chaldeans’ and Descriptions of the ‘Saracen’ Religion 209

The answer seems to lie at an indeterminate point between these two

poles. Certainly there is nothing too implausible about the idea that these
medieval authors drew such connections whilst believing that they were
stating an empirical fact. As we have seen there was a long-standing con-
viction among western European writers that Islam was a polytheistic
religion and this belief may have led some conclude that it was an out-
growth of classical pantheistic faiths. Many earlier pre-crusade authors
had also described Muslims and Turks as worshipping classical Gods.
The pre-Islamic Turks, for example, were presented in the cosmography of
Aethicus Ister as worshipping Saturn.100 Even back in the fourth century,
Jerome portrayed the pre-Islamic ‘Saracens’ as worshippers of Venus and
Lucifer (referred to in the sense of Lucifer as the ‘morning star’, not the
Devil).101 Moreover, in the chansons, Muslims are frequently portrayed
as worshipping a group of ‘gods’ including Mohammed, Apollo, and the
mysterious Tervagant. The accounts of the First crusade were influenced
by vernacular epic verse and the Chanson d’Antioche actually describes
Muslims worshipping this same trio of ‘deities’.102 The crusaders them-
selves may also have been encouraged in forging such connections by the
Byzantines. Certainly Greek authors frequently described Muslims both
as idolaters and worshippers of classical Gods. Anna Comnena depicted
the ‘Ishmaelites’ as slaves of Aphrodite and worshippers of Astarte and
Ashtaroth (classical-era Middle Eastern goddesses).103
Nevertheless, other evidence serves as a caution against the idea that
medieval authors were serious in making these connections. Ralph of
Caen may have elaborated his account of Islam with references to clas-
sical deities, but significantly the author of the Hystoria Antiochiae atque
Ierusolymarum, who drew at times upon his work, stripped out many of
these allusions. In his reworking of Ralph’s description of the ‘statue’ of
Mohammed in Jerusalem, the author makes no reference to any of the
earlier-mentioned classical gods contained in Ralph’s account.104 Seem-
ingly he thought them to be either superfluous or misleading. In addition,
references to classical gods in Ralph’s original account and those of other

100 The cosmography of Aethicus Ister, p. 32.

101 Scarfe Beckett, Anglo-Saxon perceptions, p. 107. In the Eastern tradition it was also said
that the pre-Islamic Arabs had worshipped the morning star and Aphrodite: John of
Damascus, ‘On heresy’, p. 153.
102 ‘Chanson d’Antioche’, p. 171.
103 AC, p. 276. See also Tolan, Saracens, p. 118. The accusation that Muslims worshipped
Aphrodite had been made before by John of Damascus and Nicetas of Byzantium:
Ducellier, Chrétiens d’Orient, pp. 161–162; J. Meyendorff, ‘Byzantine views of Islam’,
Dumbarton Oaks papers 18 (1964), 118–119; John of Damascus, ‘On heresy’, pp. 153,
157.
104 HAI, pp. 123–124; RA, p. 85.
210 Aftermath

chroniclers were not confined to descriptions of Muslims, but could also

be made in descriptions of crusaders. Ralph of Caen presented Eberhard
of Le Puiset as a ‘hero of Mars’, while Raymond of Aguilers tells how,
after his death, Adhemar of Le Puy was briefly assailed by the ‘servants
of Tartarus’ (ministri Tartharei).105 Obviously Ralph is not describing the
Christian-crusader Eberhard to be literally a devotee of Mars, his mean-
ing here is clearly rhetorical, emphasising his martial prowess. Likewise,
Raymond’s reference to Tartarus is simply a synonym for Hell.
Consequently, it is difficult gauge the spirit with which these authors
linked Islam to classical religions: whether humorous, rhetorical or in
earnest. The reality probably lies in some indeterminate point between
these positions. Perhaps the most helpful explanation is that medieval
contemporaries knew very little about Islam (and generally had very
little interest in it); so there was both scope for the imagination to run
wild and no pressure upon them to conform to a precise established
framework. As shown earlier, there was also a widely held view that
almost all non-Christian religions, through their common rejection of
Christ, were united by their common exposure to demonic influence.106
Viewed from this perspective, it may well have been believed that Islam
and classical religions were united by this shared characteristic.
Overall, the portrayals offered by these later authors concerning the
spiritual milieu of the Near East are multi-faceted. They constitute a
merging of classical descriptions of cults from the ancient world with the
more recent reports of pilgrims. This splicing of the classical with the
contemporary was perhaps inevitable. The monastic authors of western
Christendom had many sources at their disposal for the classical period
and some reports from returning crusaders and pilgrims, but little infor-
mation covering the intervening centuries. Thus it is not surprising that
they concertinaed history to create accounts where the Parthians and
Philistines of old could rub shoulders with the Saljuqs and Fatimids of
the eleventh century. In a similar vein, Islam seems to have been recast in
a classical and Old Testament mould as a continuation of the idolatrous
faiths of the ancient world.107 Ralph of Caen even compares it to the
worship of Baal.108
Within this vivid scene, virtually none of these later authors reveal any
actually factual information about Islam itself. Most follow the standard

105 RC, p. 110; RA, p. 85. 106 Köhler, Alliances and treaties, pp. 31–32.
107 See also Tolan, Saracens, pp. 105–134.
108 RC, p. 78. It might be pointed out however that clerical writers often depicted them-
selves protecting the Church against the ‘worshippers of Baal’ when describing their
struggles with many enemies including western European Christians: See, for example:
OV, vol. 5, p. 252.
 ‘Chaldeans’ and Descriptions of the ‘Saracen’ Religion 211

line of presenting it as a polytheistic religion which worships Mohammed

as one of its Gods.109 There are however some exceptions to this pattern,
most notably Guibert of Nogent. He is among the handful of writers to
take an interest in Islam and its origins. His views are polemical in the
extreme and he single-handedly dispels the popular modern notion that
individuals tend to be more favourably disposed towards a different belief
system once they have learnt more about it. The gist of his account of
the rise of Islam is as follows: Guibert explains that following the death
of a patriarch of Alexandria, at some point in the recent past, the various
factions of the Church eventually decided that he would be succeeded
by a hermit living nearby. Still, on closer inspection, it transpired that
the hermit’s theology was severely at variance with orthodox Catholicism
and consequently his election was rejected. The hermit was distressed at
these events and, like Arius, is said to have wanted revenge. This hermit
is then depicted receiving a visitation from the Devil who promised him
power and authority. The Devil told him to look for a certain young
man who he should train and instruct. Guibert states that this youth was
Mohammed (Mathomus). In time, so his story goes, under the hermit’s
guidance, Mohammed began to draw people away from Christianity by
teaching them that God existed only in one person (effectively rejecting
the Holy Trinity) and that Jesus was solely human and not divine. He
is also said to have ordered his followers: to be circumcised, to fast and
then he permitted them to carry out all kinds of immoral and lustful
behaviour. The hermit is also reported to have sought wealth by marry-
ing the young Mohammed to a rich widow. He goes on to discuss some of
Mohammed’s later alleged actions and deeds, arguing that he developed
epilepsy which would often send him into fits. Mohammed is also shown
supplying his people with a written law which he contrived to deliver to
them in a manner that was intended to appear miraculous in their eyes.
He is said to have trained a cow to respond to his voice and then to have
tied this book of law between its horns. Subsequently, when surrounded
by a crowd, the cow (hidden in a tent nearby) is shown to have heard
Mohammed’s voice and to have come into their midst; an act which con-
vinced the crowd that a miraculous act had taken place. Guibert’s story
concludes with a lengthy and mocking reflection on Mohammed’s death;
he reports that Mohammed fell into an epileptic fit and was then eaten by
pigs.110
Even from this brief outline, it is evident that Guibert sought to ridicule
and deride the Islamic faith, but he also wanted to dispel the idea that
Mohammed could genuinely have had any divine experiences. Describing

109 RM, pp. 46, 51, 60, 73, 106, 107; RC, pp. 73, 107. 110 GN, pp. 94–100.
212 Aftermath

Mohammed as a man suffering from epilepsy, who deceived his followers

into thinking that he had been given the Koran by God, clearly marks
his attempt to provide an alternative explanation for these claims. It is
also noteable that deep beneath the layers of polemic and denunciation
lies some genuine knowledge.111 Unlike many of his contemporaries he
was aware that Muslims believe Mohammed to be a prophet, not a God.
Other practices and events such as circumcision and polygamy, and also
Mohammed’s marriage to a wealthy widow are referenced, albeit in highly
hostile and distorted forms.
Exactly where Guibert acquired his material on Mohammed is unclear.
He tells his readers that the written sources at his disposal were silent on
this subject, compelling him to rely upon verbal reports.112 This is not
surprising; by the early twelfth century few authors in western Christen-
dom had written much on the origins of Islam. Even so, it is not impos-
sible to identify the ultimate source of at least some of Guibert’s asser-
tions. Many of his stories bear distinctive eastern Christian hallmarks
raising the possibility that these tales had worked their way across the
Mediterranean into Northern France.113 For example, Guibert’s report
that Mohammed was instructed by a heretic hermit, who was following
in the footsteps of the ancient heresiarch Arius (d.336), references several
themes commonly found in eastern Christian texts. A particularly early
example of this allegation can be found in the eighth-century work of
John of Damascus. This eastern Christian author is the first to suggest
that Mohammed conversed with an Arian monk. In making this claim he
was presumably attempting to explain why Muslims, like Arians, reject
the divinity of Christ.114 The ultimate root of these legends about a monk
encountering Mohammed is the Islamic tradition that a Christian monk
named Bahira was the first to identify Mohammed as a prophet. Nev-
ertheless, Muslim authors have strenuously denied that Bahira provided
any kind of instruction to Mohammed because this would imply that
Mohammed’s message was not solely founded on the received word of
God.115 Thus, this theme of a monk-instructor emerged within the early
Eastern-Christian tradition.116

111 Rubenstein, Armies of Heaven, pp. 123–125. 112 GN, p. 94.

113 Leclercq, Portraits croisés, p. 230.
114 John of Damascus, ‘On heresy’, p. 153. Interestingly Muslim authors were also aware
of the connection between their own theology and Arianism and spoke approvingly of
Arius’ doctrines. B. Roggema, The legend of Sergius Bah.ı̄rā: eastern Christian apologetics
and apocalyptic in response to Islam, History of Christian-Muslim Relations IX (Leiden:
Brill, 2009), pp. 168–169, 172–173. Ademar of Chabannes also made this association,
see: Frassetto, ‘The image of the Saracen’, p. 87.
115 Roggema, The legend of Sergius Bah.ı̄rā, pp. 151–154.
116 Although it should be pointed out that the idea of Islam as an Arian heresy was also
present in Pisan circles. This conviction appears in the Carmen in victoriam Pisanorum
 ‘Chaldeans’ and Descriptions of the ‘Saracen’ Religion 213

Other aspects of Guibert’s work similarly find their echo in earlier

Byzantine or Armenian writings.117 His assertion that Mohammed suf-
fered from epilepsy draws upon a tradition found in the Chronographia of
Theophanes Confessor (d.818) – a work that was translated into Latin
by Anastasius Bibliothecarius in the ninth century.118 Moreover, Guib-
ert’s description of the reassurance offered to Mohammed’s wife by the
hermit after his alleged epileptic fits sounds very similar to the comfort
offered to her by a ‘false monk’ in Theophanes’ work.119 Perhaps the
most bizarre part of Guibert’s account is his description of a trained cow
delivering the Koran to Mohammed. Again, he was not the originator
of this tale, indeed it seems to have been in wider circulation in western
Europe at this time.120 Its basic elements derive ultimately from the east-
ern Christian tradition, for example the Syriac Legend of Sergius Bah.ı̄rā.121
Assertions that the Islamic religion encourages carnality, feature in mul-
tiple traditions and seem to be a response to the Muslim practice of
polygamy and the promises of the afterlife. Exactly where Guibert’s story
about Mohammed being eaten by pigs originated from is unclear, but
again it appears in several other contemporary sources and it may have
derived ultimately from the Iberian tradition where similar stories had
been told in the past. It was certainly to have a long afterlife.122

commemorating the Pisan campaign against Mahdia (1087). See: Campopiano, ‘La
culture pisane’, p. 84. For further discussion and the text see H. Cowdrey, ‘The Mahdia
campaign of 1087’, English Historical Review 92 (1977), 1–29 (reference to Arius p.
27). For further discussion on Byzantine influences on Western attitudes towards the
Islamic religion see: M. d’Alverny, ‘La connaissance de l’Islam en Occident du IXe au
milieu du XIIe siècle’, L’Occidente e l’Islam nell’alto medieoevo, vol. 2 (Spoleto, 1965),
pp. 577–602; Loutchitskaja, ‘L’image des musulmans’, 722.
117 For further discussion see: Loutchitskaja, ‘L’image des musulmans’, 724–727.
118 The chronicle of Theophanes Confessor, p. 464. Several authors adopted this view including
Guibert’s contemporary Sigebert of Gembloux. See: Sigebert of Gembloux, ‘Chron-
ica’, p. 323.
119 Translation from The chronicle of Theophanes Confessor, pp. 464–465. Roggema has
suggested that Theophanes’ ‘false monk’ should not automatically be identified as
Bahira. She also points out that in Anastasius’ translation, this false monk is named as
an adulterer, not a monk (Roggema, The legend of Sergius Bah.ı̄rā, pp. 183, 185).
120 Tolan, Saracens, p. 141.
121 Roggema, The legend of Sergius Bah.ı̄rā, pp. 194, 282–285. Strikingly several features of
Guibert’s account, including Mohammed’s alleged epilepsy and the story about him
being eaten by pigs also appear in the roughly contemporary work of Embrico of Mainz.
A cow is central to his account as well although it plays a rather different role. See:
J. Tolan, ‘Embrico of Mainz’, Christian-Muslim relations: a bibliographical history, volume
3 (1050–1200), ed. D. Thomas and A. Mallett (Leiden: Brill, 2011), pp. 592–594;
J. Tolan, ‘Antihagiography: Embrico of Mainz’s Vita Mahumeti’, Sons of Ishmael:
Muslims through European eyes in the Middle Ages (Gainesville, FL: University Press
of Florida, FL: 2008), pp. 1–18. This story among others was dismissed by the
contemporary author Petrus Alfonsi, see: Petrus Alfonsi, Dialogue against the Jews,
pp. 153–154.
122 Daniel, Islam and the West, pp. 18–19, 126–127; Tolan, Saracens, pp. 142–143; Rogg-
ema, The legend of Sergius Bah.ı̄rā, p. 191; J. Tolan, ‘Un cadavre mutilé: le déchirement
214 Aftermath

Overall, we should probably believe Guibert’s claim to have gathered –

orally – as many ideas and rumours as possible about Mohammed and
then to have compiled them into a single account. His deeply antagonistic
account contains a jigsaw puzzle of different influences and traditions,
but many of these share the common trait of deriving either recently or
historically from eastern Christian sources.
An important aspect of Guibert’s account is that he does not present
the rise of Islam as a unique event. Rather he depicts Mohammed as
simply the last in a line of eastern heresiarchs and the Near East itself as
a long-standing incubator of religious error. He observes that the faith
of ‘Orientals’ (orientales) has always been inconstant and he builds upon
this idea by painting a vivid picture of Eastern spirituality within which
Mohammed and the ‘Saracen’ religion is surrounded by lacklustre and
sinning Christian priests, heretics, and pagans. He shows how genera-
tion after generation of heresy has caused the faith of this region to fall
further and further from the true faith until it reached its contemporary
condition, exemplified by the religion propounded by Mohammed.123
Within this portrayal he was clearly aware that some explanation was
required to account for the formation of this remarkable religious envi-
ronment. His view was that the air in the Near East is purer than in other
climes and that this produces humans with lighter bodies and greater
intelligence. He builds on this predicate by arguing that equipped with
this enhanced intellect, the people of this region long ago became too
theologically curious and began to dabble with unorthodox beliefs; a
process culminating ultimately in the formation of dangerous heresies.
In this way, Guibert’s explanation for Islam and the religions of the east
is founded in contemporary ‘scientific’ convictions – ultimately derived
from the Hippocratic school of thought – concerning the effect of dif-
ferent climates/geographies upon physiology. This thinking was centred
on the belief that the heat and humidity of different regions will affect a
people’s humoural balance (four humours: blood, phlegm, yellow bile,
and black bile) which will in turn affect their behaviour and physical
constitution.124 A similar influence can be found in William of Malmes-
bury’s Gesta where he speculated that the Turks’ reliance on the bow was

polémique de Mahomet’, Le Moyen Âge: Revue d’Histoire et de Philologie 104.1 (1998),

53–72. See also J. Tolan, ‘European accounts of Muh.ammad’s life’, The Cambridge com-
panion to Muhammed, Cambridge Companions to Religion (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 2010), pp. 226–250. Notably in the Chanson de Roland a statue of
Mohammed is said to have been thrown to the ground and then bitten and trampled
by pigs and dogs: SR, p. 119.
123 GN, pp. 89–92.
124 For an introduction to this subject see: N. Arikha, Passions and tempers: a history of the
humours (New York: Ecco, 2007). For further discussion, see also Akbari, Idols in the
east, pp. 155–199.
 New Information and Classical Influences 215

linked to their physiology. He argued that because the Turks were raised
in an eastern climate they were so dehydrated from the sun that there
was very little blood in their veins and that consequently they could not
risk the blood-loss involved in close-combat.125

New Information and Classical Influences

At many points in these narratives, the later chroniclers of the First
Crusade supply ‘new’ information about the Turks which does not appear
in the participant narratives. Ralph of Caen, for example, noted that the
Turks used small crescent-shaped shields in battle – a statement that
is probably accurate.126 Orderic Vitalis described a number of Turks
as drunks – statements that could either be casual defamation but are
quite likely to be based on observed fact (many Muslim and eastern
Christians allude to drunken Turks).127 Gilo of Paris styled the Turks
wearing purple -plumes on their heads – a statement straight out of
the Aeneid which finds no echo in contemporary sources.128 Robert the
Monk and Gilo of Paris both speak of Jana ad-Daulah, ruler of Homs,
sending the first crusaders a selection of gifts including a golden bow – a
statement that is probably true given the centrality of the ‘bow’ in Turkish
symbology.129
Regarding such material it is not often so easy to divide factual obser-
vation (perhaps acquired from a conversation with a returning crusader)
from imaginative embellishment. In some cases, as with the earlier cases,
a reasonably confident identification can be made. To take another exam-
ple, no source written by any participant in the First Crusade corrobo-
rates the widely held belief among later writers that the Turks stocked
their quivers with poisoned arrows; references of this kind only occur in
the works of monastic chroniclers in western Christendom writing some
time later.130 It is hard to believe that had the Turks actually used poi-
soned weapons this detail would have been overlooked when participants
(and writers from other cultures across the Near East), who had seen

125 WM, vol. 1, pp. 600–602. 126 RC, p. 28.

127 OV, vol. 5, pp. 92 (vol. 6), 112. See for example: The history of the Seljuq Turks, p. 32;
Usama ibn Munqidh, The book of contemplation, p. 71; AC, 179. For discussion see:
Peacock, The great Seljuk empire, p. 174.
128 GP, p. 162; Virgil, Aeneid, trans. F. Ahl (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008),
p. 213.
129 RM, p. 91; GP, p. 220; Clauson, ‘Turks and wolves’, 18. There are similar stories
about the Turks giving such gifts. Orderic Vitalis, for example, described the sultan of
Baghdad giving a group of imprisoned Franks their freedom with the gift of a golden
arrow: OV, vol. 6, p. 122. See also Rashid al-Din, ‘The compendium of chronicles’,
Classical writings of the medieval Islamic world: Persian histories of the Mongol dynasties,
volume III, trans. W. Thackston (London: I.B. Tauris, 2012), p. 23.
130 RM, pp. 23, 25, 75; GP, p. 72; WM, vol. 1, p. 602.
216 Aftermath

them in battle, came to write their accounts. Still, it is difficult to be cer-

tain on this point. The tenth-century traveller Ibn Faqih al-Hamadhani,
describing various Turkic communities in Central Asia, mentioned that
one group of Turks employed poisoned arrows, although this seems to
have been exceptional.131 There is, however, another explanation. The
Turks do not generally seem to have used poison but, according to the
Aeneid, the Parthians did. Virgil speaks of Jupiter sending down one of
his two evil handmaidens to visit death and destruction on mankind and
describes them through the following simile:
Much like an arrow, propelled through a cloud by the torque of a
bowstring,
Armed with a savagely virulent poison and fired by a Parthian.132

Needless to say, many First Crusade authors were familiar with Virgil’s
work, citing him in many contexts, and, given that they deemed the Turks
to be latter-day Parthians, the possibility has to be entertained that they
simply assumed that the alleged practices of this ancient people would
still have been implemented by their Turkish ‘descendants’.133

The Turks and the Apocalypse

Shortly after the crusader conquest, a Russian abbot named Daniel made
the arduous journey from his northern homeland to Jerusalem. His expe-
dition took several years, seemingly between 1106 and 1108; during
which time he travelled extensively in the Holy Land, winning favour
with King Baldwin I. Among the many places he visited was the ancient
town of Capernaum on the shores of the Sea of Galilee. Daniel could see
from the ancient remains that it had once been a major settlement but
now it was deserted.134 The abandonment of so prominent a biblical site
clearly sparked his curiosity and, upon enquiry, he learnt that the Franks
did not wish to settle there for a specific reason: they believed that the
future Antichrist would arise from Capernaum.135 The scriptural basis

131 Ibn Faqih al-Hamadhani, ‘On the Turks and their lands’, p. 51.
132 Translation from Virgil, Aeneid, p. 324.
133 Plutarch also mentions the Parthians use of poison. See: Plutarch’s Moralia, trans. W.
Helmbold, vol. 6 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1939), p. 373.
134 Archaeological evidence has shown that there was a very small native village in Caper-
naum that was occupied ‘more or less continuously’ from the first century BC until
the thirteenth. See: D. Pringle, Secular buildings in the crusader kingdom of Jerusalem: an
archaeological gazetteer (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997), p. 46.
135 Daniel the Abbot, ‘The life and journey of Daniel, abbot of the Russian land’, Jerusalem
pilgrimage, 1099–1185, ed. and trans. J. Wilkinson, J. Hill and W. F. Ryan (London:
Hakluyt Society, 1988), p. 152.
 The Turks and the Apocalypse 217

for this conviction can be found in the gospels of Matthew and Luke
where Christ rebukes several towns, including Capernaum, whose pop-
ulations had failed to repent upon hearing His message and seeing His
works of power (Matthew, 11: 23; Luke, 10: 15). Nevertheless the gospel
writers make no reference to the Antichrist in this context; this associa-
tion was forged far later in the Syriac Apocalypse by Pseudo-Methodius
which states that the Antichrist will rule over Capernaum.136 This escha-
tological work was well known in both western Europe and the Levant
and clearly it was taken so seriously that no one among the Franks wished
to settle in Capernaum.
Abbot Daniel’s tale is striking, but it is also rare; only a handful of
authors suggest that the Franks were preoccupied with eschatological
considerations. As the First Crusade progressed the pilgrims seem rapidly
to have become aware that something truly momentous was happen-
ing. Their tales describe a world in which the tides of the heavenly and
earthly realms were flowing swiftly together towards their culmination in
Jerusalem. During their journey, the frontiers between earth and heaven
are depicted being endlessly crossed and re-crossed by: warrior saints
and martyrs descending to do battle; the souls of fallen pilgrims first
ascending to heaven and then descending to give sage advice to their
living comrades; and portents sent by God to lead the campaign to its
culmination. At the crusade’s conclusion the pilgrims could reflect upon
the enormity of their achievement: Jerusalem was in Christian hands and,
in their eyes, ‘paganism’ had been revealed to be utterly devoid of power.
For these reasons they may well have felt that their deeds had heralded
a new phase in mankind’s history; some even saw it as a fulfilment of
prophecy.137 Even so, the question of whether they saw themselves as
actors in an apocalyptic end-times narrative is more problematic.
The role of eschatological ideas in the first crusaders’ thought world
has long been a source of controversy and debate.138 The crux of the
problem is that on one hand there are only a few conspicuous allusions
to eschatological themes in the main narratives, particularly those drawn
up by the participants. On the other, there are rather more passages in
these chronicles which could be interpreted as communicating apoca-
lyptic overtones through their descriptions of events and uses of biblical
136 Pseudo-Methodius, Apocalypse, pp. 63–65. 137 FE, pp. 132, 140–142.
138 For a sample of the key works to deal with this topic see: Rubenstein, Armies of Heaven,
passim; Riley-Smith, The First Crusade and the idea of Crusading, p. 143 (see also p. 35);
N. Cohn, The pursuit of the Millennium: revolutionary millenarians and mystical anarchists
of the Middle Ages (London: Paladin, 1970); Housley, Fighting for the cross, p. 198;
J. Flori, L’Islam et la Fin des temps: L’interprétation prophétique des invasions musulmanes
dans la chrétienté médiévale (Paris: Seuil, 2007), pp. 250–265; Flori, Pierre l’Ermite,
pp. 175–177.
218 Aftermath

citation and exegesis.139 It is not the purpose of this section to fully

explore the claims made by the protagonists in this particular debate,
but rather to examine those passages which situate Turks or ‘Saracens’
within an end times narrative.
To begin, whatever the crusaders may themselves have felt about the
end times, they were entering a region where many of the Christian
and Muslim communities they encountered enroute were convinced that
the rise of the Saljuqs and/or the advent of the crusaders represented
formative stages in the coming apocalypse. One crucial element in con-
temporary eastern Christian and Muslim apocalyptic thought was that
the Turks were the embodiment of the famous ‘peoples of the North’,
Gog and Magog.
These races appear in several places in the Bible. Among the most
important references are those found in the book of Ezekiel (chapters 38
and 39) which explains the prophecy that God will instigate an invasion
by these northern peoples against the Israelites as a punishment for their
sins. In Revelation 20 (verses 7–8), Gog and Magog appear again in this
end-times narrative as the allies of Satan, released from his thousand-year
imprisonment. Their depredations will finally be brought to an end when
they are consumed by fire from heaven and when Satan is thrown into a
lake of fire and sulphur.
In the centuries following the writing of these biblical books, many
authors in the eastern Mediterranean attempted to identify the peoples
of Gog and Magog, whilst speculating about the location of their northern

139 For further discussion see: J. Rubenstein, ‘Godfrey of Bouillon versus Raymond of
Saint-Gilles: how Carolingian kingship trumped millenarianism at the end of the First
Crusade’, The legend of Charlemagne in the Middle Ages: power, faith and crusade, ed.
M. Gabriele and J. Stuckey (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2008), pp. 59–75. J.
and L. Hill have also pointed out that Raymond of Aguilers draw upon imagery from
Revelation in his account of the conquest of Jerusalem, see RA, p. 150. There are also
several further materials which relate to this debate. See for example discussion on the
Jewish chronicle of Bar Simson and its report of Emich of Leningen’s eschatological
claims: Riley-Smith, ‘The First Crusade and the persecution of the Jews’, 59–60.
Benzo of Alba also suggested that Henry IV should rule in Jerusalem, a claim which
calls to mind notions of the ‘Last Emperor’. For discussion on the theme of the
‘Last Emperor’ during the pre-crusade period see: Gabriele, Empire of memory, pp.
107–128 and passim. See also Tolan’s discussion on Peter Tudebode (Tolan, Saracens,
p. 111). For pre-crusading apocalyptic ideas concerning Jerusalem, see: D. Callahan,
‘Al-Hākim, Charlemagne and the destruction of the church of the Holy Sepulcher
in Jerusalem on the writings of Ademar of Chabannes’, The legend of Charlemagne in
the Middle Ages: power, faith and crusade, ed. M. Gabriele and J. Stuckey (New York:
Palgrave Macmillan, 2008), pp. 41–57; M. Frassetto, ‘The image of the Saracen as
heretic in the sermons of Ademar of Chabannes’, Western views of Islam in medieval and
early modern Europe, ed. D. Blanks and M. Frassetto (Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1999),
pp. 83–96. Buc similarly expresses rather neatly the problems engaged with studying
this theme: Buc, Holy War, p. 9 (see also pp. 101–105).
 The Turks and the Apocalypse 219

homelands. The Jewish historian Josephus in his Antiquities made a par-

ticularly influential contribution to this debate, linking Gog and Magog
to the Scythians living north of the Caucasus.140 He also described in
his Jewish War how Alexander the Great constructed his famous Iron
Gates to prevent the incursions made by Scythian peoples.141 These
ideas soon appeared in the Christian tradition, being widely popularised
in the seventh century by Pseudo-Methodius.142 With this background,
it is perhaps not surprising that many saw the inrush of the Saljuq Turk
as the peoples of Gog and Magog, or even the harbingers of the coming
apocalypse. In the Syriac tradition the Turks were identified specifically
as the peoples of Magog by several authors, most strikingly by Michael
the Syrian who argued that the Turks were – like the people of Magog –
descendants of Noah’s son Japheth (Genesis 10).143 Michael the Syrian’s
work depicts the Turks as the embodiment of the prophecy of Ezekiel
although he does not place their invasions in the apocalyptic context
described in Revelation.144 Exactly when Syriac authors first made this
association between the Turks and Magog is unclear. Michael was the first
author to unambiguously make this connection, although there seems to
have been a growing identification between the two that might date back
as far as the work of Jacob of Edessa (d.708).145
Several Georgian and Armenian writers drew similar conclusions,
associating the Turks with the peoples of Gog and Magog including
the author of the early-twelfth-century Armenian eschatological work,
Sermo de Antichristo.146 Matthew of Edessa did not draw this connection
explicitly, but in a similar vein, he felt that the events unfolding across
the region during his lifetime were proof that Satan had been released
140 Many later authors associated the lands of Gog and Magog with Scythian territory.
See, for example, Isidore of Seville, The etymologies, p. 288.
141 Van Donzel and Schmidt, Gog and Magog, pp. 9–11; A. Anderson, Alexander’s gate, Gog
and Magog, and the inclosed nations, Monographs of the Medieval Academy of America
V (Cambridge, MA: The Medieval Academy of America, 1932), pp. 15–19.
142 Van Donzel and Schmidt, Gog and Magog, p. 32.
143 Dickens, ‘The Sons of Magog’, 435. The Turks were widely considered to be the sons
of Japhet in Islamic sources. See, for example: Rashid al-Din, ‘The compendium of
chronicles’, p. 20.
144 Dickens, ‘The Sons of Magog’, 436. Interestingly, as Dickens has shown, Michael’s
presentation of the Turks as the sons of Magog is not a solely hostile description and in
some respects portrays the Turks in a ‘positive’ way. He acknowledges the brutality of
their invasions but also shows how they conducted a God-led assault upon the Greek
persecutors of the Syriac Church and even that they had a divine mandate to rule.
Dickens, ‘The Sons of Magog’, passim.
145 Dickens, ‘Turkāyē: turkic Peoples’, pp. 72–75; Dickens, ‘The Sons of Magog’, 436–
438. Dickens points out that it is difficult to identify which parts of Jacob of Edessa’s
text are his own and which are the introductions of later redactors.
146 Rapp, Studies in medieval Georgian historiography, p. 257; Sermo de Antichristo, pp. 19,
109; Pogossian, ‘The last emperor’, pp. 457–502.
220 Aftermath

from his thousand year confinement, bringing calamity and ultimately

the end times.147 In this he was following the prophecies made in 1030
and 1036/7 by Yovhannes Kozern.148 Van Donzel and Schmidt have also
shown how these ideas filtered into Islamic thought, eventually prompt-
ing the remarkable mission launched by Caliph al-Wathiq to discover the
legendary wall created by Alexander the Great (842–845) to prevent the
invasions of these northern peoples.149 By the ninth century many Mus-
lim authors saw the Turks as synonymous with Gog and Magog, although
some argued more specifically that the Turks were the only one of the
races of Gog and Magog who had not been successfully entrapped by
Alexander’s wall.150 Reflecting upon these various traditions, it is striking
that a significant proportion of the peoples encountered by the crusaders
during their journey to Jerusalem believed that the advent of the Saljuqs
was an event of eschatological significance.
Writers in western Christendom had similarly been interested in
the identification of Gog and Magog and in earlier centuries, Huns,
Goths, Alans, and Magyars had all been presented in this way at various
points.151 Shortly before the first millennium it seems that rumours were
circulating that the Hungarians were the peoples of Gog and Magog.152
Even the notion that the Turks were linked to Gog and Magog was
present in the early-medieval western European tradition. The cosmog-
raphy of Aethicus Ister (written in the early eighth century) described the
Turks in this way, although this anonymous author was drawing heav-
ily upon eastern Christian ideas rather than on an established western
European tradition.153
Nevertheless, the crusading chronicles, at least those written by partici-
pants, do not make this connection. They mention the Caucasus, and the
Turks are certainly portrayed as wild, mounted, numerous, and barbaric

147 MacEvitt, ‘The chronicle of Matthew of Edessa’, 175; La Porta, ‘Conflicted coexis-
tence’, pp. 108–110. Although importantly Matthew of Edessa does not describe the
Turks explicitly as the races of Gog and Magog. He identifies them rather as descended
from Noah’s son Ham (rather than the descendants of Noah’s son Japheth who is said
to be the forefather of the people of Magog). MacEvitt, ‘The chronicle of Matthew
of Edessa’, p. 167; ME, p. 59. See also Van Donzel and Schmidt, Gog and Magog,
pp. 38–45.
148 T. Andrews, ‘The new age of prophecy: the chronicle of Matthew of Edessa and its
place in Armenian historiography’, The medieval chronicle VI, ed. E. Kooper (Amster-
dam: Rodopi, 2009), pp. 110–111. See also Beihammer, ‘Die Ethnogenese’, 596–599;
Pogossian, ‘The last emperor’, p. 461.
149 Van Donzel and Schmidt, Gog and Magog, passim.
150 Van Donzel and Schmidt, Gog and Magog, pp. 74–103.
151 Anderson, Alexander’s gate, pp. 12–14.
152 R. Huygens, ‘Un témoin de la crainte de l’an 1000: La lettre sur les Hongrois’, Latomus:
revue d’études latines 15 (1956), 225–239.
153 The cosmography of Aethicus Ister, pp. 28–32.
 The Turks and the Apocalypse 221

(all characteristics referenced in eastern Christian depictions of the ‘peo-

ples of the north’), but they are not explicitly linked to Gog and Magog.
The only chronicler who might have attempted to make such allusions
was the continuator of Frutolf of Michelsberg’s chronicle. Describing the
rise of the Saljuqs he explains that they suddenly appeared in huge num-
bers ‘from the north’ under the leadership of four sultans.154 He makes
no specific mention of Gog and Magog, but contextually the reference to
the invasion of numerous northern peoples fits with this prophecy, whilst
the reference to the Turks serving under four leaders may distantly call
to mind the four horsemen of the book of Revelation. It might also be
added that in Frutolf of Michelsberg’s original chronicle (the work this
author was extending) there is a reference to an ancient raid by the Turks
launched in 766 emerging from the ‘Caspian gates’, which again calls to
mind an eschatological theme.155 Nevertheless, this evidence is thin ice;
too vague and implicit to support any definite conclusion.
The other chronicles are silent on this matter. The seeming lack of
interest among crusaders on so fundamental and topical a theme in
contemporary eastern Christian thought is significant, particularly given
their deep dependence on these same authorities elsewhere (and the
fact that some of the eastern Christian apocalyptic narratives cast the
crusaders as their saviours!)156 This matter becomes even more striking
given that Raymond of Aguilers’ chronicle actually reports two instances
when Syrian Christians (Suriani) communicated to the crusaders that
they believed the crusade to be the fulfilment of biblical prophecy. One
Syrian apparently even predicted the finding of the holy lance to the
Frankish priest Eberhard while he was in Tripoli.157 Evidently, the Franks
had access to these eschatological beliefs so their unwillingness to draw
heavily upon them is all the more conspicuous, particularly given their
readiness to borrow elsewhere. In Raymond’s case the explanation may
lie in the evident contempt he held for the Christian Syrians (although
this did not stop him from recording their views).
Perhaps the fact that the crusaders did not draw upon such themes
demonstrates that whilst they relied heavily upon their Eastern co-
religionists for information and guidance, they were not drawing whole-
sale upon their thought-worlds. There are several other major elements
of Byzantine and other eastern Christian attitudes towards Islam that
are conspicuous by their absence from crusading narratives (either those

154 FE, p. 132. 155 Frutolf of Michelsberg, ‘Chronicon’, p. 160.

156 It is noteworthy that the presentation of the Turks as Scythians trapped by Alexander
the Great behind the Iron Gates would gain currency in later centuries. Meserve,
‘Medieval sources for Renaissance theories’, pp. 414–415.
157 RA, pp. 118, 129–130; Flori, L’Islam et la Fin des temps, pp. 268–269.
222 Aftermath

written by crusaders or by later authors). For example, the crusaders

hardly ever described their foes as ‘Hagarenes’ or ‘Ishmaelites’ (despite
the fact that they used many other names); yet as Hugh of Fleury
observed, this was standard terminology in Byzantine sources.158 They
also did not accuse Muslims of being Manicheans – another typical
Byzantine accusation.159 Rather, their interests and borrowings are selec-
tive and suggest that it was they who were asking the questions; setting
out an agenda of topics that they considered to be of interest, rather than
passively receiving instruction on what their eastern teachers thought
relevant.
The later authors of crusade narratives show fractionally more interest
in apocalyptic material of this kind in their descriptions of the Turks,
but even here this theme is generally marginal. This is certainly the
case in Robert the Monk’s chronicle. He too viewed the crusade as an
immensely important event and said so in his prologue.160 He retold
the tale of the expedition complete with a heavenly trumpet, spiritual
warriors in white, the appearances of saints, divine fire, and ultimately
a serious defeat for the Devil.161 Even so, specific references to a future
apocalypse, implicit or explicit, are few. He certainly saw the campaign
as the fulfilment of biblical prophecy (drawing upon Isaiah 60), but he
did not explicitly fit it into a pre-existing eschatological schema.162 There
are, however, a couple of passages which require closer attention. One
of these has been discussed earlier (his reference to Chorozaim). Another
occurs in his description of Karbugha’s famous meeting with his mother.
In his account, Robert drew heavily upon the Gesta Francorum, but he
included some new material in their alleged conversation including a
biblical reference with strong apocalyptic overtones: Deuteronomy 32:
30.163

How could one have routed a thousand, and two put a myriad to flight,
unless their Rock had sold them, the Lord had given them up?

This verse was included as part of Karbugha’s mother’s attempt to con-

vince her son that if he should march against the crusaders then his defeat
will inevitably follow. Her fundamental argument, embroidered with this

158 Hugh of Fleury, ‘Historia regum Francorum’, MGHS, vol. 9 (Hanover, 1851), p. 397.
The exceptions to this pattern are all authors writing in western Christendom in later
years, see: ‘Gesta Adhemari’, p. 354; WM, vol. 1, p. 412; OV, vol. 5, passim; BB,
p. 41.
159 Ducellier, Chrétiens d’Orient, pp. 165–166; Beihammer, ‘Orthodoxy and religious
antagonism’, 23.
160 RM, p. 4. 161 RM, pp. 8, 51–55, 68, 69. 162 RM, p. 110. 163 RM, p. 62.
 The Turks and the Apocalypse 223

verse, was that the crusader army was supported by God and there-
fore could not be defeated even by vastly superior forces. This exchange
occurs at a pivotal point in Robert’s text. The crusaders’ victories at
Antioch are represented as the turning point for the entire campaign
and Karbugha’s defeat is the climax of these events. Thus this conver-
sation discusses the tipping point when the fortunes of war swung deci-
sively in favour of the Christians. Although this verse is not – in and of
itself – explicitly eschatological, the possibility has to be entertained that
it was included with this intent. Significantly, the famous Apocalypse of
Pseudo-Methodius also includes this passage in a very similar context.164
This seventh-century Syriac text, which purported to be the work of the
fourth-century martyr Methodius, laid out a schema for history which
focused on the rise of Islam, its supremacy over Christian lands, and
finally its eventual collapse. The irrevocable defeat of the ‘Ishmaelites’ at
the hands of a resurgent Christianity would then usher in the end times.
Crucially, Deuteronomy 32:30 is introduced by Pseudo-Methodius at
the very moment when the fortunes of war turn suddenly against the
Muslims.165 Thus, this verse underlines a vital juncture in his history.
Placed side by side then it is striking that both Pseudo-Methodius and
later Robert the Monk employ this verse to pinpoint and spiritually con-
textualise the specific moment when the Muslim armies will suddenly
suffer a catastrophic defeat that will result in their expulsion from the
Holy Land. Although Robert the Monk does not allude explicitly to
Pseudo-Methodius, the parities between these texts are substantial.
On these grounds it seems likely that Robert was drawing in some way
upon the Pseudo-Methodian tradition. Still, the line of transmission from
the original text to Robert is unclear. Pseudo-Methodius’ Apocalypse was
widely known in western Europe both in Latin translations and later
redactions.166 Perhaps the most famous text (pre-crusade) influenced by
his work was Adso of Montier-en-Der’s De Ortu et Tempore Antichristi.
Adso’s work was written in c. 950 and was widely disseminated.167

164 Flori has also noted similarities between the reports of Karbugha’s conversation with
his mother and the Pseudo-Methodian tradition although he does not focus on this
biblical passage. Flori, L’Islam et la Fin des temps, p. 268.
165 Pseudo-Methodius, Apocalypse, p. 57. This verse was clearly in circulation during the
late seventh-century. It also appears in John bar Penkāyē’s Rı̄š Mellē’, although here is
occurs in a rather different context, elaborating the rapid advance of the Arab Muslim
forces, rather than foretelling their future defeat. S. Brock, ‘North Mesopotamia in the
late seventh century: book XV of John bar Penkāyē’s Rı̄š Mellē’, Jerusalem Studies in
Arabic and Islam 9 (1987), 58.
166 See for example: Peter the Monk’s redaction: Pseudo-Methodius, Apocalypse, pp. 74–
139.
167 Adso Dervensis de Ortu et Tempore Antichristi, ed. D. Verhelst, CCCM XLV (Turnhout:
Brepols, 1976).
224 Aftermath

Nevertheless, if Robert was following the Pseudo-Methodian tradition,

it seems that he had not acquired his information through these western
European redactions because both Adso’s work and the earlier Latin
translation edited out the reference to Deuteronomy 32:30. Another
explanation is required. An alternative is that Robert – or perhaps the
returning pilgrims he interviewed – had been influenced in some way
by the eastern Christians they encountered. Certainly, this same verse
was widely employed by Armenian and Georgian authors in similar con-
texts during this same period. The Armenian translation of the Georgian
History of David, King of Kings paraphrased this verse in a description
of King David II of Georgia’s (d.1125) wars against the Turks fought
shortly after the First Crusade.168 Matthew of Edessa did not include
this verse, but his work has strong apocalyptic themes which draw heav-
ily upon the Pseudo-Methodian tradition; demonstrating that these ideas
were still very much in circulation.169
The final alternative is that Robert was guided to use this verse by other
western Christian chroniclers who were using it in a less complex fashion,
simply to embroider accounts of heroic victories against insurmountable
odds. It certainly occurs in several histories of the Normans in Italy
and Sicily and, perhaps more importantly, Paschal II included it in his
letter informing Christendom of the victories of the First Crusade.170
Nevertheless these sources lack the prophetic context that is so striking
in Robert’s chronicle. On this point it is impossible to be certain, but it
does seem that Robert was capturing – possibly unknowingly – a distant
echo of this Syriac eschatological tradition.
Another apocalyptic association referenced in several further sources
was the contemporary belief that Mohammed was the Antichrist. Robert
himself names Muslims at one point as attendants (satellites) of the
Antichrist, while Ralph of Caen describes Mohammed as the ‘earliest
Antichrist’ (pristinus Antichristus).171 Naturally, according to apocalyptic

168 ‘The history of David’, p. 320. See also ‘The history of King Vaxt’ang Gorgasali’,
Rewriting Caucasian history: the medieval Armenian adaptation of the Georgian chronicles,
trans. R. Thomson (Oxford: Clarendon, 1996), p. 243.
169 MacEvitt, ‘The chronicle of Matthew of Edessa’, 158.
170 See: Amatus of Montecassino, Storia de’ Normanni, pp. 44, 141; Geoffrey of Malaterra,
De Rebus Gestis Rogerii, p. 43; Kb, p. 178 (Pope Paschal II’s letter to the crusaders in
Asia); GN, pp. 158, 258. Although it might be pointed out that these authors may
themselves have been influenced by the Greek tradition given the strong bonds between
the Byzantine Empire and Italy/Sicily and especially its long-standing relationship with
the monastery of Montecassino. G. Loud, ‘Anna Komnena and her sources for the
Normans of southern Italy’, Church and chronicle in the Middle Ages: essay presented to
John Taylor, ed. I. Wood and G. Loud (London: Hambleton, 1991), p. 42. See also
‘Gesta Adhemari’, p. 355.
171 RM, p. 72; RC, p. 107.
 The Turks and the Apocalypse 225

tradition, the rise of the Antichrist is one of the final phases of world
history, nevertheless Ralph’s comment that Mohammed was the ‘earliest
Antichrist’ implies that he thought him to be one of many Antichrists
who will appear throughout history.172 He reinforces this idea immedi-
ately afterwards by saying that if Mohammed’s ‘companion’ (socius) had
been in the Temple that day – presumably the final Antichrist – then both
Antichrists (Antichristi) would have been destroyed.
He is not alone in identifying multiple Antichrists; this idea is well evi-
denced in Christian theology dating back to the early patristic era. Tertul-
lian, Lacatantius, Polycarp, and Irenaeus are among these who speak of
multiple Antichrists.173 Augustine and Pope Gregory I argued that any-
one among the faithful could become an Antichrist by denying Christ;
thus establishing a host of Antichrists. From this time, many heretics were
described as ‘Antichrists’ for their opposition to Christianity. References
of this kind can be found in Gregory VII’s letters pertaining to those who
had separated themselves from Christ.174 Gregory also spoke of ‘precur-
sors of Antichrist’, a theme found repeatedly in medieval eschatology.175
Among the earliest presentations of Mohammed in this way in the west-
ern Christian tradition can be found in ninth-century Iberia. Eulogius
of Cordoba for example described Mohammed as a false Christ, of the
kind forewarned by Jesus (Matthew 24: 11) when he told his disciples
that many false prophets would arise and lead people astray.176 His con-
temporary Paul Alvarus went one stage further to describe Mohammed
as an Antichrist, noting that there were many.177 In a similar vein, in
the eleventh century, the Muslim ruler of Mahdia was compared to an
Antichrist in the Carmen in victoriam Pisanorum.178 Such ideas also had
deep roots in the eastern Christian tradition and the notion of Islam as a
precursor to the Antichrist developed soon after the rise of Islam and the
Arab conquest of much of the Near East.179 In this way, Ralph’s identi-
fication of Mohammed as an Antichrist need not be interpreted as proof

172 RC, p. 107

173 This section has drawn extensively upon: B. McGinn, Antichrist: two thousand years
of the human fascination with evil (New York: Columbia University Press, 2000), pp.
66–125; R. Emmerson, Antichrist in the Middle Ages: a study of medieval apocalypticism,
art and literature (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1984), pp. 62–73.
174 The Register of Gregory VII, pp. 238, 370. 175 The Register of Gregory VII, p. 12.
176 Tolan, Saracens, p. 87; Emmerson, Antichrist in the Middle Ages, p. 67.
177 Tolan, Saracens, pp. 87–93; Flori, La Guerre Sainte, pp. 242–243.
178 Cowdrey, ‘The Mahdia campaign of 1087’, 27.
179 John of Damascus, ‘On heresy’, p. 153. For discussion see: Tolan, Saracens, pp. 45–50,
51–52; Hoyland, Seeing Islam, pp. 57–58. Note also that Matthew of Edessa used the
label ‘precursor of the abominable Antichrist’ in his description of the Armenian lord
Philaretos Brachamios, who formed a small state in Northern Syria in the 1070s-1080s:
ME, pp. 137–138.
226 Aftermath

that he believed the world was now nearing its end; he clearly believed
that Mohammed was among a number of earlier manifestations of the
ultimate Antichrist who would appear at some unidentified point in the
future.

East and West

Both in public and academic histories, the Crusades have been inter-
preted as a vital stage in an alleged war that has taken place between
‘east’ and ‘west’ since time immemorial. The question of whether the
twain are doomed never to meet has been batted around for decades, but
the debate took on a fundamentally new character following the publi-
cation of Edward Said’s Orientalism (1978). This work advanced the case
that ‘western’ approaches towards the ‘east’ have been characterised by a
perpetual (and perpetually self-reinforcing) discourse asserting cultural
supremacy and imperialist dominance over the oriental ‘other’.180 His
work is concerned predominantly with the modern era, but he offers this
as a long-standing truth stretching back to the classical era. In recent
years, Said’s Orientalism has found both its advocates and opponents,
but more than anything else it challenges historians to compare his argu-
ments against the contemporary evidence. This section will explore how
the crusaders and their later narrators perceived ‘the east’, examining the
paradigms which shaped their attitudes towards its geography and theo-
logical significance.
To begin, the crusaders’ concept of ‘the east’ was multi-faceted and in
some cases contradictory. Medieval authors referred confidently to the
‘east’ and yet they rarely explained precisely where this ‘east’ lay, what it
encompassed, or where it ended.181 The reason for this must lie partly
in the fact that the ‘east’ was in some respects synonymous with the
‘unknown’. These were lands of legends about which much was specu-
lated but little was known for certain. The Holy Land itself lay on western
Christendom’s knowledge horizon. Pilgrims offered some reports about
its towns and shrines but these were mere glimpses largely confined to
biblical sites. Beyond the river Jordan lay mysterious places dimly recalled
only in classical or biblical memory. Constantinople represented one

180 Said, Orientalism.

181 For a stimulating discussion on the definition of the ‘Orient’ and its attendant historiog-
raphy see: M. O’Doherty, The Indies and the medieval west: thought, reform, imagination,
Medieval voyaging II (Turnhout: Brepols, 2013), pp. 3–5. Lapina has also performed
an excellent analysis on the development of medieval representations of the four car-
dinal points and their manifestations in the First Crusade chronicles: Lapina, Warfare
and the miraculous, pp. 122–142.
 East and West 227

among a handful of further known fixed points in the eastern quadrant of

this largely-blank world map, lying as it did at the crossroads between the
known world of the west and the distant lands beyond. Robert the Monk
described it both as the capital of the east and the refuge for its native
Christians.182 For Ralph of Caen and the Charleville poet it marked the
frontier between Europe and Asia (reflecting the contemporary tripartite
division of the world into Europe, Asia, and Africa).183
Jerusalem was another of these fixed points but its global location was
more ambiguous. On one hand the crusaders had no doubt that it lay in
the east. On this point they are unanimous. Both papal and crusading
correspondence speaks of the crusaders’ deeds in Orientam.184 The very
title of Caffaro’s chronicle De liberatione civitatum Orientis captures this
point.185 Still, viewed from another perspective, Jerusalem was emphat-
ically not in the east. Rather it was the world’s centre; the crosshairs,
both of the four cardinal points and of the world’s history. As Guibert of
Nogent observed, it was the fount and source of all Christian preaching;
a statement which tallies well with the many world maps produced across
the medieval period which situate Jerusalem at the world’s heart, not in
its eastern margins.186
The crusaders’ approach to these lands then was multi-faceted. Spir-
itually, it was the beating heart of Christianity; the site of events from
both Testaments and the principal theatre in which the biblical stages of
mankind’s relationship with God had unfolded. Sanctified by the blood of
Christ, the land itself was and is the sacred epicentre of history and con-
sequently a place of incredible spiritual potency. In this context, viewed
from the Franks’ perspective, the Holy Land was not foreign territory,
rather it was the homeland to which they were returning. As William of
Malmesbury observed:
There in earlier days the branches of our religion sprouted; there all the apostles,
except two, sanctified this place with their deaths; there, today’s Christians –
those who are left-, surviving by impoverished farming, contemplate starvation
through tribute to these heinous ones or yearn with silent sighs for experience of
our liberty because they have lost their own.187
According to this view, the Holy Land was not simply the domain of
the ‘Oriental other’. In many ways it was more central and vital to the
pilgrims’ thought-worlds than their own native soil; a point evidenced
182 RM, p. 21. See also WM, vol. 1, p. 624. 183 GP, p. 30.
184 Kb, passim. See also, BB, p. 3. 185 Caffaro, De Liberatione.
186 GN, p. 113. He is even more explicit in his De Vita Sua where he explicitly names
Jerusalem as the world’s centre. Guibert of Nogent, ‘De Vita Sua’, PL, vol. 156 (1853),
col. 896.
187 WM, vol. 1, p. 600. For similar sentiments see: OV, vol. 5, p. 156.
228 Aftermath

by the fact that many chose to abandon their old lives and settle in the
newly-founded crusader states. Nevertheless, this sense of spiritual and
biblical familiarity is immediately juxtaposed against the bald fact that
the vast majority of pilgrims had never been there before.
During their journey the pilgrims encountered: strange beasts
(like camels), rare fabrics (like silk and purple cloth), precious
foods (like sugar-cane, pepper, and ‘Turkish delicacies’), and strange
places (like the Dead Sea).188 Many pilgrims returned to their homes
bearing curiosities and religious items, such as relics, and palm branches.
In the year following his release from captivity in 1103 Bohemond I of
Antioch journeyed back to western Europe where, according to Orderic
Vitalis, he laid silks and relics from the Holy Land on many altars.189
Turkish hats (pilleum Turcorum) became so popular among the Frank-
ish nobility in the kingdom of France that attempts were made to ban
them.190 Gouffier of Lastours even tried to return home with a pet lion.
According to this tale, while he was out raiding he happened to hear a
lion roar and he went to investigate. He eventually found the beast at the
mercy of a great snake which was tightly encircling its body. Gouffier then
waded in and freed the lion, which then became quite tame, following
him like a dog. As might be imagined, such a pet subsequently proved a
formidable ally in battle, springing enthusiastically upon Gouffier’s ene-
mies. When Gouffier eventually embarked for his return voyage, the lion
was unwilling to be parted from him and tried to board the ship. The
sailors however were understandably concerned at the thought of hav-
ing a lion for a shipmate. Consequently when Gouffier departed, it was
without his new friend, who nonetheless swam out to sea in pursuit of
his beloved master for some distance.191
Such sights would have been entirely new for the vast majority of pil-
grims; certainly they were far removed from the familiar landscape of
their former lives. The Franks were also aware that they were marching
along the outer perimeter of the known world. Beyond Jerusalem, so

188 Bartolf of Nangis, ‘Gesta Francorum Expugnantium Iherusalem’, p. 505; FC, pp. 329,
339; RC, pp. 79, 106; BB, p. 34; WM, vol. 1, p. 664.
189 OV, vol. 6, p. 68.
190 Constitutiones canonicorum regularium ordinis Arroasiensis, ed. L. Milis and J. Becquet,
CCCM XX (Turnhout: Brepols, 1970), p. 213. See also Scarfe Beckett, Anglo-Saxon
perceptions, pp. 191–192. Turkish hats seem to have had a broad fashion appeal. They
had previously ‘caught on’ in China. See: Stepanov, The Bulgars and the Steppe Empire,
pp. 54–55. By the thirteenth century, Simon of St Quentin reports that there was a
brisk trade in Turkish hats between Anatolia and England and France. See: Simon of
St Quentin, Histoire des Tartares, ed. J. Richard (Paris: Paul Geuthner, 1965), p. 69.
191 ‘Notitiae duae Lemovicenses de Praedicatione crucis in Aquitania’, RHC: Oc, vol. 5
(Paris, 1895), p. 351. Apparently, he was not the only Frank to acquire a pet lion and
in 1102 Baldwin I sent two to the Byzantine emperor as gifts, AA, p. 636.
 East and West 229

it was believed, lay the unknown; lands inhabited by distant peoples as

strange as Amazons, Indians, and Elamites. True, they were not entirely
without assistance in interpreting their new surroundings. Some among
their number had read classical works which could provide some illumi-
nation and, as we have seen, they received some guidance from eastern
Christians. There is little doubt however that fundamentally they knew
themselves to be pilgrims in a foreign land.
The product of these two conflicting influences – the juxtaposed famil-
iarity and foreignness of the Levantine region – seems to have been an
emerging sense of rediscovery and renewal as the crusaders identified, vis-
ited, commemorated, and – in time – built-upon the locations where key
biblical and historical events had taken place. This sense of wide-eyed
spiritual curiosity about these recently-discovered/long-known lands is
well evidenced in the sources which devote considerable attention to
the locations visited by the crusaders. Fulcher of Chartres for example
explained how the city of Antioch had been founded by Seleucus, son
of Antiochus, on the banks of the Orontes (other authors erroneously
claimed that its founder was Antiochus himself). He went on to describe
its buildings, including the famous church dedicated to St Peter. He also
referenced the contemporary belief that Peter founded Antioch’s episco-
pal seat having been given the keys to Heaven by Christ.192 This passage
is illuminating because Fulcher was not merely ‘describing’ Antioch and
its history, rather he was forging connections between the scriptural and
textual knowledge of his own education/childhood and his own recent
experiences in contemporary Syria. To take another example the author
of the Gesta Francorum turns away from his tale of the Frankish advance
on Jerusalem to explain how there is a church near Ramla [in Lydda]
where the body of St George is buried.193 All the crusading narratives
are studded with such descriptions and they reveal the crusaders’ joy
at their discovery of religious sites, which were so fundamental to their
faith.
The posture assumed by these authors at such points is crudely anal-
ogous to that of modern-day travellers setting out to visit sites of intense
family significance, perhaps a location where an ancestor served or died
during a World War. They may have heard about this ancestor all their
life, but the place itself where his/her deeds took place is entirely unfa-
miliar. Even so, however new that location may be, it is simultaneously
important, extremely intimate, and from their perspective at least – indis-
putably theirs. The crusaders seem to have felt these same sensations
acutely, but with one difference. They did not consider themselves solely

192 FC, pp. 215–217. 193 GF, p. 87.

230 Aftermath

to be visiting a mausoleum or a monument to the past, but rather a site

throbbing with God’s spiritual power that transcended past, present, and
future.
Later authors of First Crusade histories embroidered on the existing
descriptions of religious sites, reinforcing their significance. William of
Tyre added the detail that the church in Lydda had been constructed by
the emperor Justinian.194 The importance of the city of Antioch was ubiq-
uitously underlined; William again – who drew upon Fulcher’s work –
was able to make a far more detailed statement of its history and spiri-
tual significance.195 In doing so he implicitly emphasised the notion that
these were not merely distant and strange places, worthy of curiosity but
little more; rather these sites were foundational pillars to the very heart
of Christendom.
In their dealings with the Christians of the east the crusaders seem to
have encountered again a blend of both the strange and familiar. On one
hand they were generally prepared to accept eastern Christians broadly as
co-religionists, and yet many of their practices and customs were strange.
As shown earlier, it was believed by some authors, especially Guibert of
Nogent, that the ‘east’ existed in a very different spiritual climate; one
which was especially prone to the development of heresies. Guibert is
the main source of such ideas, although they are briefly referenced by
Gilo; still clearly many authors felt that this was a region in the grip of
heretical beliefs because they listed Paulicians or other heretics among
the crusaders’ foes.196 The tendency of Easterners towards heresy was
not considered to be simply an inexplicable phenomenon, but, as we have
seen, a manifestation of the region’s specific climate.
These factors contextualise the crusaders’ attempts to situate the non-
Christians they encountered within their concept of the ‘east’. As far as
they were concerned the east was not simply the ‘Oriental’ stronghold
of the Muslim other. Unbelief of any form was deemed to be merely a
transitory presence within its bounds. The crusaders were emphatic in
their conviction that the east rightfully – and historically – belonged to
Christianity.197 In this way, Guibert of Nogent speaks of the crusaders

194 WT, vol. 1, p. 373. Pringle has shown that it is not possible to verify whether or not
this statement is true. Pringle, Churches of the crusader kingdom: volume II, p. 10.
195 WT, vol. 1, pp. 244–245.
196 Although as Biddlecombe points out Guibert took a far more negative view of east-
ern Christians than many other authors of crusade histories, particularly Baldric of
Bourgueil, see: S. Biddlecombe, ‘Baldric of Bourgueil and the familia Christi’, Writ-
ing the early Crusades: Text, transmission and memory, ed. M. Bull and D. Kempf
(Woodbridge: Boydell, 2014), pp. 9–23.
197 Scarfe Beckett has shown that early-medieval authors viewed the area in much the
same way. Scarfe Beckett, Anglo-Saxon perceptions, p. 68. See also Daniel, The Arabs
 East and West 231

restoring (restituere) the east.198 Robert the Monk describes the crusaders
seeking to ‘illuminate’ (illustrare) the ‘Orient’ by ‘dispelling’ (depellere) its
spiritual ‘blindness’; he compared the campaign’s conquest of the Holy
Land to the restoration of a dismembered limb to a human body.199
He later related a conversation between the Franks and Egyptian ambas-
sadors in which the Christian princes are reported to have said: ‘This land
does not belong to your people. They may have possessed it for many
years but it was ours in former times and your aggressive people, because
of their malice, seized it from them. So it cannot be yours however long
you have held it’.200 Such claims were contextualised with stories told
of Constantine, Heraclius, Jesus and the disciples and other Biblical
and Christian leaders who had lived in the region before the advent of
Islam. With the foundation of the kingdom of Jerusalem, newly estab-
lished churchmen were cast as continuators of ancient lines of clerics.
William of Malmesbury, for example, drew up a list of all the patriarchs
of Jerusalem which stretched back to Jesus’ brother James; making the
point that this was an office with deep historical roots.201 In these ways
these authors presented the campaign as a liberation; one which would
return the east to its former sanctified condition. As Prawer pointed
out, to the crusaders’ eye, the campaign ‘was actually a movement of
[Muslim] decolonization!’202
From this perspective, the ‘Saracens’ were not perceived as indige-
nous inhabitants, but as interlopers to be ‘illuminated’ or removed. This
does not mean that the crusaders saw themselves as the instruments of
divine vengeance against the descendants of those who had conquered the
region many centuries before. As Throop has shown, the authors of the
participant narratives did occasionally refer to the campaign as an instru-
ment of vengeance, but this was rare.203 Rather, the chroniclers described
their actions instead in more evangelical terms. The continuator of
Frutolf ’s chronicle explained the campaign’s purpose with reference to
the parable of the lost sheep (Luke 15.4). In this parable, Christ com-
pared the shepherd’s search for his one lost sheep to God’s care and

and mediaeval Europe, pp. 116–118; Völkl, Muslime – Märtyrer – Militia Christi,
pp. 172–173.
198 GN, p. 235. 199 RM, pp. 13, 24.
200 RM, p. 48. See Lapina’s thoughts on this theme: Lapina, Warfare and the miraculous,
pp. 132–142.
201 WM, vol. 1, pp. 642–644.
202 J. Prawer, ‘The roots of medieval colonialism’, The meeting of two worlds: cultural
exchange between east and west during the period of the Crusades, V. Goss and C. Bornstein,
Studies in medieval culture XXI (Kalamazoo, MI: Medieval Institute Publications,
1986), p. 24.
203 Although Throop points out that it occurs with greater frequency in the later narratives
of the crusade. Throop, Crusading as an act of vengeance, pp. 47–70.
232 Aftermath

celebration over the salvation of a single sinner. In a similar vein, the

continuator presented the crusaders as shepherds going out in search
of the ‘lost sheep’ of the east. From this perspective the crusade was
constructed as a missionary enterprise within which the supremacy
of the Christian message was demonstrated through the deeds of the
protagonists.204 Guibert similarly stated the crusaders’ purpose as that of
rebuilding of the faith in Eastern Lands, while Robert the Monk showed
how the conquest of Jerusalem caused the power of Christ’s crucifixion
to shine like a light in ‘infidel minds’ (mentes infidelium).205 Thus, the
‘liberation’ of the east was presented not merely as an act of restoration
for faithful in those regions, but also as a campaign of brutal spiritual
enlightenment for non-Christians.
In sum, these chroniclers offer their readers an image of a Christian
army from the west, travelling at God’s request to liberate: the lost eastern
heartlands of their own Christian faith, the Christian peoples of the east,
and the heretic and pagan peoples in that area. They generally go on to
show how these objectives were achieved largely through a series of battles
in which the peoples of the east (‘Saracens’) suffered repeated reverses
at the hands of the crusader host. These defeats are given as proof of
the falsity of these peoples’ faiths. Ralph of Caen, for example, presents
the battle of Antioch as a struggle between the east and west winds
(personified through the Greek Gods of the east and west winds) in which
the east wind initially gains the upper hand, but is eventually overthrown
by a gust from the north-west.206 Fulcher of Chartres described how
at Heraclea the crusaders saw a sign in the sky in the shape of a spear
pointing towards the east.207 Frutolf’s continuator likewise speaks of
blood-coloured clouds from east and west vying with one another for
supremacy in the centre of the sky during the opening stages of the
campaign.208 All these images convey this idea of contestation between
the peoples of east and west.
Drawing these points together, the crusade does not emerge from the
pages of these chronicles as an imperialistic enterprise. The crusaders did
not consider themselves to be simply invaders subjugating a foreign land,
but rather warriors who were cutting a warlike path back to their spiritual
homeland. The peoples and places they encountered were at once foreign
and familiar. They contained many exotic sights and spectacles, but
they were also the sites of biblical events with which these pilgrims were
long familiar through scripture. Thus the east was not their ‘other’, they
204 FE, p. 132. 205 GN, p. 113; RM, p. 101. 206 RC, pp. 77–78.
207 FC, p. 205. See also Bartolf of Nangis, ‘Gesta Francorum Expugnantium Iherusalem’,
p. 498.
208 FE, p. 142.
 East and West 233

believed it to be fundamentally their own. They knew that the Holy Land
had long been ruled by Christian emperors before the advent of Islam
and their campaign was intended to restore the region to its former state.
This ambition is communicated both explicitly in these texts and also
through metaphors that are widely referenced: the cleansing of pollution,
light displacing darkness, freedom replacing slavery, health succeeding
sickness.
5 The Impact of the Crusade

Introduction
The First Crusade’s status as a major turning point in European/Islamic
and Mediterranean history is beyond dispute. Its effects were far reach-
ing and scores of historians have emphatically underlined this point, both
historically and in recent years. The crusade also added a fundamentally
new dimension to western Christendom’s relationship with the Islamic
world. The formation of the crusader states created its first border zone
with Turkish territory; one which – over the next two centuries – would
host a variety of interactions between these two civilisations. As these
Frankish states grew in strength, conquering port after port along the
Levantine littoral, Italian merchants swiftly achieved dominance across
the eastern Mediterranean’s sea lanes bringing ever-larger cargoes of
goods to eager buyers in western Christendom. Growing trade, enhanced
by periodic improvements in maritime architecture and technology, nat-
urally strengthened the commercial networks between Christendom and
its Islamic neighbours. There had of course been some European involve-
ment in the eastern Mediterranean before the crusade and many pilgrims,
traders and mercenaries had set sail for the Levant in earlier years, but
hardly on a comparable scale. The establishment of the Latin East funda-
mentally redefined both the nature and scale of Christendom’s involve-
ment in the area.
Reflecting upon these points and contemplating the First Crusade’s
lasting impact, many historians have advanced the case that the crusade
provoked a substantially more antagonistic engagement between Chris-
tendom and the Islamic world. The consensus among these historians
seems to be that whilst the pre-crusade period was defined by friction
between these two civilisational tectonic plates, as they chaffed uncom-
fortably against one another, the First Crusade drove them into greater
opposition.1 The purpose of this chapter is to discuss and in part to
contest this characterisation of inter-civilisational relations.

1 Mastnak, ‘Europe and the Muslims’, p. 206; Housley, ‘The Crusades and Islam’, 194;
Asbridge, The First Crusade, p. 2. See also A. Maalouf, The Crusades through Arab eyes,
trans. J. Rothschild (Saqi Books: London, 2012), p. 15.

234
 Introduction 235

When engaging with this issue, one question that immediately becomes
apparent concerns the fundamental ‘civilizational’ terms of the debate.
There are serious objections to the idea of grouping the partially-
converted Turks, the Shia Fatimid caliphate, the North African emirates,
and the fractured world of al-Andalus into a monolithic civilisational bloc
entitled ‘Islam’. In discussion on Huntington’s thesis (which deals with
current-day blocks of this kind) Edward Said offered serious and perfectly
justifiable concerns about the collapsing of highly diverse groups of mod-
ern societies into civilisational units entitled the ‘west’ or ‘Islam’ and such
concerns can be applied with equal force to the medieval period.2 As we
have seen already, the crusaders viewed the Turks and Arabs differently
and, whilst they observed that they had some shared allegiance to the
‘Saracen religion’, they also seem to have understood that there were
sectarian differences dividing them. It has also been shown that – to a
contemporary Catholic eye – the line dividing the ‘Saracen religion’ from
tribal paganism, such as that practiced in the eastern European or Baltic
regions, was vague and contemporary awareness of the notion that Islam
could be defined as a distinctive monotheistic religion was patchy at best
and hedged with uninterest even among intellectuals. These problems
are encapsulated by a passage in William of Malmesbury’s Gesta Regum
Anglorum where he explains to his readers that whilst the Egyptians had
formerly, at the time of Jerome, worshipped idols in the same manner
as the Wends and Letts of eastern Europe, the Turks and Saracens now
believe in a single God and a prophet named Mohammed (Mahumet).3
The fact that such an explanation was needed – demonstrating why Chris-
tendom’s enemies in eastern Europe should be viewed as distinct from the
Turks and ‘Saracens’ – shows how vaguely contemporaries differentiated
between the religions of their non-Christian neighbours.
Nevertheless, there probably are just sufficient grounds, for discussing
monolithic civilisational entities like the ‘Islamic World’ in a way that
meaningfully brings us closer to contemporary thought-worlds, albeit
with the earlier caveats. Pope Urban II seems to have viewed the ‘Turks’,
‘Saracens’ and ‘Moors’ as manifestations of the same threat and said as

2 E. Said, ‘The clash of ignorance’, The Nation, 273.12 (2001), 11–14. Although Hunting-
ton does himself show an awareness of this problem: Huntington, The clash of civilizations,
pp. 19–55. Grabar also discusses the problems involved in reducing diverse groupings
of different ethnic groupings into monolithic civilisational blocks. See: O. Grabar, ‘Pat-
terns and ways of cultural exchange’, The meeting of two worlds: Cultural exchange between
east and west during the period of the Crusades, ed. V. Goss and C. Bornstein, Stud-
ies in medieval culture XXI (Kalamazoo, MI: Medieval Institute Publications, 1986),
pp. 441–442.
3 WM, vol. 1, pp. 338–340. For discussion see: Thomson, ‘William of Malmesbury’,
179–180. See also BB, p. 19.
236 The Impact of the Crusade

much in a letter to the bishop of Huesca in 1098.4 Muslim writers for their
part, such as Ibn al-Athir, likewise viewed the wars of both Iberia and
India to be matters of direct concern for the Muslim faithful despite the
great distances and cultural differences involved. Thus there are grounds
for dealing in civilisational blocs, albeit with caution. Moreover, if one
is to engage directly with arguments that are specifically founded, in
their basic premises, upon civilisational blocs then it is necessary to some
extent to take these terms of reference at their own valuation.
This chapter will assess the way in which the First Crusade redefined
Christendom’s general stance towards the Islamic world. It will do so with
broad brush strokes. The investigative methodologies employed here are
intentionally sweeping, seeking to characterise Christendom’s changing
perspective as en bloc. More detailed regional studies would be desirable
going forwards and doubtlessly will add a greater level of detail, but this
present chapter seeks to assess the widely-referenced but rarely-explained
notion that the crusade provoked or dilated within Christendom a sense
of antagonism towards the Islamic world.5
It will begin by examining this relationship from a purely military
perspective, enquiring whether the period from c. 1050 to 1150 saw an
escalation in conflict between these two civilizations. It will then apply
quantitative techniques to a range of sources to evaluate whether there is
a discernible shift in Christendom’s interest in the Islamic world in the
wake of the First Crusade.

The Military Situation, 1050–1150

By the mid-eleventh century, Christendom had three major zones of mili-
tary interaction with Islamic societies: western Mediterranean (Iberia and
the western isles of the Mediterranean), the central Mediterranean (Italy,
Southern France, Sicily, and North Africa), and the eastern Mediter-
ranean (Anatolia, Egypt, and the Holy Land). The overall trajectory of
Christian/Islamic military confrontations during the late eleventh and
early twelfth centuries will now be assessed.
Western Mediterranean (sustained warfare): The first of these zones
remained the scene of intense fighting as the Reconquista gathered pace
during this period. The advent of the Almoravids and subsequently the
Almohads likewise ensured that Iberia remained a major theatre of war
throughout the twelfth century. Naturally there were times of treaty,
4 Pope Urban II, ‘Epistolae et Privilegia’, col. 504.
5 Crawford explains this notion and discusses some of its proponents. He too does not
find this thesis convincing and in the article here-cited he also offers counter-arguments:
Crawford, ‘The First Crusade: unprovoked offense of overdue defense’, pp. 1–4.
 The Military Situation, 1050–1150 237

trade, and inter-civilisational alliance, but this should not obscure the
underlying and protracted conflict that persisted before, during, and
after the period of the First Crusade.
Central Mediterranean (declining conflict): By contrast, the ‘central
zone’ saw a decline in inter-civilisational warfare beginning from the
end of the eleventh century. Muslim naval attacks on Southern France
declined as the Italian cities steadily achieved maritime supremacy
(although occasional raids still took place into the late twelfth century).
The remaining Muslim positions in the Alps by this stage had already
been destroyed in 972. By 1100 Sicily and Italy were firmly in Norman
hands and Christian control grew in later decades. There were some
moments of unrest and short-lived Norman conquests in North Africa,
but these were not comparable either to the previous periods of intense
fighting which took place either on Sicily in the mid-eleventh century or
on the Italian/French mainland in the ninth or tenth centuries.
Eastern Mediterranean (escalation): Placed within this wider context,
the First Crusade took place at a time when some of Christendom’s
previously hot frontiers with Islam were just beginning to cool. Spain
naturally remained an important theatre of war well into the thirteenth
century, but the Islamic world’s ability to conduct naval warfare was
in steep decline. Thus the suggestion that the crusade suddenly drew
Christendom and the Islamic world into an unprecedented and deeply-
entrenched conflict is problematic. The crusade did open a new and
often embattled frontier in the Levant, but while this was taking place
in the first decades of the twelfth century, many other maritime border
zones across the Mediterranean were slowly stabilising. Thus, from a
purely military perspective, the overall intensity of the conflict between
Christian and Islamic societies may have changed in geographical focus,
but taken as a whole remained broadly stable when judged overall.
It might be added that in the Holy Land, as with elsewhere, the battle-
lines were seldom as simple as Christian vs. Muslim. There was a deep-
seated inter-religious conflict – this is undeniable – but as shown earlier,
there were moments even during the First Crusade when the members
of different faiths fought alongside one another and drew up treaties
and alliances. Ibn al-Athir, admittedly writing long after the First Cru-
sade, took seriously the notion that the campaign was a Fatimid/Frankish
plot against the Saljuqs – an argument that sits uncomfortably with the
view that the crusade represented some species of inter-faith ‘Clash of
Civilizations’.6

6 IAA, vol. 1, p. 14.

238 The Impact of the Crusade

Islam’s Place on Christendom’s Agenda, Before

and After the First Crusade
This section will explore Christendom’s evolving stance towards Islam
predominantly in its ‘core’ regions (defined broadly as: Northern Italy,
France, the German Empire, and England). It will examine in particular
whether the First Crusade caused decision makers in western Chris-
tendom to turn their gaze more directly upon the Muslim world in the
decades following the crusade. Should historians, for example, imagine a
post-crusade scenario in which the corridors of ecclesiastical and secular
power were suddenly humming with discussion about the wars with the
‘Saracen’ in a way in which they had not been previously? Were bishops
and princes suddenly re-examining the priorities and radically revising
their dealings with the Muslim world up their agenda papers? In short,
was Christendom’s engagement with its various Muslim neighbours a
greater priority for magnates after the crusade, than before?
Answering this question in a meaningful way requires a judicious
choice of methodologies. Previously when historians have commented
on Islam’s changing role within Christendom’s world view they have
focused their attention predominantly on intellectual life, discussing the
growing scholarly interest shown in the ‘Saracen religion’, or at least clas-
sical texts housed in Muslim archives, during the course of the twelfth
century. Nevertheless, this is a process that is only tangentially relevant
to this present discussion. As several studies have shown, the overwhelm-
ing bulk of this scholarly exchange took place along Sicilian or Iberian
vectors. Few scholars set out for the Holy Land, which in any case did
not boast many centres of learning.7 Thus this trend is liminal to our
present discussion on the impact of the First Crusade.8
This work will take a new approach which essentially borrows from the
practices of researchers studying modern-era history, who often judge an
issue’s importance by the number of column inches devoted to it in a
specific newspaper or magazine. If, for example, one wished to learn
how prominently say the Panama Canal figured in the British popu-
lar consciousness during the twentieth century, and how this changed
over time, then one approach would be to gather a number of widely-
disseminated British periodicals which span the period and then to see
how many inches of text they devote to this subject in issues published
over the century. By producing a chart showing the result it would be

7 Irwin, For the lust of knowing, pp. 36–37.

8 For an excellent analysis of the historiography on this process see: Frakes, The Muslim
other, pp. 147–159. See also Prawer, ‘the roots of medieval colonialism’, p. 33.
 Islam’s Place on Christendom’s Agenda 239

possible to gain an insight into the evolution of the Panama Canal’s per-
ceived importance over time. The operative principle here is that authors
tend to devote more ink to subjects that concern them acutely (or their
readers) than those which do not.
This investigation into Islam’s changing importance in pre/post-
crusade Christendom will apply a broadly similar approach to the various
surviving letter collections for leading – predominantly ecclesiastical –
figures from the tenth and twelfth centuries. These letter collections are
varied in composition and purpose, but even so they provide an invaluable
insight into the issues that were consuming decision-makers of this age.9
Written correspondence offered perhaps the primary channel by which
leading abbots, archbishops, kings, counsellors, and other important fig-
ures: shared news, discussed polices and theologies, advanced their own
causes, won supporters, appealed to allies, or chastised the disloyal. As
Constable has observed, they were very rarely concerned with ‘private
affairs’, being intended rather as quasi-public documents.10 Thus, the
content of these letter collections can help to characterise the heart-beat
of international discourse for this era by identifying the issues that were
troubling the councils of the mighty. As Rosenthal has observed: ‘the
collected letters of the great letter-writers are a window into their world
view’.11 Consequently, in any single letter collection it seems reasonable
to suppose that the number of letters to namecheck a specific subject will
be roughly proportionate to that subject’s importance both to the author
and – to some extent – his network of correspondents. This can certainly
be seen in Pope Gregory VII’s surviving correspondence. His sustained
contest with the German emperor is reflected in the large number of
letters which touch upon this subject (16% of all his known correspon-
dence). By contrast only 0.9 per cent of his surviving letters mention
Lanfranc, archbishop of Canterbury, who was naturally a lesser prior-
ity (and who seems to have stayed away from the papal curia anyway).
Therefore it should be possible to gain an insight into the importance
attached to a specific issue (in this case the Muslim world) by identifying
the percentage of letters in any given collection to namecheck this specific
theme.
To this end, in this present enquiry into the changing importance
attached to Islam during the central medieval period, a large selection

9 For discussion see: G. Constable, Letters and letter-collections, Typologie des Sources du
Moyen Âge Occidental XVII (Turnhout: Brepols, 1976), pp. 57–62.
10 Constable, Letters and Letter-Collections, p. 11.
11 J. Rosenthal, ‘Letters and letter collections’, Understanding medieval primary sources, ed.
J. Rosenthal (London: Routledge, 2012), p. 76.
240 The Impact of the Crusade

of letter collections have been gathered, dating from the late-tenth to

the twelfth century, and all the letters within these collections which ref-
erence Muslims (‘Saracens’, ‘Pagans’, ‘Gentiles, ‘Arabs’, ‘Ishmaelites’,
‘Hagarenes’ etc.) have been identified and expressed as a percentage of
the overall collection. The intention here being to create an indicator
for the amount of interest and debate that circled around this specific
issue. The results of this investigation are shown in Table 3.
Such an analysis is not without its limitations. The authors of these
letter collections are not evenly spread across Christendom’s heartlands;
there are both clusters (particularly in Norman England) and wide vacant
spaces. Moreover, there are very few collections for secular figures, the
bulk of surviving material is located in ecclesiastical collections. Still it
is necessary to work with the surviving material and, if enough of these
letter collections for these centuries are gathered and compared, then it
will be possible at least to create an indicator of the changing significance
that elites – primarily clerical – attached to a specific issue.
It might be added that such collections do not merely give us an
insight into these specific individuals’ thought-worlds; rather each col-
lection represents a nodal point in a pan-Christendom elite network of
communications. They contain: replies to other peoples’ enquiries, let-
ters received from other correspondents, references to courtly gossip,
or tidings passed on from friends and colleagues. They also capture
the changing language, exegesis, and terminology of their day. Thus
they offer snapshot into elite discourse. That is not to say that the
pre-occupations of any single letter collection will perfectly reflect the
concerns of ‘Christendom’ as a whole. This is too great a claim. Still,
if enough collections are analysed simultaneously then it is possible to
glean an impression of an issue’s overall importance.
Table 3 shows the results of this investigation. It records the frequency
with which references to Muslims or the Islamic world – however slight –
occur in a variety of collections compiled during this period. The most
important conclusion is immediately apparent: Muslims in any context
are scarcely mentioned. References to dealings with Muslims (present
or historic), or the use of Muslim-themed metaphor or simile, are very
rare indeed. Many letter collections, which include hundreds of lengthy
and detailed documents dealing with vital matters of Church and royal
realpolitik, mention them scarcely, if at all. This is true of the majority of
these sources including those of John of Salisbury, Fulbert of Chartres,
Lanfranc of Canterbury, and Peter of Celle. Herbert of Losinga is a
particularly striking case because, even though he lived through the First
Crusade, he made no reference to the ‘Saracen’ world, despite showing a
 Islam’s Place on Christendom’s Agenda 241

Table 3. References to Muslims in Western European letter collections from

the late tenth to twelfth centuries

Percentage of documents to mention/

Owner of letter collection allude to Muslims in any context

Rather of Verona (d. 974)12 0% (0 documents in collection of 33)

Gerbert of Reims (letters pertain to the 0.45% (1 document in a collection of 220)
years before his accession to the
papacy.)13
Froumund of Tegernsee (d. 1012)14 0% (0 documents in a collection of 93)
Fulbert of Chartres (d.1028)15 0% (0 documents in a collection of 131)
Bern of Reichenau (d. 1048)16 0% (0 documents in a collection of 26)
Peter Damien (d. 1072)17 2% (4 documents in a collection of 180)
Pope Gregory VII (d. 1085)18 4% (19 documents in a collection of 466)
Lanfranc, archbishop of Canterbury 0% (0 documents in a collection of 61)
(d. 1089)19
Emperor Henry IV20 0% (0 documents in a collection of 42)
(d. 1106)
Anselm of Canterbury21 0.4% (2 documents in a collection of 475)
(d. 1109)
Lambert, bishop of Arras22 0.7% (1 document in a collection of 144)
(d. 1115)
Ivo of Chartres23 0.3% (1 document in a collection of 292)
(d.1115)
Hildebert, bishop of Le Mans24 3% (1 document in a collection of 39)
(d.1133)

(cont.)

12 ‘Die Briefe des Bischofs Rather von Verona’, MGH: Die Briefe der Deutschen Kaiserzeit,
band I (Weimar, 1949).
13 Gerbert of Reims, ‘Die Briefsammlung’, MGH: Die Briefe der Deutschen Kaiserzeit, band
II, ed. F. Weigle, vol. 2 (Weimar, 1966).
14 Codex 1 only: ‘Die Tegernseer Briefsammlung (Froumund)‘, MGHES, vol. 3 (Berlin,
1925).
15 The Letters and Poems of Fulbert of Chartres, ed. F. Behrends, OMT (Oxford: Clarendon
Press, 1976).
16 Die Briefe des Abtes Bern von Reichenau, ed. F.-J. Schmale (Stuttgart, 1961).
17 Peter Damian, ‘Die Briefe des Petrus Damiani’, MGH: Die Briefe der Deutschen
Kaiserzeit, band IV, ed. K. Reindel, 4 vols (München, 1983–1993).
18 Sources: The Register of Pope Gregory VII and Epistolae Vagantes.
19 The Letters of Lanfranc, archbishop of Canterbury, ed. H. Clover and M. Gibson, OMT
(Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1979).
20 ‘Die Briefe Heinrichs IV’, MGH: Deutsches Mittelalter, ed. C. Erdmann (Leipzig, 1937).
21 S. Anselmi Cantuariensis Archiepiscopi Opera Omnia, vols 3–5.
22 Lambert of Arras, ‘Epistolae’, PL, vol. 162 (1889), cols. 647–700.
23 Ivo of Chartres, ‘Epistolae’, PL, vol. 162 (1889), cols. 9–289.
24 Hildebert of Le Mans, ‘Epistolae’, PL, vol. 171 (1893), cols. 135–310.
242 The Impact of the Crusade

Table 3 (cont.)

Percentage of documents to mention/

Owner of letter collection allude to Muslims in any context

Bernard of Clairvaux (d. 1153)25 0.6% (3 documents in a collection of 500)

Herbert of Losinga, bishop of 0% (0 documents in a collection of 60)
Norwich26 (d. 1119)
Abbot Geoffrey of Vendôme27 0% (0 documents in a collection of 184)
(d.1132)
Peter the Venerable, abbot of Cluny 4% (8 documents in a collection of 195)
(d. 1156)28
Thomas Becket, archbishop of 0.3% (1 document in a collection of 329)
Canterbury29
(d. 1170)
John of Salisbury (d. 1180)30 0.3% (1 document in a collection of 325)
Peter of Celle (d. 1183)31 0% (0 documents in a collection of 183)
Arnulf of Lisieux32 0% (0 documents in a collection of 141)
(d.1184)
Gilbert Foliot, bishop of London33 0.7% (4 letters in a collection of 520)
(d. 1187)

marked interest in themes of spiritual warfare.34 Ivo of Chartres

(d. 1115) also lived through these tumultuous times but his letters con-
tain only one reference in which he compares the behaviour of Adela,
countess of Blois, towards the local canons of St Mary, to that of
the Turks.35 Clearly these authors spent very little time discussing the
‘Saracen’ threat. They were peripheral to their thought-worlds and in

25 Bernard of Clairvaux, ‘Epistolae’, Sancti Bernardi Opera, ed. J. Leclercq and H. Rochais,
vols 7–8 (Rome: Editiones Cistercienses, 1974–1977). For discussion on the number
given for the total number of letters here see: B. Kienzle, ‘Introduction’, The letters of St
Bernard of Clairvaux (Stroud: Sutton, 1998), p. xv.
26 Hertbert of Losinga, Epistolae Herberti de Losinga, Osberti de Clara et Elmeri, ed. R.
Anstruther (Brussels, 1846).
27 Geoffrey of Vendôme, ‘Epistolae’, PL, vol. 157 (1899), cols. 33–211.
28 The letters of Peter the Venerable
29 The correspondence of Thomas Becket, archbishop of Canterbury, ed. A. Duggan, OMT, 2
vols (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2000).
30 The letters of John of Salisbury, ed. and trans. H. Butler, W. Millor, revised by C. Brooke,
OMT, 2 vols (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1979–1986).
31 The letters of Peter of Celle, ed. J. Haseldine, OMT (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2002).
32 The letters of Arnulf of Lisieux, ed. F. Barlow (London, 1939).
33 Gilbert Foliot, ‘Epistolae’, PL, vol. 190 (1803), cols. 745–1072.
34 Hertbert of Losinga, Epistolae Herberti de Losinga, pp. 22–26; E. Goulburn and H.
Symonds, The life, letters and sermons of Henry of Losinga, vol. 1 (London, 1878), pp.
98–99.
35 Ivo of Chartres, ‘Epistolae’, col. 180.
 Islam’s Place on Christendom’s Agenda 243

this context the notion that they were somehow Christendom’s primary
‘other’ looks decidedly out of place.
It might be objected at this point that people such as Thomas Becket
or John of Salisbury are well known to have been preoccupied with other
matters, such as the rivalry between secular and ecclesiastical authority,
and were scarcely involved in inter-civilisational warfare. This is entirely
true, for the most part they were not. But this serves only to underline
the fact that Christendom’s elites had other worries on their mind than
the threat from the distant ‘Saracens’. Moreover, for the reasons given
earlier, these letter collections do not solely reflect their authors’ ideas,
but capture a wider pool of opinion.
Another conclusion that can be drawn from this analysis is that the
post-crusade letter collections do not reveal any greater enthusiasm for
discussing ‘Saracen’ affairs than their pre-crusade forebears. It seems
then that neither the First Crusade nor the other events of this period
drove ‘Islam’ any further up Christendom’s agenda paper. There are
exceptions. Peter the Venerable discussed Islam more than his contem-
poraries, as might be expected given his involvement in the first Latin
translation of the Koran. Even here, however, only a small minority of
his letters discuss this subject (8/195 letters), reflecting the fact that his
interests embraced a far wider portfolio of issues. Moreover, he seems to
have been a rather isolated figure and, as several historians have pointed
out, his curiosity about Islam and, his translation of the Koran, does not
seem to have sparked much interest among his peers, some of whom
thought in any case that it was dangerous to show any interest in the
‘Saracen’ religion.36
Another dimension of this analysis is that whilst many of these authors
revealed little interest in Islam, several demonstrate a greater interest
in Jerusalem and the crusading movement. Anselm of Canterbury, for
example, wrote ten letters, either to (or about) prospective crusaders or to
leaders in the Latin East, but only one of these included a single brief allu-
sion to ‘infidels’ (which in this context seems to refer to Turks).37 Like-
wise, Bernard of Clairvaux, the great advocate of the Second Crusade,
wrote huge numbers of letters to members of the military orders, dig-
nitaries in the east, and crusading magnates, but scarcely ever mentions
Muslims in his correspondence (3/500 letters). Even on the rare occa-
sion when they do appear in Bernard’s letters, the references are brief and
vague, generally alluded to through euphemisms like ‘the malignant’.38
36 Irwin, For the lust of knowing, pp. 26–27.
37 S. Anselmi Cantuariensis Archiepiscopi Opera Omnia, vol. 3, pp. 252–255; (vol. 4) 85–86,
142–143, 174, 175, 179, 183 (vol. 5) 255, 355, 423.
38 Bernard of Clairvaux, ‘Epistolae’, vol. 8, p. 435.
244 The Impact of the Crusade

The letters of Arnulf of Lisieux fall into a similar category, in that he par-
ticipated in the Second Crusade (and he mentioned the campaign in his
letters) but he does not make any reference to Islam. This striking pattern
calls to mind a comment R.H.C. Davis once made when discussing why
William of Tyre’s Gesta orientalium principum aroused so little attention
in the west: ‘Crusades were interesting, but Muslims were not’.39
Speaking for the letter collections as a whole, their primary concerns
are largely local (issues of church discipline, news, or appointments).
There is often a lively correspondence between the main author and his
secular ruler and sometimes with his ecclesiastical superiors. Technical
discussions – often heated – on the separation of secular and ecclesiastical
power feature prominently as do debates of a theological nature. Nev-
ertheless, the one subject that appears more than any other is also the
most obvious: God. References to God appear in multitudinous forms
with almost uniform regularity across all collections and this provides a
useful point of reference for this discussion on Islam. Contemporaries
in Christendom, whether they were intellectuals gazing wonderingly into
the Cosmos, or serfs praying for rain, seem to have spent a great deal
more time contemplating God’s will than they did on any other subject.
The next most pressing set of affairs were predominantly local, or at
least confined to their specific kingdom or county. This was not, after
all, an age where long distance communications were well developed so,
even for elites, detailed information on the world beyond their borders
would have been scarce or at times even inaccessible (particularly in the
late-autumn/winter). The papacy, at the helm of Christendom’s wider
policy, naturally had to look further afield but even in Gregory VII’s
case, there are four times more letters dealing with Henry IV than there
are even mentioning Islam. Moreover, a large proportion of Gregory’s
letters discussing the emperor, focus upon him alone, while the majority
of letters to mention Muslims do so only in passing; often a single fleeting
reference. Indeed, taken as a whole, the number of letters across all these
collections which are actually about ‘Saracens’ – rather than briefly refer-
ring to them whilst talking about something else – could comfortably be
counted on the fingers of two hands. To take an example, the only refer-
ence to Muslims found in Thomas Becket’s collection is a letter written
by Cardinal Otto of Brescia to Thomas in May 1165 which is primarily
intended to relay the affairs of Genoa and Northern Italy. The single
reference to ‘Saracens’ occurs in a brief aside where he mentions that the
archbishop of Magdeburg was captured during his return journey from

39 R.H.C. Davis, ‘William of Tyre’, Relations between east and west in the Middle Ages,
ed. D. Baker (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1973), p. 71.
 ‘Saracens’ in Medieval Narratives Sources 245

Jerusalem.40 Reflecting on these conclusions it seems that Christendom’s

clerical elites spent a lot more time staring upwards at God than they did
looking sideways at their Muslim neighbours. It is likely that if a paral-
lel analysis was carried out for the Muslim world then it would report
much the same pattern. Overall, the ‘Saracen’ world was not particularly
important to western European ecclesiastical elites before the crusade
and it was not particularly important afterwards.

‘Saracens’ in Medieval Narratives Written Away

from the Frontier
If ‘Saracen affairs’ only rarely consumed the deliberations of princes of
the Church, either before or after the First Crusade, then it is necessary
to discuss those contexts in which contemporaries did take an interest in
their Islamic neighbours. There are a number of types of source which can
serve as indicators on this point, with perhaps the most useful being the
narrative histories and chronicles written between the ninth and twelfth
centuries. These works, generally written by monastic or clerical authors,
are not unambiguous measures of the kinds of information that were
circulating about the Muslim world in western European communities.
Their authors’ religious profession and perspective naturally guided both
their selection of material and the subjects in which they took an inter-
est. These chronicles also range in scope and coverage from narratives
preoccupied largely with local affairs, to chronicles written by authors
situated at the heart of royal government. Thus they are a diverse, rather
than a homogenous, source group. Nevertheless, taken as a whole, they
do demonstrate some interesting patterns of knowledge. They give some
indication as to the kinds of news concerning the ‘Saracens’ that had
filtered through either to their monastic cloisters or to royal/ecclesiastical
courts. There are also some consistent trends that are communicated
clearly when chronicles from different centuries are read side by side.
Table 4 provides a general overview of the contexts in which medieval
chroniclers wrote about Islam between c. 900 and 1187 ce. Whilst it is
not possible to describe in detail every reference to the Muslim world
contained in these sources, the broad focus of every episode discussing
‘Saracen’ affairs has been grouped under a series of headings. In all
cases, chronicles and narratives have been selected that were written by
authors living away from the border. As explained earlier, the purpose of
this section is not to examine the ongoing conflicts and perceptions of
frontier societies but rather to analyse the interest shown in ‘Saracens’

40 The correspondence of Thomas Becket, vol. 1, p. 206.

Table 4. References to the Muslim world in Western European chronicles between c. 900 and 1187
Among these, sections of over 100
words in length discussing topics
Passages/sections discussing directly connected to Muslims or
Details of work Muslims / Muslim world in narrative sources the Islamic world. Reference
Muslims mentioned in the context of
War and diplomacy in Central Med.

War and diplomacy in eastern Med.

pilgrimage to Jerusalem (pre–First

War and diplomacy in west Med.

Curiosities / Culture / Rhetoric

before chronicle’s completion).

Trade and trade goods

(Crusades/Byzantium)

Historic (over 100 yrs

(France/Italy/Sicily)
(Spain, Balearics)

Crusade)
Annales of Saint 17% 70% 3% 3% 7% 1. An account of Louis II’s Annales de
Bertin (5) (21) (1) (1) (2) campaign against the Saracens Saint-Bertin,
(multiple authors of Bari. pp. 4, 24, 43, 46,
including 2. An account of the capture of 49–68, 73, 104,
Prudentius and Roland, archbishop of Arles. 114, 124, 126,
153, 164–165.
Hincmar of
Reims; covers the
period up to 882)
Annales of Fulda 4% 17% 17% 62% ‘Annales
(uncertain (1) (4) (4) (15) Fuldenses’,
authorship – MGHS, ed. G.
covers events up to Pertz, vol. 1
the early tenth (Hanover, 1826),
century) pp. 337–415.
Flodoard of Reims 100% Les Annales de
(Annales) (10) Flodoard, ed. P.
d. 966 Lauer (Paris,
1905), pp. 5, 19,
44–45, 47, 57,
74, 65, 79.
The chronicle of 5.5% 11% 5.5% 78% 1. An account of Louis II’s Regino of Prum,
Regino of Prüm (1) (2) (1) (14) campaign against Muslim ‘ Chronicon’,
(d. 915) forces in Italy. pp. 30, 31, 32,
(chronicle 36, 52, 60, 61,
completed in 63, 66, 70, 93.
c. 908)
Richer of St Rémi 100% Richer of
(writing 991–998) (1) Saint-Rémi,
Histories, vol. 2,
p. 224.
(cont.)
Table 4 (cont.)
Among these, sections of over 100
words in length discussing topics
Passages/sections discussing directly connected to Muslims or
Details of work Muslims / Muslim world in narrative sources the Islamic world. Reference
Muslims mentioned in the context of
War and diplomacy in Central Med.

War and diplomacy in eastern Med.

pilgrimage to Jerusalem (pre–First

War and diplomacy in west Med.

Curiosities / Culture / Rhetoric

before chronicle’s completion).

Trade and trade goods

(Crusades/Byzantium)

Historic (over 100 yrs

(France/Italy/Sicily)
(Spain, Balearics)

Crusade)
Liudprand of 70% 30% 1. Account of the construction of Liudprand of
Cremona (7) (3) La Garde Freinet in Provence. Cremona,
2. Account of ongoing raids ‘Antapodosis’,
against Italy and Provence pp. 6–7, 53–57,
3. Several further accounts of 77–78, 80,
ongoing attacks by/against the 97–98, 128, 129,
garrison of La Garde Freinet 131, 132.
Thietmar of 50% 25% 25% 1. Account of Otto II’s defeat by Thietmar of
Merseburg (2) (1) (1) the Fatimids in 982. Merseburg,
(Historia) written 2. Account of a Muslim attack on ‘Chronicon’, pp.
c. 1012–1018 Luni in 1016. 70, 96, 122, 126
Ralph Glaber 50% 25% 25% 1. An account of the captivity and RG, pp. 18–22,
(d. c. 1046) (4) (2) (2) ransom of Mayol, abbot of 32, 80–85,
Cluny. 132–136,
2. A description of a raid from 206–208.
al-Andalus to Italy in c. 900.
3. There are two lengthy accounts
of the ongoing wars in Iberia in
the early eleventh century
4. A story describing how the
souls of Christian warriors
fallen in battle in Iberia
celebrated mass in the church
of St Maurice.
5. A report of the destruction of
the Holy Sepulchre
6. An account of the pilgrimage
of Ulric, bishop of Orleans to
Jerusalem and an incident that
occurred during the Holy Fire
ceremony.
Ademar of 11% 4% 4% 81% 1. Several reasonably lengthy Ademar of
Chabannes (3) (1) (1) (21) accounts of wars between the Chabannes,
(d. 1034) Franks and Iberian Muslim ‘Chronicon’,
polities during the eighth-ninth pp. 63, 65–66,
centuries. 84, 95, 96, 97,
2. Account of Charlemagne’s 99, 103, 105,
reception of the envoys of 107, 108, 109,
Harun al-Rashid. 114, 116, 120,
3. The depredations of the Caliph 127–130, 144,
al-Hakim against Christians of 159, 166–168,
the Near East and the 174, 189.
destruction of the Holy
Sepulchre.
(cont.)
Table 4 (cont.)
Among these, sections of over 100
words in length discussing topics
Passages/sections discussing directly connected to Muslims or
Details of work Muslims / Muslim world in narrative sources the Islamic world. Reference
Muslims mentioned in the context of
War and diplomacy in Central Med.

War and diplomacy in eastern Med.

pilgrimage to Jerusalem (pre–First

War and diplomacy in west Med.

Curiosities / Culture / Rhetoric

before chronicle’s completion).

Trade and trade goods

(Crusades/Byzantium)

Historic (over 100 yrs

(France/Italy/Sicily)
(Spain, Balearics)

Crusade)
4. Attack on the town of
Narbonne in c. 1018.
5. Account of the deeds of Roger
of Tosny in warfare against
Iberian Muslims.
Hugh of Flavigny 8.3% 75% 8.3% 8.3% 1. An account of the early life of ‘Chronicon
(writing at the (1) (9) (1) (1) Mohammed and the rise of Hugonis
start of the twelfth Islam. monachi
century) 2. A report of the pilgrimage Virdunensis et
made by Abbot Richard of St Divionensis’,
Vanne to the Holy Land in pp. 323–325,
1026–1027. 339, 342, 351,
359, 394–395,
464, 481.
William of Poitiers 50% 25% 25% William of
(late eleventh (2) (1) (1) Poitiers, Gesta
century) Guillelmi, ed.
R.H.C. Davis
and M. Chibnall,
OMT (Oxford:
Clarendon Press,
1998), pp. 96,
156, 174, 176,
452–453
Adam of Bremen 50% 50% Adam of
(late eleventh (1) (1) Bremen, ‘Gesta
century) Hammaburgen-
sis Ecclesiae
Pontificum’,
pp. 82, 225.
Sigebert of 12% 88% 1. An account of Mohammed’s Sigebert of
Gembloux (7) (50) life Gembloux,
(d. c. 1112) 2. An account of the First ‘Chronica’,
Crusade pp. 311–367
William of 11% 44% 39% 6% 1. A legendary account of the life WM, vol. 1, pp.
Malmesbury (2) (8) (7) (1) of one Gerbert of Aurillac 100, 114, 134,
Gesta regum (later Pope Sylvester II), 218, 280–282,
Anglorum describing his education in 308, 338–340,
(completed Islamic Iberia. 365, 380,
c.1135) 2. An explanation of the 410–412, 438,
difference between paganism 466, 476, 480,
and the ‘Saracen’ religion 484, 592–704.
(cont.)
Table 4 (cont.)
Among these, sections of over 100
words in length discussing topics
Passages/sections discussing directly connected to Muslims or
Details of work Muslims / Muslim world in narrative sources the Islamic world. Reference
Muslims mentioned in the context of
War and diplomacy in Central Med.

War and diplomacy in eastern Med.

pilgrimage to Jerusalem (pre–First

War and diplomacy in west Med.

Curiosities / Culture / Rhetoric

before chronicle’s completion).

Trade and trade goods

(Crusades/Byzantium)

Historic (over 100 yrs

(France/Italy/Sicily)
(Spain, Balearics)

Crusade)
3. A description of King Edward
IV’s prophecies including
future wars between Christians
and ‘pagans’. This is followed
by a brief account of the
Turkish attacks on Byzantium.
4. Fulk of Anjou’s pilgrimage to
Jerusalem.
5. Edgar the Atheling’s activities
in the Holy Land
6. A lengthy account of the First
Crusade and the foundation of
the Latin East
Abbot Suger of St 20% 60% 20% Suger, Vie de
Denis (1) (3) (1) Louis VI, pp. 44,
48, 142, 202,
222.
Gesta Stephani 1. This work provides a brief Gesta Stephani,
(mid twelfth 100% account of the Second ed. K. Potter,
century) (2) Crusade. intro. R. H. C.
Davis, OMT
Texts (Oxford:
Clarendon Press,
1976), pp. 178,
192.
Otto of Freising 13% 62% 38% 1. Otto includes a copy of Otto of Freising,
(1) (5) (3) Quantum Praedecessores. ‘Gesta Friderici
2. Otto includes a copy of a letter I. Imperatoris‘,
sent by Bernard of Clairvaux pp. 9, 55–57, 61,
concerning the Second 81,119, 141,
Crusade 229, 285
3. There is a rather mysterious
account of a Saracen poisoner
seeking to murder Emperor
Frederick I
254 The Impact of the Crusade

in Christendom’s heartlands (north of the Pyrenees and away from the

embattled western Mediterranean coastline and Levant). It should be
stated from the outset however that there are many works which do not
mention them at all in any context, but they are too numerous to list
here. Table 4 captures instances where writers discussed contemporary
relations with Muslims as well as historic references and also moments
where Muslims were alluded to rhetorically for some purpose or other.
Drawing conclusions from this motley collection of sources is not an
exact science. They certainly do not resemble anything near a complete
data set. Still, some patterns begin to emerge. One important conclusion
is that ‘Saracens’ were only of marginal interest in almost every chronicle.
Hardly any author devoted a substantial proportion of their time to the
peoples or cultures of the Muslim world while in many cases the vast
majority of references are historic (typically dealing with the affairs of
the Carolingian era). If these historic references were removed, then
the list of references would be thin indeed. Naturally those chronicles
which include lengthy First Crusade narratives reference Turks and Arabs
frequently within their accounts of the campaign, but they too show
little more than a passing interest in their identity or culture and rarely
reference them in other contexts. Typically, contemporary Muslims are
mentioned perhaps half a dozen times and then only briefly as ‘walk-on’
roles in tales devoted to other subjects (i.e. ‘while the knight was away
fighting the ‘Saracens’, all these other things happened that I will now tell
you about . . . ’). Thus the evidence supplied by the chronicles reinforces
the conclusions already drawn from the letters: the Muslim world did
not attract a great deal of attention.
Even so whilst Muslims may only occasionally have caused ripples
across Christendom’s heartlands at any point during this period, attitudes
towards them did not remain unchanged. There is a clear perceptional
shift that took place during this period. In the earliest chronicles, the
overwhelming message communicated by authors about the ‘Saracens’
is one of continual – if distant – attack and danger. Works such as the
Annals of St Bertin, Annals of Fulda or Flodoard of Reim’s Annals provide
their readers essentially with a register of burning ports, raids, and forays
against pilgrims crossing the Alps. There is little sense that these assaults
posed an existential challenge to Christendom’s survival, and their tone
is bland and matter-of-fact, nonetheless their cumulative effect is to por-
tray Muslims as an ongoing threat to mainland Christendom’s frontiers.
Muslims are referenced only rarely in any other context (aside from a
few references to inter-civilisational diplomacy under the declining Car-
olingian Empire). Taken as a group, the cumulative impression given
by these authors is one of Christendom on the defensive. To describe
 ‘Saracens’ in Medieval Narratives Sources 255

Christendom as being under siege during the tenth century is to go too

far; nonetheless it was under attack on almost every quarter and many
societies may well have felt themselves to be living under permanent
threat of attack.
The early-eleventh-century chronicles propitiate many of these themes.
Certainly, there are references to Muslim raids and attacks. Thietmar of
Merseburg described Otto II’s failed attempt to block Fatimid incursions
on the Italian peninsula in 982 and he also discussed the later sack of
Luna in 1016. Ralph Glaber likewise drew attention to multiple raids and
attacks along the Mediterranean coastline. One rather striking character-
istic, both of these chronicles and their tenth-century predecessors, is that
they spend a great deal more time discussing Muslim attacks on Southern
France and Italy than they do on Iberia. The wars of the Spanish marches
are rarely mentioned; seemingly these were deemed to be a lesser con-
cern, or more likely the Spanish kingdoms were not as integrated into
western Christendom’s networks of communication (thus information
was harder to acquire) as its core countries.
There is, however, a new theme that begins to appear with greater
regularity during the eleventh century, which is pilgrimage to Jerusalem.
Allusions to pilgrim parties travelling to the Holy Land and their experi-
ences with the local Muslim authorities appear with far greater frequency
and Ralph Glaber famously offered an account of al-Hakim’s destruction
of the Holy Sepulchre in 1009. Thietmar likewise reports the departure of
pilgrim parties for the east. By the late eleventh century the general tone
of the chronicles has changed still further. There are far fewer references
to any kind of Islamic threat on any frontier, with only a few chronicles
(often Norman), such as William of Apulia’s Gesta Guillelmi mentioning
mercenaries fighting in defence Byzantium. Allusions to Muslim raids
or invasions in Iberia, France, or Italy tend to be solely historic, often
referencing the wars of Charlemagne. Moreover, these writers began to
include tales of Christendom taking the offensive against the Muslim
world. Herman of Reichenau, for example, mentions the Norman inva-
sions into southern Italy and Sicily.41 Another theme, which had always
been present, but which grows in volume at this time, is a sense of curios-
ity about – and at times admiration for – the peoples and topography of
the east. Returning to William of Poitiers, in a section of his work where
he praised the virtues of the Normans’ newly-conquered kingdom of
England, he compared its wealth to that of Arabia. Clearly Arabia pro-
vided him with a benchmark for wealthiness that he felt his readers would

41 Herman of Reichenau, ‘Chronicon’, MGHS, ed. G. Pertz, vol. 5 (Hanover, 1844),

p. 132.
256 The Impact of the Crusade

understand. Shortly afterwards, when praising William the Conqueror’s

liberality and his patronage of churches, he claimed that the buildings
constructed at this time would have impressed even the ‘Greeks or Arabs’;
evidently Greek and Arab workmanship set a recognisable standard for
William and his immediate circle.42 These brief references are important
because they underline a series of judgements concerning the Muslim
world. In this case he used the Arabs as an exemplar for wealth and high-
quality workmanship. References of this kind are not absent in earlier
works and the presentation of the ‘east’ as exceptionally wealthy had a
long pedigree; still their proliferation, particularly in highly contempora-
neous contexts (such as the earlier cases) are suggestive.
Moving into the twelfth century, these kinds of statements become
even more common. Otto of Freising expended little ink describing
the Genoese ventures against Muslim ports in al-Andalus, but on the
one occasion when he did so, his main interest seems to have been in
their exotic plunder which included many strange beasts such as: lions,
ostriches, and parrots.43 William of Malmesbury offers many ‘curios-
ity’ tales about ‘Saracen’ territory including stories of Islamic astrology,
Turkish physiology, and the topography of the east alongside his descrip-
tions of more military encounters. He also included a series of reports
about ‘strange’ animals and places. He described for example the effects
of a leopard bite, warning his readers that anyone so misfortunate as
to suffer such a misadventure would need to be on their guard against
the swarms of mice, who always attempt to urinate on people bitten by
leopards. His source for this story apparently claimed that one man –
who had suffered just such a leopard bite – had been forced to take to
sea to avoid these mice, but even there he had not been safe because the
mice had followed him out onto the water by sailing on hollowed-out
pomegranate rinds.44 Incidentally, medieval authors clearly found such
tales to be of interest, but they should not necessarily be ascribed to
the authors’ over-active imagination, or even to the garbled repetition of
‘strange news from far away’. In the case of the earlier tale, William of
Malmesbury was absolutely correct that it was received wisdom in the
Near East that mice seek to urinate in wounds caused by leopard bites;
Usama ibn Munqidh reported the same phenomenon. Thus, this tale at
least was anchored ultimately upon eastern sources.45
Cumulatively, these references depict a civilisation whose relations
with its Muslim neighbours were no longer characterised solely by fear
42 William of Poitiers, Gesta Guillelmi, pp. 174, 176.
43 Otto of Freising, ‘Gesta Friderici I. Imperatoris’, p. 119.
44 WM, vol. 1, p. 524.
45 Usama Ibn Munqidh, The book of contemplation, p. 124.
 ‘Saracens’ in Medieval Narratives Sources 257

60
The First
Crusade
50
References to
40 Muslims in
Henry of
Huntingdon's
30
Historia
Anglorum
20

Historic
10 The Second
references
Crusade
0
7th 8th 9th 10th 11th First 12th
Century Century Century Century Century Crusade Century

Figure 1. References to Muslims in Henry of Huntingdon’s Historia Anglorum

(whether proximate for frontier societies or distant for communities in

Christendom’s heartlands). This was, after all, the crucial century where
the tides of war began to run against a deeply divided Muslim world and
in favour of an increasingly powerful Christendom. In this new environ-
ment, the chronicles reflect a wider range of cross-cultural experiences.
They still convey a sense of danger and peril but these are mixed with
interactions that speak of new prospects, admiration, and emulation.
Almost all border regions by this stage were militarily contestable by
Christian frontier societies and, for the adventurous, they represented
a zone of considerable opportunity. Seemingly the defensiveness of the
earlier period was allowed to slowly ebb away to be replaced with a more
open-eyed opportunistic approach (even if the memory of former suffer-
ing was retained).46 Again, this position seems to have filtered back into
Christendom’s heartlands to be included in the works written by authors
far from the frontier.
The First Crusade was both a product of these great political and
sociological forces, and also a vital driver in their future trajectory. For
some writers it is almost the only event in their entire chronicle which
discusses the Muslim world in any context. Henry of Huntingdon, for
example, offers a lengthy description of the crusade. He shows some
interest in ‘Saracens’ within this crusade narrative, but his interest is
not maintained. Describing events, both before and after the crusade,
Muslims are hardly referenced (see Figure 1 above). They appear briefly

46 Daniel, The Arabs and mediaeval Europe, p. 55.

258 The Impact of the Crusade

in a short account of the Second Crusade and there are few historic
references, but that is all.
It is almost as though the crusade and its battles against the Turks
seem for a brief instant to have caused Henry to put down his tools,
look up from his private concerns, and stare wonderingly towards the
east. Yet, his contemplation of the great events that were shaping his
world was not sustained and the nagging demands of local concerns
and responsibilities swiftly reasserted themselves. This pattern can be
found in many chronicles where the crusade appears as a magnificent
anomaly; suddenly and briefly intruding the distant wars of the east into
an account that is otherwise concerned with neighbouring elite networks
dominated by fractious noble families and ecclesiastical squabbles. It is
quite possible that the way in which the crusade was reported (along
with its stories about the Muslim world) reflects the lived experience of
many contemporaries across Christendom’s core territories. For many,
this event may have been the only occasion in their entire life when
the affairs of the Muslim world impinged meaningfully into their daily
existence.
A similar pattern can be found in many chronicles, even those written
by authors at the summit of the social pyramid. In his own way, Abbot
Suger’s (d. 1151) Vie de Louis VI le Gros mirrors this trend. He wrote his
history of Louis VI’s reign (1108–1137) at a time when many Frankish
nobles were setting out on the road to Jerusalem, while the Latins of
the east were engaged in the process of building and defending viable
states amidst the chaos of the post-crusade Levant. Nevertheless, despite
Suger’s considerable eminence, his chronicle reflects little interest in any
of these distant affairs. He mentions Muslims briefly at only five points
in his work. The first is rhetorical and has been discussed earlier. The
second simply describes why the coastal settlement of Maguelonne (near
Montpellier) had originally been fortified to ward off ‘Saracen’ raiders.
The remaining three – all brief – concern the First Crusade and its
immediate aftermath. Near the beginning of his chronicle Suger shows
how Bohemond had won glory for himself in the east and was renowned
among the ‘Saracens’, who praised his deeds. Immediately afterwards he
shows how Bohemond’s union with Constance, sister of Louis VI, caused
fear among the Saracens because of the great valour of the Frankish
people. Finally he mentions briefly how Robert II of Flanders had become
famous among the ‘Saracens’ during the First Crusade.47 If the way in
which he writes about Muslims in any way reflects his own attitudes then
it seems that they primarily impinged upon Suger’s thought world in the

47 Suger, Vie de Louis VI, pp. 44, 48, 142, 202, 222.
 ‘Saracens’ in Medieval Narratives Sources 259

context of the First Crusade and its immediate aftermath and, even then,
only in-so-far as they provided opportunities for Western nobles to win
renown.
Admittedly, this approach is not universal. For some chroniclers, the
First Crusade (and consequently its interactions with the Muslim world)
is not simply treated as an extraordinary one-off event. A handful of
chroniclers show some interest in the establishment of the Latin East and
its wars. The most outspoken example here is Orderic Vitalis, who was
writing in Normandy in the first half of the twelfth century. He seems to
have been fascinated by the First Crusade and to have gathered as much
information as possible about the subsequent affairs of the Levantine
region. He dwells at length on the campaign and includes a large number
of colourful tales about the political world of the Near East (so many
that he has not been included in Table 4). His work however reflects
the enormous gap of time, space, topography and experience between
Normandy and the eastern Mediterranean. Despite a few moments of
rather remarkable accuracy, his stories about the principality of Antioch
and Northern Syria at times bear a closer resemblance to the chansons de
geste than to the work of a monastic historiography. They are populated
with beautiful Saracen maidens, tyrannous Turkish rulers, and noble
Christian warriors. There are imprisonments, battles, plucky escapes,
romances, fabulous wealth, and all manner of knightly escapades. In
short, his chronicle, which in most other areas represents the serious
work of a dedicated monastic historian, depicts a Latin East of knightly
dreams; a place of adventure, far removed from everyday life.48
Orderic’s chronicle captures an important transition that is communi-
cated clearly through many chronicles written at this time. In the decades
before the crusade, the Muslim world impinged upon western Christen-
dom’s core countries as a proximate – if declining – military threat to
its shores (Iberia does not seem to have caused nearly the same level
of concern). During and after the crusade however, Christendom’s gaze
was drawn dramatically eastwards (this pattern is confirmed by Table 4).
It was widely understood that there was conflict with the ‘Saracens’ in
the Latin East, but these wars were now far removed indeed, taking place
in lands that lay on the frontiers of knowledge. As Chibnall observed
in her work on Orderic Vitalis, ‘the Saracens in the Holy Land were
distant peoples, who to most men and women in western Europe inhab-
ited a world of fantasy’.49 In this way, the crusade seems to have had
48 For discussion see: F. Warren, ‘The enamoured Moslem princess in Orderic Vital and
the French epic’, Publications of the Modern Language Association of America (1914),
pp. 341–358.
49 Chibnall, The world of Orderic Vitalis, p. 151.
260 The Impact of the Crusade

the effect of bringing about a dramatic geo-perceptional shift in Chris-

tendom’s attitudes towards Islam; where previously ‘Saracens’ had been
generally described as neighbouring maritime marauders, now the inter-
civilisational relationship was typified by the distant – but vital – struggle
for Jerusalem.

The Holy Land under Christian Control

For the most part then, the chroniclers depict western European societies
that, even after the crusade, could still pass from one year to the next
with scarcely a thought about contemporary dealings with the ‘Saracens’.
Even so, the passing of the First Crusade played a greater role in shaping
Europe’s relationship with Islam than merely creating a new, but distant,
frontier zone. After all, Jerusalem lay within these newly conquered lands
and the holy city was a matter of acute concern. This section will consider
how possession of Jerusalem recast Christendom’s wider relationship
with the Muslim world.
Reviewing the general history of the world’s civilisations, there is a
discernable tendency for societies to locate their most precious shrines
at the very heart of their territory; in the safest possible location. The
central position of such sacred spaces is often a natural consequence of
the fact that they mark the point of origin for the subsequent expansion
or flourishing of a people-group. Consequently it is only natural that
this sacred space will swiftly find itself becoming incubated from hostile
neighbours by hundreds of miles of friendly territory. Mecca and Medina,
for example, lie so deep within Muslim territory that no non-Muslim
army has ever come even close to threatening them. The centre of the
Avar civilisation – its famous ‘ring’ – likewise lay at the heart of its
territory and it took a series of hard-won campaigns for Charlemagne to
threaten this vital site. Typically any invader even contemplating a strike
at such a location would have to fight their way through line after line
of fortification and/or pass through whole landscapes of hostile territory
even to get close. The reason for the elaborate care taken to safeguard
such places lies in the fact that they are so incalculably precious and
any threat to their survival will inevitably provoke an immediate and
overwhelming hostile reaction.
Jerusalem was and is such a sacred site but, from a western Christian
perspective, unlike the sacred sites of many other faiths and societies,
Christendom’s hold over the city after 1099 was precarious and so far
from being sheltered by whole landscapes of friendly territory, it lay
directly on the frontier. Thus, it may have been Christendom’s beating
heart, but it lacked the protective rib-cage that guarded the sacred sites
 The Holy Land under Christian Control 261

of other faiths. The kings of Jerusalem endeavoured almost immediately

to construct such a ribcage through the geographical expansion of the
kingdom, the construction of strongholds, and the repeated attempts
to seize any major invasion points, particularly Ascalon and Damascus.
Nevertheless, this should not obscure the fact that Christendom’s greatest
point of sensitivity – its soft spot – now lay within a few days march of
Turkish and Egyptian forces. In this way, the First Crusade created a
dangerous ‘pressure point’ lying on a contested frontier. As we have seen
the first crusaders do not seem to have been especially interested in Islam
and, concerning the Muslim inhabitants in the newly-formed Latin East,
Prawer’s statement probably still holds true that they ‘knew little and
wanted to know even less about the population they ruled’.50 Even so,
should the Muslims of the Near East come to pose a genuine threat to
Jerusalem itself then they could suddenly become very interesting indeed.
Certainly this pattern is borne out by many groups of sources. Shortly
after the capture of Jerusalem, the returning pilgrims and their fellows in
western Europe seem to have been content to resume their business and,
as the earlier analyses have demonstrated, there is little to suggest that the
affairs of the Muslim world were of any greater consequence to them than
before. Admittedly many more Christians may have set out for Jerusalem
now that the route was in Christian hands, but these pious travellers
appear to have been remarkably uninterested in the Muslim inhabitants
of the lands they were visiting. They scarcely mentioned them in their
accounts and on the rare occasion that they do appear it is normally only
because of they had previously caused damage to a holy site.51
Jerusalem remained, however a subject of sensitivity and when it was
seriously threatened, it had an immediately galvanising effect, causing
warriors who may never have had any dealings previously with the Mus-
lim world to shake themselves free from their daily affairs and risk their
lives and fortunes buttressing Jerusalem’s defences. Preachers wishing
to raise warriors for the east, clearly knew that this was an issue that
would provoke a significant reaction and when Bernard of Clairvaux
attempted to rally forces for the Second Crusade, following the fall of
Edessa (1144), in his Sermo mihi ad vos he did not mention Edessa but
focused his audience’s attention specifically on the impending threat now
posed to Jerusalem itself (even though, as Phillips points out, Jerusalem

50 Prawer, ‘The roots of medieval colonialism’, p. 33.

51 Scarfe Beckett has observed a similar trend in earlier accounts of Anglo-Saxon pilgrim-
ages to the east. She writes that such accounts ‘ignore the Saracens or present them as
irrelevant except where their actions impinge upon Christians’. (Scarfe Beckett, Anglo-
Saxon perceptions, p. 71).
262 The Impact of the Crusade

was c.450 miles south of Edessa).52 Strikingly the author of the Gesta
Stephani, in a brief account of the Second Crusade written shortly after
the event, also presented the perceived threat to Jerusalem as the main
stimulus for the campaign.53 The rulers of the Latin East were also aware
of the reaction that could be provoked by any threat to Jerusalem and,
when seeking aid from western Europe after a battlefield defeat, they were
generally careful to show in their letters how such a reverse imperilled
Christendom’s continued control of the city and the surrounding pilgrim
sites.54
A linked consideration which compounded Jerusalem’s spiritual sig-
nificance was the intense admiration felt across Christendom for the
first crusaders. They were presented as idealised exemplars of Chris-
tian knighthood and their legend persisted for centuries. The reverence
felt for warriors such as Godfrey or Bouillon, Bohemond of Taranto,
and Raymond of Toulouse did not serve merely to provide Christen-
dom with crusading role models, it also placed a permanent obligation
upon later generations to defend and extend the achievements of their
forefathers (i.e. Jerusalem). Thus any attack upon the holy city was not
merely a threat to Christendom’s sacred heartlands, it also challenged
Christendom’s elites to ask themselves whether they were prepared to
allow the city which their fathers had secured at such cost, to be con-
quered through their own indolence. Again this theme was repeatedly
drawn upon in papal propaganda and it formed a central component of
Eugenius III’s crusading bull Quantum Praedecessores (December 1145)
where he observed:

It will be seen as a great token of nobility and uprightness if those things acquired
by the efforts of your fathers are vigorously defended by you, their good sons.
But if, God forbid, it comes to pass differently, then the bravery of the fathers
will have proved diminished in the sons.55

In a sense the many noble-led expeditions to the east, along with the
big crusading campaigns, were not really concerned with the Turks or
Fatimids. Their objective was the security and retention of Jerusalem.
‘Saracens’ were only relevant to this objective in so far as they posed a
threat to these sites. Even so, the consistent threat posed by the Zangids
and Ayyubids to pilgrim sites under Frankish protection may well have

52 J. Phillips, The Second Crusade: Extending the frontiers of Christendom (New Haven, CT:
Yale University Press, 2007), p. 72.
53 Gesta Stephani, p. 192.
54 For a good sample of these letters see: Letters from the East: Crusaders, passim.
55 Translation from Phillips, The Second Crusade, p. 54 (see also pp. 53–54).
 The Holy Land under Christian Control 263

had the effect of drawing greater attention to Islam along the vector of
concern for the security of the Holy Land.
The military orders encapsulate this approach clearly. They were pre-
pared to: conduct diplomacy with Muslims, fight alongside Muslims,
employ Muslims in a variety of capacities including as warriors and doc-
tors. Muslims also worked their estates, received medical care in the
Hospital in Jerusalem, and were permitted to visit Muslim religious sites
which were under their control. A particularly striking piece of evidence
is the Hospitallers’ readiness seemingly to accommodate Muslim dietary
requirements in their hospital. Patients who were unwilling to eat pork
would be served with chicken, a clause which may indicate a sensitivity to
those who were prohibited from eating such meat.56 Moreover, as Riley-
Smith has shown, the military orders did not seek to demonise Turks or
Saracens in their letters of appeal. He has pointed out rather that these
letters were pragmatic in tone and rarely resorted to polemics.57 Still,
there is no doubt whatsoever that they were prepared to fight (often to
the last man) to protect Jerusalem and the Christian frontier. Again, it
seems that it was Jerusalem itself that defined their approach to neigh-
bouring Muslim rulers.58
A crude, if slightly bizarre, analogy that perhaps captures the crux of
western Christendom’s approach towards the Muslim polities threaten-
ing Jerusalem during the twelfth century can perhaps be seen in modern-
day attitudes towards African elephant hunters. On the whole, contem-
porary western Europeans scarcely think about elephant hunters and they
generally show little interest in them. Yet they care passionately about the
elephants they endanger. Elephants appear in children’s books, films, the
education system, and artwork, not to mention zoos which can be found
across Europe and which permanently remind visitors of the precarious
position of the species. Thus Europeans are born and raised to care pas-
sionately about elephants. We are aware that they are hunted, but the
hunters are liminal to our world view. Some among us might travel to
visit the elephants and, when we hear about the dangers of hunting, we
will shake our heads in disapproval, but generally take no further action.
A handful of Europeans will take matters into their own hands, either
through raising awareness in Europe, or by travelling to Africa in person,
56 S. Edgington, ‘Administrative regulations for the Hospital of St John in Jerusalem dating
from the 1180s’, Crusades 4 (2005), 29.
57 J. Riley-Smith, ‘The military orders and the east, 1149–1291’, Knighthoods of Christ:
essays on the history of the Crusades and the Knights Templar, presented to Malcolm Barber
(Aldershot: Ashgate, 2007), pp. 143, 147.
58 For more detailed discussion see: N. Morton, ‘Templar and Hospitaller attitudes
towards Islam in the Holy Land during the Twelfth and Thirteenth centuries: Some
historiographical reflections’, Levant 47:3 (2015), 316–327.
264 The Impact of the Crusade

and many more will make donations. But that will be all. Responsibility
for guarding the elephants will be left primarily with the local authorities.
Even so, if Europeans were to become sufficiently convinced that the
permanent extinction of all African elephants was imminent then it seems
likely that swift and decisive action would take place at governmental and
popular levels against the most proximate threat – the elephant hunters.
Muslims in the Holy Land in 1187 seem to have occupied a broadly
similar position. They were not deemed to be particularly important in
themselves; their significance lay in the threat they posed to Jerusalem.
Jerusalem itself was absolutely vital and a wide selection of ecclesiastical
and monastic orders stood as permanent reminders of its significance;
the military orders even built some of their chapels in a form that would
call to mind the architecture of the Holy Sepulchre. Nevertheless, aside
from the dedicated few who were prepared to set out for the east, the
defence of the holy sites was primarily left to local forces and western
Christendom’s magnates generally remained preoccupied with their own
affairs. They might send a few contingents of troops and almost certainly
donate financial aid (either to rulers of Jerusalem or to the military orders)
but that is all. Still, as the Second and Third Crusades demonstrate, if
they felt that the Holy Land was truly threatened, or worse still, if a
crusader state or major site (i.e. the holy city itself) had actually been
lost, then this neglected priority would suddenly jump to the top of their
agenda paper.
It might be added that if at some future point, European governments
should intervene decisively to save the elephants and then find themselves
bogged down in a long-term guerrilla war against the elephant hunters,
then the European public might end up hearing – and therefore thinking –
a great deal more about these hunters.
Consequently, the First Crusade (and the establishment of the Latin
East) does not seem to have provoked a greater interest or engagement
with Muslims, certainly no more than any other Christian/Islamic fron-
tier. During the bulk of the period under discussion here, the Muslim
world rarely posed an existential threat to the crusader states. Life and
diplomacy in the Latin East went on and western European rulers rarely
paused their own squabbles long enough to take a measured look at
their eastern cousins, who for the most part proved more-or-less capable
of defending themselves. Still, the latent potential for substantial west-
ern intervention was always there. To a European eye, the retention of
Jerusalem was an existential absolute. While the city and its protective
kingdom prospered (or at least limped along) then the defensive passion
that any serious challenge to Jerusalem could provoke remained dormant,
but the events of 1144–1149 – and still more the actual loss of the holy
city in 1187 – revealed the blast furnace of fury that could erupt very
 Crusading Fantasy 265

suddenly if Christendom’s elites grasped hold of the notion that a gen-

uine threat existed. In this way, the attitudes and level of interest shown in
the ‘Saracens’ in the Near East seem to have been broadly proportionate
to the level of threat they posed to the holy city. Should the threat level
become critical then the cobwebs surrounding this ‘red button’ in the
European mentality would be swept away and a deeply hostile reaction
provoked against the aggressor, whoever it may be.

Crusading Fantasy
The evidence thus far has tended towards the view that while Christen-
dom’s general stance towards the Muslim world was slowly opening and
evolving, the First Crusade did not play much of a role in stimulating
interest in ‘Saracens’, at least among elites in Christendom’s core coun-
tries. There is one other group of sources, however, which requires closer
scrutiny.
Through its conquest of much of the Levantine region, the First Cru-
sade established a new and incredibly exciting topography in the minds
of European Christians. This was a land populated by strange beasts,
miraculous birds, fabulous wealth, and the luxuries of the spice trade.
As Ansell, cantor of the Holy Sepulchre, pointed out in his letter to the
bishop and archdeacon of Paris in 1120: to the north of Jerusalem lay
the Iron Gates of the Caucuses, built by Alexander the Great to prevent
the invasions of Gog and Magog.59 Nearby flowed the rivers of Paradise,
whilst out to the east lay the lands of the Amazons. Moreover, this was
also the land of Christ, sanctified by the blood of His passion. Within this
spiritually-charged arena was an ongoing conflict between the defenders
of Jerusalem and the Turks, an enemy that was perceived to be both
noble and cruel. In short, this was a land of knightly dreams, a gift to the
writers of epic verse and knightly poetry. It may well be imagined how
the chansons and chronicles, which reported the adventures of crusaders
or pseudo-crusaders, would have electrified the imaginations of men-at-
arms living out the drudgery of garrison duty in damp Normandy or
pious footsoldiers confronting the moral tensions posed by their lord’s
depredations against a local monastery. This section will turn away from
the role of ‘Saracens’ in Christendom’s realpolitik, diplomacy and day-to-
day concerns and look instead at how the campaign repositioned them
in its fantasy worlds.

59 ‘Epistola Anselli Cantoris S. Sepulcri’, PL, vol. 162 (1899), cols. 729–732. For discus-
sion see: G. Bautier, ‘L’envoi de la relique de la Vraie Croix à Notre-Dame de Paris en
1120’, Bibliothèque de l’écoledes chartres 129 (1971), 387–397.
266 The Impact of the Crusade

The immense popularity and proliferation of the crusading chroni-

cles demonstrates the receptiveness of western Christians to epic tales
of war against Saracens and it seems likely that, for many, the recitation
of works such as Robert the Monk’s Historia Hierosolimitana would have
been their main source of news about the distant Turks. Of course the cru-
sading chronicles themselves, as we have seen, drew heavily upon themes
commonly found in chansons and epic verse, which offered adventurous
tales of warfare waged against Islam, generally during the Carolingian
period. In later years specifically crusading-themed chansons such as the
Les Chetifs, La Chanson d’Antioche, and La Chanson de Jerusalem emerged
to slake the contemporary thirst for crusading epics while even chansons
which were not concerned specifically with crusading show the imprint
of knowledge brought home by returning crusaders. To take one exam-
ple, the Chanson de Roland, which is concerned with Charlemagne’s wars
in Iberia, includes ‘Turks’ among the ranks of Christendom’s enemies.60
As shown earlier, the Turks were almost wholly unknown pre-crusade,
but very quickly came to Christendom’s attention in later years; a point
which suggests that the chanson was informed, at least in its post 1100
manifestations, by news brought home by crusaders. Other allusions to:
eastern trade goods, pepper, the Bedouin, silks, and gold similarly speak
of the burgeoning communications spreading in the wake of the crusade
across the Mediterranean.
Clearly the First Crusade reshaped the topography of Christendom’s
fantasy worlds and naturally the Turks or, more generally, ‘Saracens’
provided the requisite opponents against whom the epic heroes would
prove their valour. For these reasons therefore it is necessary to consider
whether the First Crusade and its legacy inspired greater interest in epic
tales of warfare fought against Muslims. Or, to restate the question: did
the First Crusade cause ‘Saracens’ to become the quintessential enemy in
the fantasy worlds created for the amusement of Christendom’s elites?
Caution is needed on this point. Clearly the campaign added new
foes (the Turks) to the existing armies of ‘pagandom’ deployed in such
epics and new Levantine battlefields were devised to backlight their
clashes with fictional Christian heroes. Still, popular interest in hear-
ing stories about Christian knights defeating Muslim armies far predates
the Council of Clermont. Admittedly we know very little about pre-
crusade chansons; this genre only really began to take a written form
during the twelfth century, still we know enough to be sure that such
songs were sung long before the crusade and that they too focused
their attention on combat with Islam. To take one example, the famous

60 SR, pp. 289, 308, 318, 326, 328, 330, 339, 343, 352, 363, 365, 375.
 Crusading Fantasy 267

Chanson de Roland in its earliest written form may post-date the crusade,
but a succinct narration of the story still exists in the Nota Emilianense
(1065–1075) suggesting that it had long been in circulation. Moreover,
there is a report that this same song was recited in the preparations
for the Battle of Hastings in 1066.61 Thus whilst later manifestations
of the chanson may have been influenced by crusading, its core ideas and
the centrality it accorded to the struggle with Islam were already firmly
established in Christendom’s cultural repertoire.
Without more evidence on the pre-1095 chansons it is impossible to
know exactly how much the crusade remoulded depictions of Muslims in
epic verse but, based on the available information, care is needed before
concluding that the crusaders dramatically introduced a new genre of
anti-Islamic epic verse. The song of Roland especially is often presented
as the embodiment of crusading ideology and yet with only brief glimpses
of its pre-1095 form it is very unclear how much it was influenced by ‘new’
crusading ideas. Moreover, the labelling of specific terminology found in
this and other chansons as ‘crusader-inspired’ raises many concerns. The
crusade did not generate a new pallet of polemical anti-Muslim language
and this present study has demonstrated that phrases such as ‘enemies
of Christ’ or the notion that the conquest of a Muslim city constituted a
spiritual cleansing can be found as far back as the Carolingian sources.
Thus the inclusion of such terms in the chansons is not admissible as proof
of a ‘crusader’ influence. Therefore it is necessary to be careful before
concluding that chansons were the product of a newly-created crusading
lexicon. Indeed it is possible that the reverse is true: that the mental-
ity manifested by the crusade chroniclers (both participants and later
authors) drew heavily upon existing norms found in orally-transmitted
epic verse (thus: the chansons shaped the crusade, rather than the crusade
shaping the chansons). After all, as we have seen, many of the structures
employed by crusaders – including participants – reflect patterns mani-
fested in chansons.
Another component in this equation is the fact that whilst there were
some chansons which were concerned with crusading (along with cru-
sading chronicles which exhibited some chanson-like qualities) the vast
majority of chansons written during the twelfth century continued to cen-
tre their attention upon Carolingian-era events set in Iberia, France, or
Italy. They deal with the sack of Rome or Charlemagne’s exploits south
of the Pyrenees, or the burning of Christian coastal cities. They look to
61 C. Jones, An introduction to the chansons de geste, New perspectives on medieval literature:
authors and traditions (Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 2014), pp. 5, 63, 143.
For the text of Nota Emilianense see: La Chanson de Roland: Texte original et traduction,
ed. G. Moignet (Paris: Bordas, 1969), pp. 293–294.
268 The Impact of the Crusade

the early-medieval period and the invasions of Islam along the south-
ern European coastland rather than the later events of the crusade and
twelfth-century Syria. Thus, the epicentre of the imagined historic con-
frontation between Christendom and Islam as manifested in the chansons
was Roncevalles, not Antioch or Jerusalem.
In this way, the crusade may have created a new and exciting arena
in which imagined Christian heroes could swing their imagined swords
against the shields of imagined ‘Saracen’ foes, but it is far from clear that
the crusade popularised the fictional depiction of Christian/Islamic war-
fare. We are hamstrung in this analysis by a lack of pre-crusade written
sources but those indictors which can be identified suggest that these
kinds of stories had been around for a long time and far pre-dated the
crusade. The mere fact that the First Crusade authors drew so heavily
upon paradigms reminiscent of the chansons implies that they – along
with their notions of warfare against the ‘Saracens’ – were already circu-
lating widely. The most likely scenario is that the crusade merely added
a few extra dimensions and some exciting stage-sets to an existing fic-
tional paradigm in which tales of Christian/Islamic warfare were already
foregrounded.
Perhaps the strongest conclusion here is also the most obvious: that
Muslims were important to the chanson genre – whether this importance
was a product of the crusade or not – and this alone is significant. As
shown earlier, in other sources, including pilgrim narratives, ecclesias-
tical letter collections, and chronicles, Muslims were referenced either
scarcely or never. The chansons by contrast provide a staple diet of Mus-
lim enemies. Some – it must be said – discuss unruly barons or Christian
traitors, but Muslims (and to a lesser extent Slavs – who are always shown
to be allied to Muslims) appear with routine consistency. This point tends
towards the conclusion that the popular idea of the ‘Saracen’ – insofar as
one existed at all in medieval Europe – was kept alive predominantly in
the realms of fantasy.

Conclusion
Overall, the First Crusade does not seem to have had the effect of con-
vulsing western Christendom into a more hostile stance towards Islam.
In most cases, Turks and Arabs remained as marginal to the chroni-
cles written by monastic authors in the decades following the crusade as
they had been in former years. Likewise, the letter collections written by
contemporaries demonstrate that the elites of this period were far more
concerned with spiritual matters and their dealings with neighbouring
Christian magnates than with the distant ‘Saracens’. A new frontier with
 Conclusion 269

Islam may have been created, but these wars lay in the distant east.
Meanwhile, the long-standing threat posed by Muslims in the Central
Mediterranean was in decline and only rarely did elites in Christen-
dom’s core countries have to confront raids against the Italian or French
coastline; military confrontations were now remote: either far beyond the
Pyrenees or in distant Jerusalem.62 Thus there was no dramatic escalation
in overall inter-civilisational conflict.
By extension, this pattern to some extent seems to be broadly mir-
rored on the Muslim side of the border. As we have seen already, some
Saljuq histories did not trouble even to mention the First Crusade or the
foundation of the Frankish states and even those which did often thought
that the First Crusade was simply a larger-than-usual Byzantine raid.63
The Byzantines had successfully taken the offensive previously, particu-
larly under Basil II, so a successful invasion from the north was hardly
unprecedented. These points should not obscure however the ongoing
and renewed tension surrounding possession of Jerusalem, brought about
in large part by the crusade, which always had the latent potential to break
into major inter-civilisational conflict.

62 B. Lewis, The Muslim discovery of Europe (London: W.W. Norton, 1982), p. 300.
63 Mecit, The Rum Seljuqs, p. 32; Hirschler, ‘The Jerusalem conquest’, 49–51. Although
when Alexius I wrote to the Egyptians in 1098 he would have disabused them at least
of this fact. Köhler, Alliances and treaties, p. 53. See also Christie, ‘Motivating listeners
in the Kitab al-Jihad’, 10.
 Concluding Remarks

It has been insightfully observed that medieval thinkers were incessant

model-builders, permanently preoccupied with understanding, defin-
ing, and labelling the structures – whether spiritual, administrative, or
hierarchical – that moulded both this life and the beyond.1 St Anselm
(d. 1109), like so many others, fits this definition exactly and in his
De Humanis Moribus he offered his readers a general model for western
Christendom as a whole. With broad brush strokes he represented it as
a beleaguered city, ruled by a great king, but beset upon all sides by
enemies. These foes lurked just outside the walls awaiting the foolhardy
whilst even within the ramparts there was always the danger that a sud-
den attack would break through the defences. At such times of crisis, a
few virtuous citizens would flee their homes and take refuge in the city’s
citadel, whilst the many sinful inhabitants would fall prey to the invaders.
In the citadel the survivors were entirely protected, although should they
leave its sanctuary then they would again be vulnerable.
Through this metaphor, Anselm offers a world view in which the city
of Christendom, ruled by God, is constantly beset by the Devil who
seeks every opportunity to attack the faithful. His evil machinations take
many forms. He corrupts the hearts of the faithful, whose only hope is to
seek the protection of the city’s spiritual defenders: the monks. He also
corrupts and perverts the minds of non-Christians (who are defenceless
against his demonic will), driving them before him in a cruel assault on
the city.2 Thus, Christendom is an existential battlefield in which the
contest between God and the Devil is played out with mankind’s only
hope being to cling to both God’s teaching and protection.
Anselm’s model was neither innovative nor original. He simply pro-
vided a workmanlike metaphor for a widely held view. The people of

1 Lewis, The discarded image, p. 11.

2 St Anselm, ‘De Humanis Moribus per Similitudines’, Memorials of St. Anselm, ed. R.
Southern and F. Schmitt, Auctores Britannici Medii Aevi I (London, 1969), pp. 66–67.
Interestingly Baldric of Bourgueil used a similar analogy, albeit briefly in his account of
the crusade, see: BB, p. 42.

270
 Concluding Remarks 271

Christendom had long known that they were in a permanent state of

war and, to this end, by the time of the First Crusade, they were mid-
way through one of the most ambitious armament campaigns in history.
Across the land, monasteries and churches sprang up like fortresses pop-
ulated by spiritual warriors ready to throw down the strongholds of the
Devil. A sustained industrial revolution in prayer spread across Europe,
stimulated and encouraged by contemporaries at every level of society,
eager to erect a spiritual shield against the darkness that assailed them.
Priests and churchmen worked to shepherd the faithful from the wolves
of sin, whilst reforming their own practices and purging themselves of –
among other things – the sins of clerical marriage, lay investiture,
and simony. The people themselves helped drive this effort, demand-
ing that their ecclesiastical shepherds live out the moral code which
they preached. This was medieval Christendom’s war and it took place
almost entirely on a spiritual plain. Outlining this wider battle is impor-
tant because it places contemporary attitudes towards non-Christians
(including ‘Saracens’) in a meaningful context.3 This was not a world
in which Christendom and Islam were locked in an existential conflict;
the main battle was fought primarily between God and the Devil. To a
contemporary Christian eye, Turks and Arabs were only ever marginal
to this struggle. They were distant peoples, simultaneously to be feared
and pitied; feared because they had limited means to resist the urgings
of demonic will that hurled them against Christendom’s ramparts; pitied
because their God-given humanity was deemed so deeply subverted that
they had only a slight chance of escaping the clutches of evil.
This model lies at the core of many crusading histories, both par-
ticipant narratives and later redactions. It draws together much of the
earlier discussion and establishes an additional layer of meaning to many
of the conclusions reached by modern historians. As has been shown, it
was fully understood that both Christians and Muslims shared a com-
mon humanity and as such they were both open to divine inspiration
and vulnerable to demonic activity. Contemporaries may have consid-
ered Muslims to be particularly susceptible to evil influence because they
lay outside the Christian fold, but the faithful themselves were hardly
immune and almost every hostile epithet flung against the Turks and
Arabs was also applied to fellow Christians. They knew their own weak-
ness and fallibility. In the chroniclers’ eyes, the Muslims may have been
hostile to the Church, but Guibert of Nogent was equally content to level

3 For interesting remarks on the crossover between reform and crusade see: Buc, Holy war,
pp. 98–105.
272 Concluding Remarks

this same accusation against King William Rufus of England.4 Muslims

may have been compared to aggressive or unclean beasts, but so too were
the crusaders.5 Turks were described gnashing their teeth like barbarians,
but so too were some crusaders (and also some heroes in chansons).6 The
Turks were often depicted as vulnerable to demonic suggestion, so were
some crusaders.7 In addition, sinfulness, theological error, cruelty, con-
signment to Hell, and straightforward bad behaviour are all amongst the
qualities applied by the chroniclers both to their co-religionists and their
Turkish and Arab enemies. Thus, the First Crusade was not simply a
contest between pure crusaders and the impure Turks. It was instead a
struggle in which fallen and sinful Christians sought to attain redemp-
tion and avert their own damnation through the quest for Jerusalem. In
pursuit of this goal they were required to fight against peoples who were
alienated from God in the hope that these foes might see the Christian
Truth manifested through in their actions. In short, the battlelines were
not painted as white vs. black, rather they were dark grey versus darker
grey. To a contemporary eye, at the outset of the campaign, both the
Christian knights fighting vendettas in the kingdom of France and the
Turks laying waste to Anatolia were headed for a common fate: perdition.
Through the crusade both parties, whether by manifesting the Christian
truth or observing it, had a chance to mend their ways and redeem
themselves.8
In this model, the crusaders’ ‘other’ was aspirational: God. Their pri-
mary war was against error, sin, and the Devil, not their worldly enemies.
The crusaders firmly believed that their campaign was a self-conscious,
self-sacrificing imitation of Christ (imitatio Christi).9 They knew that they
would suffer (like Him); serve their fellows (like Him); carry their cross
(like Him); and show their faith in God the Father (like Him). Jesus
was the fundamental point of reference against which they measured
their own actions and they often found themselves wanting. Within this
paradigm, the behaviour of their enemies – good or bad – was not espe-
cially important. Believing the Muslims to be bad did not mean that

4 Guibert of Nogent, ‘De Vita Sua’, col. 887.

5 BB, pp. 9, 50. Leclercq discusses at length the depiction of Muslims in an animalistic
way, both in the crusade chronicles and chansons: Leclercq, Portraits croisés, pp. 289–297.
Sweetenham notes this parallel: ‘Crusaders in a hall of mirrors’, p. 55.
6 BB, p. 50; RM, p. 42; RC, p. 110. 7 See for example: GN, pp. 323–327.
8 For recent discussion on the theme of redemption in the Old French Crusade Cycle see:
C. Sweetenham, ‘Count and the cannibals’, pp. 307–328.
9 Purkis, Crusading spirituality, passim. In a similar way Housley has described the First
crusade as a ‘Euro-centric’ venture in which the participants were far more preoccupied
with their own spirituality than their Muslim opponents. Housley, ‘The Crusades and
Islam’, 195–196; Bysted, Crusade indulgence, pp. 215–235.
 Concluding Remarks 273

their own actions compared any more favourably with Christ’s example.
Underlining the ‘perfidy’ of their enemies might indicate the scale of
the obstacles that the pilgrims were compelled to surmount during the
expedition, just as it might show the depths of sin from which their foes
would have to be drawn if they were to be saved; still such considerations
brought their own souls no closer to salvation. Ultimately, their enemy
was of only tangential importance to their assessment of their own char-
acter and their own salvation. Spiritually, they were hurdles to be crossed
on the road to Jerusalem. Militarily they were the enemy against whom
Christian knights would prove their valour. Still, such roles were liminal
when set against their primary objective: the imitation of Christ. The
paradigm of ‘othering’, at least in an earthly sense, does not work. Christ
was the only reference point that mattered.
When the crusaders’ chroniclers bothered to think about Turks or
Arabs at all, they interpreted them according to their intellectual appa-
ratus. Their frames of reference were not purpose-built for the crusade
or even for warfare with Islam but can be traced back to the Church
fathers, particularly Jerome, Orosius, and St Augustine, or even to the
pagan writers of the Classical period. These intellectual giants cast a
long shadow and their centuries-old approaches to topics such as non-
Christian peoples, non-Christian religions, the identity of the ‘Saracens’,
the geography of the east, define in part the crusaders’ own approaches.
After all, medieval writers en bloc were – to quote Lewis – ‘overwhelm-
ingly bookish’ and it was to these ancient tomes that medieval theologians
returned when seeking inspiration or answers.10 Even when these works
did not supply the chroniclers with explicit answers to their questions,
they still had unswerving faith that the resolution lay somewhere within
their pages; a conviction that led them to splice the Turks with latter-day
Parthians.
Nevertheless, the crusaders’ dependence on long-standing discourses,
inherited from antiquity, should not be construed as evidence for a
Saidian-type ‘Orientalist’ approach stretching from Troy to the twen-
tieth century in which the ‘east’ was approached with arrogant superior-
ity. Medieval European contemporaries, both crusaders and later com-
mentators, may have reverenced their classical forebears, but they did
not consider themselves to be their worthy successors. This self-effacing
view was all but universal and produced the trope by which medieval
chroniclers customarily opened their works by proclaiming their infe-
riority to the writers of old. They knew themselves to be living in a
fallen society situated on the margins of the world of antiquity that was

10 Lewis, The discarded image, p. 5.

274 Concluding Remarks

merely a shadow of Ancient Greece and Rome.11 Their cumulative effort

through the phenomena now described as the ‘Carolingian Renaissance’,
‘Ottonian Renaissance’, and ‘Twelfth Century Renaissance’ (perhaps we
should speak of a generic ‘medieval Renaissance?) was to restore some
glimmer of the imagined greatness of these former empires. Indeed, a
renewed flourishing of interest in the Church Fathers and ancient Rome
seems to have occurred whenever a princely court acquired sufficient
social and financial capital to patronise a band of writers, grammarians,
and theologians.
Consequently, neither they nor the crusaders viewed Islam with cul-
tural superciliousness.12 Chronicles and chansons are littered with refer-
ences to Cordoban leather, Valencian lances, eastern pepper, Arab archi-
tecture, and Muslim gold: all spoken of with considerable reverence.13
Assertions of European cultural/technological supremacy are conspicu-
ous by their absence. Consequently it might be appropriate to pose the
question that Tolan asked when reflecting on western Europeans’ aware-
ness that their lands lay on the outer margins of the known world: ‘should
we attribute their [medieval Christians’] worldview to a subaltern con-
sciousness rather than to a colonialist one?’14 Thus when the crusaders
crossed Christendom’s frontier into the lands which lay beyond they knew
themselves to be entering the realms which produced these much-coveted
luxuries. The contemporary admiration for the cultural achievements of
Islamic society, however, was spliced with an equally strong conviction
of their own spiritual superiority. In their eyes, Islam was at best an error.
The outworking of these twin divergent trajectories has been the work of
this study and explains in part how the crusaders could simultaneously
admire and deprecate the ‘Saracens’.
Drawing these points together, the model proposed in this work – the
basic frame of reference by which the first crusaders approached their
Turkish and Arab foes – is a composite structure. There are certain
features and moral/theological judgements that are common to all (or
almost all) the authors:
r The convertibility of the Turks and all non-Christians;
r The decidedly evil nature of the Turkish/Arab/‘Saracen’ religion;
r The Turks’ ethnic distinctiveness in comparison with the Arabs;

11 D. Tinsley, D., ‘Mapping the Muslims: images of Islam in middle high German literature
of the thirteenth century’, Contextualizing the Muslim other in medieval Christian discourse,
ed. J. Frakes (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2011), pp. 65–101.
12 For discussion see: Scarfe Beckett, Anglo-Saxon perceptions, p. 199.
13 Montgomery Watt, The influence of Islam, pp. 23–26.
14 Tolan, ‘Afterword’, p. 175. Said does himself briefly shows an awareness that medieval
Europeans may have been aware of the Islamic world’s cultural ascendency: Said,
Orientalism, p. 74.
 Concluding Remarks 275
r The non-Christian potentiality for virtue through natural law (but
equally their tendency towards vice);
r A pronounced lack of interest in the specific theology of the ‘Saracen’
religion;
r A deference towards the authority of the Church Fathers, the Bible,
and classical writers for guidance on approaches to non-Christians.
These features are constants in the sources produced by participants.
Nevertheless, whilst these conceptual landmarks are omnipresent, each
text displays variations in texture and emphasis. Some authors accept the
Turks’ potential for conversion full-heartedly; for others it is begrudged.
Some stress ethnic divisions among the ‘Saracens’; for others they are less
important. Some struggle with the concept of non-Christian virtue and
dwell on Saracen atrocities; others are more comfortable with such ideas.
Some are interested in the Turks’ history and background; most are not.
Some clearly spent a lot of time seeking guidance from eastern Christians
about the Turks; some did not. In the final analysis these textual variations
represent the merging of mainstream discourses with the perceptions,
interests, and lived experiences of individual writers drawn from very
different – if always Catholic Christian – backgrounds. The works they
produced reflect their authors’ character whilst simultaneously bearing
the unmistakable stamp of basic Catholic Christian theology.
The interpretive lenses described in these chronicles are not exclusive
to the First Crusade. As has been shown the crusaders’ ideas and beliefs
cast deep roots into long-standing Latin traditions. Many of the terms
and expressions they employed to describe the various non-Christian
people they encountered were long-standing tropes, identifiable in works
dating back to the Carolingian era (if not before). Likewise, these same
tropes continued to characterise works produced long after the crusade’s
conclusion. The crusaders’ proclivity for recognising ethnic differences
between their Islamic neighbours, for example, was sustained in many
later works concerning the crusader states.15 The distinctions drawn
between Muslim believers and their Islamic faith (believer/belief ) also
manifest themselves in subsequent histories including William of Tyre’s
famous Historia; a work incidentally which testifies to its author’s readi-
ness to appreciate virtues among non-Christians.16
These later authors – like their forebears on the First Crusade – also
drew heavily upon eastern Christian authorities. Byzantine and Armenian

15 See, for example: A. Murray, ‘Franks and indigenous communities in Palestine and
Syria (1099–1187): A hierarchical model of social interaction in the principalities of
Outremer’, East meets west in the Middle Ages and early modern times: Transcultural expe-
riences in the premodern world, ed. A. Classen (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2013), p. 298.
16 Morton, ‘William of Tyre’s attitude towards Islam’, pp. 13–24.
276 Concluding Remarks

influences especially would continue to shape the ideas, culture, and poli-
cies of Franks living in the east throughout this period and multitudinous
studies have drawn attention to this trend in the subsequent formation of
the kingdom of Jerusalem. They have underlined the guiding presence of
such influences in matters as diverse as: law-making, diplomatic culture,
architecture, art, coinage, church ornamentation, and the prestige items
and clothing worn by Frankish elites.17 Placed within this framework, the
First Crusade emerges – viewed in the longue-durée – simultaneously as a
continuator, compiler, and mediator of cultural traits; handing on west-
ern Christendom’s received wisdom, but not without leaving its mark;
agglomerating and passing on the wisdom of many other cultures, but
doing so according to its own interests and concerns (neither slavishly,
nor at random).
The mentalities manifested by the crusaders in their writings are com-
plex; every bit as sophisticated as modern thought-worlds and certainly
they cannot be reduced en bloc to any kind of simplistic notion of
Manichean binary opposition (us and them / good and evil). This work
proposes instead a model whereby – conceptually borrowing from Fou-
cault/Scott – the crusader approached his Turkish foe through a dispersed
constellation of conflicted priorities.18 Crusade texts, in so far as they
relate to non-Christians, are a bundle of competing imperatives: I must
convert my foe; I must defend my family/home/religion/co-religionists; I
must love my enemies; I must reach Jerusalem; I must accept that my
enemy is a human being; I want to kill my enemy for the atrocities he
has inflicted; I am a holy warrior and have a right to take the life of
non-Christians. The ultimate origin of these thoughts lies ultimately in
the disputed territory of the Christian soul. On one hand there is the
instinctive human desire to protect one’s own, to beat down interlopers,
even to kill and hate; on the other the injunction to follow Jesus by loving
strangers and enemies, teaching them the Christian message and recog-
nising that they are loved manifestations of God’s creation. The hybrids
17 B. Kedar, ‘On the origins of the earliest laws of Frankish Jerusalem: The canons of the
council of Nablus, 1120’, Speculum 74.2 (1999), 310–335; S. Salvadó, ‘Icons, crosses
and liturgical objects of Templar chapels in the crown of Aragon’, The debate on the trial
of the Templars (1307–1314), ed. J. Burgtorf, P. Crawford and H. Nicholson (Aldershot:
Ashgate, 2010), pp. 183–198; J. Folda, ‘Mounted warrior saints in crusader icons:
images of the knighthoods of Christ’, Knighthoods of Christ: Essays on the history of the
Crusades and the Knights Templar, presented to Malcolm Barber, ed. N. Housley (Aldershot:
Ashgate, 2007), pp. 87–107; K. Weitzmann, ‘Icon painting in the crusader kingdom’,
Dumbarton Oaks papers 20 (1966), 49–83; Folda, The art of the Crusaders, passim.
18 See: M. Foucault, The history of sexuality: Volume 1, an introduction, trans. R. Hur-
ley (London: Penguin, 1990); Joan W. Scott, ‘Gender: A useful category of historical
analysis’, The American historical review, 91.5 (1986), 1067.
 Concluding Remarks 277

formed by these two groups of influences, which are the classic features
of crusader spirituality (or indeed the spirituality of so many perpetrators
of Christian violence), are also perhaps what have made these wars so
fascinating for so many people across so many generations.
Changing ground slightly, the crusaders’ approach to their foes may
have been multi-faceted, but Turks and Arabs were also marginal to their
thought-worlds. The crusade’s target was Jerusalem. This is the over-
whelming conviction of all the sources: papal letters, crusade charters,
and the crusade chronicles. The crusaders arrived in the east knowing
that they would have to fight to reach the Holy Land and were prepared
to lend their assistance to the Byzantines in the opening phases of their
campaign in Asia Minor. Nevertheless, their loyalty to Alexius proved
disposable, whilst their commitment to Jerusalem was not. Battles with
Turks, like bad weather or illness, were considered to be the tests by which
the crusaders’ proved their faith. Thus this was hardly a Christian/Islamic
‘Clash of Civilizations’; this kind of association can be rejected on the
following grounds.19
From the crusaders’ perspective . . .
r The crusaders were not particularly interested in Islam and did not
know much about it;
r they tended to avoid their enemies in the latter stages of the campaign
and worked with local Muslim potentates when possible, even writing
to the rulers of Damascus and Aleppo stressing that they had no desire
to threaten their lands;
r their primary objective was Jerusalem, a target that the crusaders only
associated with Islam (the ‘Saracens’) in so far as the Fatimids pos-
sessed it at the time of their advance (and they tried hard to take
control by treaty – slaughter was never inevitable);
r their Turkish enemy was only partially Islamified, thus the commonly-
voiced Christian vs. Islamic binary is problematic;
r the crusaders drew clear lines between the various ethnic groups they
encountered (they did not treat ‘Muslims’/‘Saracens’ as an undifferen-
tiated group);
r the crusaders’ identity did not require the Turks/Muslims to serve as
its polar opposite, their eyes were focused on Christ;

19 For some thought-provoking reflections on the applicability of the term ‘Clash of Civi-
lizations’ to the crusades see: K. Jensen, ‘Cultural encounters and clash of civilizations:
Huntington and modern crusading histories’, Cultural encounters during the Crusades, ed.
K. Jensen, K. Salonen and H. Vogt (Odense: University Press of Southern Denmark,
2013), pp. 15–26. See also Asbridge ‘Knowing the enemy’, p. 17.
278 Concluding Remarks

From the Turkish/Arab/Muslim perspective . . .

r many Muslim commentators simply saw the crusade as yet another
Byzantine campaign from the north, of a kind that had been conducted
for centuries – hardly a new form of conflict;
r The conquest of Jerusalem was not initially perceived as a landmark
event in the relationship between Christianity and Islam, at least by
commentators writing in Arabic in the decades directly after 1099.20
r Ibn al-Athir thought the crusade might have been a Fatimid/Frankish
project (in which case the dividing lines were not Christian/Muslim).
r Many Islamic commentators were simply not interested in the cru-
saders and did not mention them in their histories.
In addition, there are many contextualising details which support this
interpretation; for example, the fact that Bohemond recruited his crusad-
ing forces from within an army that contained a large Muslim contingent
chaffs rawly against the notion that he was setting out on some kind of
anti-Islamic war.
If anything, the crusade was an odyssey: a campaign launched hun-
dreds of miles inside enemy territory, often avoiding confrontation where
possible, and seeking to take and hold a single city. It conformed neither
to military, economic, or political logic. The fact that its leaders bent
military, economic, and political logic sufficiently to achieve this goal is
perhaps their greatest achievement.
Even if the First Crusade did not constitute a ‘Clash of Civilizations’
between Christianity and Islam, there are grounds for claiming that a
rather different ‘Clash’ was taking place across the Near Eastern region at
this time. During the eleventh century the greater part of Southern Eura-
sia was in turmoil through the invasion of multiple Turkic peoples. India,
Persia, Iraq, Syria, the Jazira, Asia-Minor, Egypt, the Caucuses: all were
affected. The crusade in many ways was simply a collateral consequence
of this colossal Clash of Civilisations between the steppe peoples of Cen-
tral Asia and the settled peoples along their margins. The confrontation
of the ‘pastoral’ and the ‘agricultural’ – the pre-modern world’s great
faultline – was the ‘Clash’ of this era and it redefined the future trajec-
tory of many cultures. Of course in this historic struggle against nomadic
incursion, the Abbasid Caliphate and western Europe were emphatically
on the same side. The tendency among historians of the Crusades to dis-
cuss the titanic events which were reshaping the Eurasian world as simply
background information to the First Crusade vastly overestimates the
crusade’s importance in a global context, reflecting a tendency to view
world history through a European lens. It would be fairer to say that

20 Hirschler, ‘The Jerusalem conquest’, 38.

 Concluding Remarks 279

the crusade was a contextual detail of the Saljuq invasions, rather than
vice versa.
As we have seen, the First Crusade in-and-of-itself cannot be described
as a Christian versus Muslim ‘Clash of Civilizations’, but there is the
wider question of whether it caused one to come about in the longer term.
Certainly the crusade had lasting consequences for Christian/Islamic
relations and perhaps the most important of these lies in the domain of
memory. The First Crusade’s conquest of Jerusalem swiftly became an
iconic moment in the popular history of the relationship between both
civilisations. It was not the first ‘iconic moment’ of this kind. In the Euro-
pean tradition at least, the battle of Poitiers 732/3 qualifies for inclusion
in this category, as does the famous diplomatic exchange between Charle-
magne and Harun al-Rashid (although this event barely registered on the
Muslim side of the border).21 A case could also be made for the sacking
of St Peters in Rome by a Muslim fleet in 846, although the memory of
this event seems to have had less of an impact.
Even so, as an iconic moment within Christian/Islamic relations, the
First Crusade casts all these earlier events into the shade. It has had a pro-
found impact upon all parties that far exceeds issues like ‘what actually
happened?’ or ‘what were the crusaders/Turks trying to achieve?’ This
debate is closely meshed with a fundamental question underpinning this
work: Does the First Crusade represent a ‘Clash of Civilizations’ between
Christianity and Islam? Much of the contemporary evidence considered
earlier tends against such a characterisation and by now should require
little rehearsal. Nevertheless, in a narrow and anachronistic sense per-
haps the First Crusade can be described as such as ‘Clash’. This is not
to say that any of the major protagonists in the events that took place
between 1095 and 1099 felt that they were participating in anything
that we would recognise today as a ‘Clash of Civilizations’. Still, the
belief that the First Crusade was an event that instigated a prolonged,
hate-filled conflict between the leading proponents of two diametrically
opposed religions, both bent on the other’s degradation or destruction,
(i.e. a ‘Clash of Civilizations’) has been common currency in multiple
civilisations throughout the modern era (if not before). It has pervaded
these societies, affecting whole zones of lived existence and memory. It
has acquired a toxic life of its own, acting as a stimulus for action in
its own right. The serious historiographical and evidential objections to
such a characterisation based on the actual eleventh-century events are
irrelevant; the myth has overtaken the event and become a fact in its
own right. On these grounds, the First Crusade did instigate a ‘Clash of

21 Lewis, The Muslim discovery of Europe, p. 92.

280 Concluding Remarks

Civilizations’; not because such an event actually occurred at the time,

but because – centuries later – multiple societies have assumed that it
had – and then built their history and identities around that ‘fact’.22

22 For further discussion on this theme see: M. Hammad and E. Peters, ‘Islam and the
Crusades: A nine hundred-year-long grievance’, Seven myths of the Crusades, ed. A. J.
Andrea and A. Holt (Indianapolis, IN: Hackett Publishing Company), pp. 127–149.
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Risalah Publishing House, 1971).
 Index

Aachen, 133, 151 Alp Arslan, Turkish sultan, 24, 71, 93,
Abbo, monk of St-Germain-des-Prés, 36 114
Acre, 168 Amalfi, 32, 89, 108, 136, 149
Adam of Bremen, chronicler, 40, 45–46, Amatus of Montecassino, chronicler,
55, 129, 132, 171, 177, 251 104–105
Adela, countess of Blois, 242 Amazons, 125–126, 196, 229, 265
Adelaide of Salerno, 136 Anastasius Bibliothecarius, translator of
Adhemar, bishop of Le Puy and papal Theophanes’ Chronographia, 102,
legate on the First Crusade, 185, 210 200
Adhemar of Chabannes, chronicler, 249 Anatolia (see Asia Minor)
Adso, abbot of Montier-en-Der, author of Angers, 79, 94
De Ortu et Tempore Antichristi, 125, Ani, 92
223 Anna Comnena, Byzantine princess and
Ahmed ibn Marwan, commander of the writer, 20, 25, 87, 117, 176–177,
citadel of Antioch, 157, 161–165, 209
185–186 Annaba, 38
Al-Adil (Saladin’s brother), 53 Annals of St Bertin, 35
Al-Azimi, 71 Anselm of Canterbury, 241, 243, 270
Al-Hakim, Fatimid caliph, 33, 39, 255 Ansell, cantor of the Holy Sepulchre, 265
Al-Mansur, 40 Anselm of Ribemont, first crusader, 144
Al-Sulami, 188 Antioch, city and principality of, 96, 108,
Al-Wathiq, Abbasid caliph, 220 111, 126, 127, 137, 138, 140, 152,
Albara, 174, 179 157–165, 169, 173, 174, 198, 202,
Albert of Aachen, First Crusade 259, 268
chronicler, 25, 107, 113, 116, 120, Apamea, 63
124, 126, 128, 129, 138, 151, 156, Arabian Peninsula, 27
158–165, 167, 173, 176, 180, 182, Arabs, 18–19, 27, 188
199, 204 admiration in Western Christendom for
Alcuin of York, Charlemagne’s counsellor, their accomplishments, 256
153, 171 relations with the Turks, 67–69, 138,
Aleppo, 23, 72, 92, 96, 140, 164, 277 141–146, 187
Alexander II, pope, 50 crusaders attitudes towards, 135–149
Alexander III, pope, 143 relations with the crusaders, 165–174
Alexander the Great, 101, 102, 170, 219, terminology, 16–19
265 Aristakes, Armenian writer, 88, 116
Alexandria, 32 Armenians, 127, 137, 141, 147, 187, 201,
Alexius Comnenus, emperor of Byzantium, 205, 224
20, 74, 79, 85, 90, 98, 105, 108–109, Arnald, archbishop of Acerenza, 49
115, 118, 145, 146, 169 Arnulf of Lisieux, 242, 244
Alfonso III, king of Asturias, 39 Arqa, 141, 146, 167–168, 173
Alfonso VI, king of Castile-Leon, 40 Arsaces, first ruler of Parthia, 196
Ali ibn Munqidh, ruler of Shaizar, 167 Artze, 89

313
314 Index

Ascalon, 24, 148, 156, 168, 261 Bohemond I, First Crusade commander
Ascoli, 30 and prince of Antioch, 109, 116, 136,
Asia Minor/Anatolia, 66, 70–71, 72, 82, 137–138, 149, 228, 258, 262, 278
85–86, 88, 90–94, 104, 109, 114, Boniface of Mainz, 30, 43, 54
116, 118, 126, 133, 136, 137, 139, Bordeaux, 28
143, 272, 278 Bosporus, 111
Assassins, 19 Bretislav, duke of Bohemia, 129
Atsiz, Turcoman commander, 72, 148, 175 Bukhara, 68
St Augustine of Hippo, 44, 52, 131, 225, Byzantine Empire/Byzantines
273 Byzantine influence on the First
Auxerre, 37 Crusaders/writers in Western
Christendom, 19, 20, 82, 99,
Badr al-Din Mahmud, Mamluk historian, 103–104, 111, 116–117, 122–124,
100 131, 133, 134, 135, 147, 199, 205,
Badr al-Jamali, Fatimid vizier, 72 209, 213, 275
Baghdad, 38, 144 Byzantine responses to the Turkish
Balak ibn Bahram, Turkish commander, invasions of the eleventh century, 22,
92, 120, 138, 166, 205 70–72, 86–96, 97, 126
Baldric of Bourgueil, First Crusade descriptions offered by Byzantine
chronicler, 14, 22–23, 82, 91, 125, authors of the Turks/Arabs/Muslims,
186 25, 106, 114, 116–117, 122–124,
Balduk of Samosata, Turkish commander, 131, 134, 147, 187, 199, 205, 209,
120, 166 213, 222, 275
Baldwin of Boulogne, count of Edessa and early relations with the Muslim world,
later king of Jerusalem, 53, 112, 136, 28, 31, 38
138, 165, 166, 216 early relations with the Turks, 69–70
Baldwin of Bourcq, count of Edessa and employment of mercenaries, 38, 87, 99,
later king of Jerusalem, 198 104–105, 108–109
Baltic Sea, 37 influence on the Turks of Asia Minor,
Banu Ammar of Tripoli, 167–168 142
Banu Munqidh of Shaizar, 166 religious divisions and disagreements
Bar Hebraeus, 71, 93 with Rome, 75
Barcelona, 28, 30, 36, 40, 45, 181 role in provoking the First Crusade, 83,
Bari, 30, 31, 89, 108 86, 105–106, 108
Bartolf of Nangis, 196
Basques, 30 Caesar, son of the duke of Naples, 31
Battle of the Masts, 28 Caesarea, 169, 174
Bede, The Venerable, 5, 28, 171 Caffaro of Genoa, 183, 227
Bedouin, 72 Cairo, 32, 72, 145
Beirut, 168 Calabria, 31
Benzo of Alba, 171 Candia, 205
Bern of Reichenau, 241 Capernaum, 125, 216
Bernard the Frank, pilgrim, 29, 33 Carcassonne, 28
Bernard the Monk, 192 Caspian Sea, 37
St Bernard, abbot of Clairvaux, 52, Cassianus, church of, 92
242–243, 261 Central Asian Steppe, 2, 67, 68, 70, 97,
Bernold, monk of All Saints in 199
Schaffhausen, 79 Chaize-le-Vicomte, monastery, 80
Bertrand of Le Puy, first crusader and Chaldeans, medieval European depictions
priest, 173 of, 203–205
Bertrand of Scabrica, first crusader, 145 Chanson d’Antioche, 6, 60, 202, 209,
Bethsaida, 125 266
Black Sea, 37, 39 Chanson de Roland, 6, 30, 58, 266–267
Bohemond, Turkish convert to Chansons, 6, 7, 57–65, 155, 202, 209, 259,
Christianity, 111 265–268, 272
 Index 315

Charlemagne, Carolingian emperor, 30, Eugenius III, pope, 81

33, 45, 57, 62, 133, 155, 260, 267, Eulogius of Cordoba, 204, 225
279 Euphrates river, 126, 202
Charles Martel, 28 Eusebius of Caesarea, 43
Charleville poet, 196, 202, 227
Charroux, abbey of, 98, 181 Fakhr al-Mulk, ruler of Tripoli, 167–168
China, 2, 29, 32, 67 Fatimids 1, 17, 24, 31–33, 37, 40, 72, 73,
Chorazin, 125 118, 126, 140–147, 175, 178, 180,
St Christodoulos, 87 186, 204, 255, 277
Civitos, 111 warcraft, 117, 148
Clemence, countess of Flanders, 106 Field of Blood, battle of, 66
Clovis, king of the Franks, 154 Flodoard of Reims, writer, 247, 254
Constance, sister of Louis VI, 258 Froumund of Tegernsee, 241
Constantine VII Porphyrogenitus, Frutolf of Michelsberg, chronicler, 200,
Byzantine emperor, 104, 123 221
Constantinople, 28, 37, 70, 71, 98, Fulbert of Chartres, 240–241
104–105, 106, 111, 226 Fulcher of Chartres, First Crusade
Conza, 30 chronicler and chaplain to Baldwin of
Cordoba, 30 Boulogne, 20–21, 53, 82, 85, 112,
Cos, 88 113, 116, 119, 122–123, 126, 130,
Cosmas of Prague, dean of the cathedral 131, 152, 158, 173, 178, 180, 191,
church in Prague and chronicler, 129 198, 199, 203, 207, 229, 230, 232
Cyprus, 28 Fulk ‘Le Réchin’, count of Anjou, 79, 94

Daimbert, bishop of Pisa and patriarch of Galilee, sea of, 216

Jerusalem, 152, 176 Ganges river, 126
Damascus, 72, 92, 96, 127, 137, 139, 261, Garigliano, 31
277 Genoa/Genoese, 38, 244, 256
Dandanqan, battle of, 69 Geoffrey, lord of Marash, 205
Daniel, a Russian abbot and pilgrim, 216, Geoffrey of Malaterra, 46–47, 136
217 Geoffrey of Signes, 79
Danube, river, 99 Geoffrey of Vendôme, 242
David II, king of Georgia, 224 Gerbert of Reims, 241
Dog river, 139 German pilgrimage of 1064, 34
Dorylaeum, battle of, 113, 124, 137, 139, Gervase of Bazoches, count of Tiberias, 92
197, 202 Gesta Francorum, anonymously authored
Duqaq, Saljuq ruler of Damascus, 127, chronicle of the First Crusade, 99,
137 100–101, 112, 113, 118, 120, 121,
125, 128, 137, 138, 144, 148,
Eberhard, priest and first crusader, 169, 157–165, 167, 173, 176, 191–192,
221 195, 200, 208, 222, 229
Eberhard of Le Puiset, first crusader, 210 Ghars al-Ni’ma, writer from Baghdad, 147
Edessa, 23, 81, 138, 261–262 Ghaznavid empire, 68–69, 126
Egypt 27, 32, 33, 37, 73, 127, 143, Ghulams (referred to by the Franks as
145–146, 148, 170, 187, 196, 204, Agulani), 68, 114–115
231, 235, 236, 261, 269, (see also Gilbert Foliot, bishop of London, 242
‘Fatimids’) Gilo of Paris, chronicler, 193, 215
Ekkehard of Aura, author of Hierosolimita, Godfrey of Bouillon, first crusade
193, 194 commander and first ruler of
Elamites, listed by many First Crusade Jerusalem, 151, 156, 165, 166, 168,
authors as allies of the Turks, 181, 182, 192, 262
201–202, 229 Goibertus, monk of Marmoutier, 98
Ermoldus Nigellus, Carolingian writer, 36, Gouffier of Lastours, 228
45 Gratian, 51–52
Ethelbald, king of Mercia, 54 Gregory I, pope, 51–52, 194, 206, 225
316 Index

Gregory II, pope, 43 Ibn al-Qalanisi, senior Damascene official

Gregory VII, pope, 49, 55, 71, 81, 108, and writer, 127, 175
131, 171, 225, 239, 241, 244 Ibn Wasil, 122
Gregory, bishop of Tours, 154 Ibrahim ibn Ya’qub, 38
Guibert of Nogent, abbot of Ignatius of Antioch, 206
Nogent-sous-Coucy and First Ilghazi, Turkish ruler of Mardin, 92
Crusade chronicler, 82, 105, 109, India/Indians, 2, 29, 32, 89, 126, 199,
191, 195, 198, 207, 209–215, 227, 229, 278
230, 232 Isidore of Seville, 16, 54, 126, 190, 201,
Guillermus, Frankish monk, 87, 117 204
Gunther, bishop of Bamberg, 133 Ivo of Chartres, 241
Guy of Signes, first crusader, 79
Jabala, 167
Haifa, 174 Jacob of Edessa, 102, 219
Harun al-Rashid, caliph, 30, 62, 279 James of Vitry, bishop of Acre and cardinal
Hattin, battle of, 81 bishop of Tusculum, 5
Hecelo of Kinzweiler, first crusader, 151 Jana ad-Daulah, ruler of Homs, 167, 215
Henry IV, German emperor, 171, 241, 244 Jericho, 151
Henry of Huntingdon, 191, 196, 257–258 St Jerome, 15, 101, 164, 209, 235, 273
Heraclius, Byzantine Emperor, 70 Jerusalem, 1, 33, 34, 53, 72, 73–74, 79,
Herbert of Losinga, 240, 242 83–85, 105, 107, 111, 127, 130, 133,
Herluin, first crusader and interpreter, 161 141, 146, 149, 151, 159–160, 165,
Herman of Reichenau, 255 168, 188, 190, 227, 229, 258,
Hilarius, a Turkish warrior and temporary 260–265
convert to Christianity, 164 the 1099 massacre in Jerusalem,
Hildebert, bishop of Le Mans, 241 174–183
Holy Sepulchre, church of, 25, 33, 39, 91, Joanna, sister of King Richard I of
95–96, 182, 255 England, 53
Homs, 167, 169 John VIII, pope, 32, 50
Hospitallers, military order, 263 John X, pope, 31
Hrotsvit of Gandersheim, 171 John of Damascus, 212
Huesca, 82 John Doukas, Byzantine commander, 140
Hugeburc, abbess of Heidenheim, 32 John of Salisbury, 240, 242–243
Hugh of Bellafayre, first crusader, 145 John Skylitzes, a senior Byzantine official
Hugh Bonel, Frankish knight from and author, 70, 104, 122
Normandy, 112 St John the Theologian, monastery of, 87
Hugh of Flavigny, 250 John of Würzburg, pilgrim, 131
Hugh of Fleury, 222 Jordanes, author of Getica, 195, 196
Hugh of St Victor, 100 Josephus, author of Antiquities, 219
Hungary, kingdom of, 32
Hungarians/Magyars, 29, 35, 37, 41, 70, Kamal al-Din, historian and diplomat, 87,
81, 103–104, 118, 122, 199, 220 140
Karbugha, Turkish commander and ruler
Iberian Peninsula, 28, 30, 39–40, 50, 187, of Mosul, 23–24, 114, 120, 121, 125,
236–237, 259 135, 137, 140, 144, 152, 157–165,
Ibn al-‘Arabi, Andalusian writer, 175 196, 204, 208, 223
Ibn al-Athir, Islamic historian and scholar Karbugha’s mother, 23–24, 157–165, 207,
based in Mosul, 24, 91–92, 114, 140, 222
176, 188, 236, 237, 278 Kay-Kusraw I, Turkish ruler of Rum, 143
Ibn al-Jawzi, 176 Khurasan, 24, 124
Ibn Fadlan, 143 Kurds, 69
Ibn Faqih al-Hamadhani, 92, 216
Ibn Jubayr, 4 La Garde Freinet, 31
Ibn Khaldun, 18 Lahore, 69
Ibn Khurradadhbih, 29 Lambert, bishop of Arras, 241
 Index 317

Landulphus Sagax, chronicler, 200 Nur ad-Din, Zangid ruler of Syria and
Lanfranc, archbishop of Canterbury, 239, Egypt, 4
240
Leo the Deacon, Byzantine author, 205 Omar, Turkish ruler of Azaz, 165, 166
Leon, 39–40 Orderic Vitalis, chronicler, 64, 92, 192,
Lisbon, 48, 55 204, 215, 228, 259
Liudprand of Cremona, author of Orkney Isles, 101
Antapodosis, 66, 103–104, 248 Orontes valley, 137, 229
Louis I ‘the pious’, Carolingian emperor, Orosius, 50, 51, 273
36, 181 Ostia, battle of, 31
Louis II, Carolingian emperor, 31 Otto, bishop of Freising, 253, 256
Louis IV ‘the child’ of East Francia, Otto II, emperor of Germany, 31, 40, 255
103 Oxus river, 67
Louis VI, king of France, 258
Louis of Toul, first crusader, 116 Paschal II, pope, 224
Luna, 171, 255 Paul Alvarus, 204
Lydda, 230 Peter Abelard, 54
Peter Bartholomew, first crusader, 152,
Ma’arra, 166, 174, 179 153, 173
Mabel of Bellême, countess, 112 Peter of Celle, 240, 242
Maguelonne, 258 St Peter Chrysologus, first metropolitan
Magyars (see Hungarians) bishop of Ravenna, 206
Mahdia, 38, 225 Peter Damien, 241
Mainz, 38 Peter Desiderius, 185
Malik-Shah, Turkish sultan, 23 Peter the Hermit, 107, 109, 111, 116, 119,
Manasses, archbishop of Reims, 144 139, 144, 149, 157–158, 161, 165
Mantes, 179 Peter of Picca, first crusader chaplain,
Manzikert, battle of, 71, 81, 104, 114 145
Maraclea, 167 Peter Tudebode, First Crusade chronicler,
Marmoutier, abbey of, 80, 98 66, 112, 121, 125, 129, 164, 199
St Martin of Chamars, priory of, 98 Peter the Venerable, abbot of Cluny, 5, 44,
Mas’ud, Ghaznavid sultan, 69 47, 188, 242–243
Matthew of Edessa, 87, 176–177, 201, Pisa, 32, 38–39
205, 219, 224 Pliny the Elder, 98
Maurice, author of the Strategikon, 70 Poitiers, battle of, 28, 279
Mawdud, Turkish ruler of Mosul, 121 Pomponius Mela, 98, 126
Mecca, 260 Pompeius-Trogus, author of Historiae
Medina, 260 Philippicae, 195–196
Meotic marshes, 101 Pseudo Methodius, author of the
Michael Attaleiates, senior Byzantine Apocalypse, 101–102, 125, 132, 217,
official and writer, 89, 106, 117, 219, 223
126 Pseudo Zachariah, 126
Michael Psellus, Byzantine courtier and Pyrenees, 28
writer, 106
Michael the Syrian, Jacobite Patriarch, 71, Qarakhanids, 68–69
92, 140, 176–177, 219 Qilij Arslan, Turkish ruler of Rum, 137,
Mongols, 208 139, 158, 161–165, 185, 200
Mount Latmus, 88 Qilij Arslan II, Turkish ruler of Rum, 143
Myra, 89, 108
Ralph of Caen, first crusade chronicler,
Narbonne, 28 116, 131, 191, 193, 198, 207, 208,
Nicaea, 71, 96, 111, 124, 145, 149, 165, 209, 210, 215, 227, 232
180 Ralph Glaber, 37, 46, 249, 255
Nicomedia, 90, 105, 117 Ramla, 168, 229
Nile, 34, 72, 202 Ramon Lull, 5
318 Index

Rather of Verona, 241 early conquests, 37, 67–73, 83–94,

Raymond of Aguilers, chaplain to 104–105, 107–110, 126–127, 175,
Raymond of Saint-Gilles, 112, 115, 178, 278–279
126, 133, 138, 139, 140, 141, 144, First Crusaders’ prior knowledge of,
147–148, 151, 152, 153, 156, 168, 97–110
171, 173, 174, 185, 187, 210, 221 First Crusaders’ reflections upon,
Raymond of Saint-Gilles, count of 111–183
Toulouse, count of Tripoli, 84, 112, links to astrology and the occult, 23–24
138, 151, 152, 153, 156, 167, 168, links to the Hungarians and Pechenegs,
181, 199, 262 70, 103–104, 122, 199
Regino of Prüm, abbot of Prüm, 118, 247 post-crusade attempts made by
Rhine river, 101 European scholars to identify/explain
Riccoldo of Montecroce, 5 their origins and culture, 190–226
Richard I, king of England, 53 physiology (in the eyes of medieval
Richard of St Vanne, pilgrim, 137 Christian authors), 214–215
Richer of St Rémi, 35, 247 presentation in First Crusade preaching,
Ridwan, Saljuq ruler of Aleppo, 24, 120, 73–96
143, 146, 165, 166 relations with Byzantium, 70
Robert, count of Apulia, 49 relations with the Arabs and Fatimids,
Robert, count of Normandy, 25 137–141
Robert I, count of Flanders, 105–106, 207 Second Turkish Kaghanate, 67
Robert II, count of Flanders, 95, 106, use of lupine imagery and symbols, 117
137–138, 258 warcraft, 20, 70, 113–120
Robert Guiscard, Norman conqueror of Samarkand, 124
Southern Italy, 108–109 Samanid dynasty, 68
Robert the Monk, abbot of St-Remi and Samosata, 166
First Crusade chronicler, 82, 91, 93, Santiago de Compostela, 40
105, 120, 125, 191, 192, 196–198, Sardinia, 38
202, 203, 204, 215, 222–225, 227, Sea of Azov, 98
231 Sergius IV, pope, 39
eschatological thought, 125–126 Shaizar, 166
Roger I of Calabria and Sicily, 46, 47 Shams ad-Dawla, son of Yaghi Siyan, 120
Roger Borsa, duke of Apulia, 136 Shihab al-Dawla Qutalmish, 24
Romanus IV Diogenes, Byzantine Sicily, 27, 30, 38, 46, 49, 74, 104, 187, 255
Emperor, 71, 87 Sigebert of Gembloux, 251
Rome, 30, 31, 267 Solinus, author of de Mirabilibus mundi,
Roncesvalles, battle of, 57, 268 126, 195
Roussel de Bailleul, Frankish mercenary Solomon ha-Kohen, 90
commander in Byzantine service, 104 Sororgia, 138
Saint-Gilles, abbey of, 84 Sri Lanka, 101
Saladin, Ayyubid sultan, 66, 81 Stephen, count of Blois, 80, 98, 146
Salerno, 32 Stilo, 31
Saljuq Turks/Turkish peoples, 1–2, 17, 22, Strobilos, 88
74 Suger, abbot of St Denis, 49, 253, 258
apocalyptic ideas advanced about them Suleiman ibn Qutalmish, 92
in Christian and Islamic thought, Suqman ibn Artuq, Turkish commander,
216–226 120, 127
Armenian, Syriac and Byzantine Symeon II, orthodox patriarch of
attitudes towards, 116, 122–126, 133 Jerusalem, 107
conversion of Islam, 2, 140–145
admiration for the Franks, 2 Tancred, prince of Galilee and regent of
depiction in chansons, 265–268 Antioch, 163, 198, 208
described as Persians, Parthians, Huns, Tangier, 28
Medes, 17, 20–21, 106, 122–123, Taranto, 29
195–200 Tarsus, 90
 Index 319

Tatikios, Byzantine commander, 90 Vallombrosa, 83

Templars, military order, 4, 53 Varangian Guard, 38, 99
Thietmar of Merseburg, chronicler, 171, Venice, 32, 39, 89
248, 255 Vikings, 22, 29, 35–36, 37, 40, 81, 99, 171
Thomas Becket, archbishop of Virgil, 21, 197, 216
Canterbury, 242–244
Thomas Bérard, Templar master, 208 Walter the Chancellor, Antiochene
Tibet, 68 chronicler, 66, 92, 198
Tigris river, 202 Wends, pagan tribe, 171, 235
Titus Livy, 170 William, archbishop of Tyre and historian
Toledo, 40, 74 of the kingdom of Jerusalem, 4, 66,
Tortosa, 33 130, 160, 230, 244
Tours, 28 William, count of Arles, 31
Transoxiana, 68 William I ‘the Conqueror’, king of
Tripoli, 167–168, 169, 221 England and duke of Normandy, 133,
Troy, 99 179, 183, 256
Tughril, Saljuq sultan, 24, 69, 143 William of Apulia, 71, 255
Tughtegin, ruler of Damascus, 92 William of Jumieges, author of the Gesta
Tunisia, 37 Normannorum Ducum, 183–184
Turks. See Saljuq Turks William Longsword, duke of Normandy,
Tyre, 72 184
William of Malmesbury, 192, 206, 214,
Uighurs, 67 227, 231, 235, 251, 256
Umayyad caliphate, 39, 40 William of Poitiers, chronicler, 251
Uppsala, pagan temple (possibly fictional) William of Rubruck, 126
in Sweden, 132, 177 William Rufus, king of England, 272
Urban II, pope, 22, 41, 67, 72, 75–96, William of Tripoli, 5
115, 121, 235 Willibald, bishop of Eichstätt, 33
Usama ibn Munqidh, 4, 52–53, 63, 172,
256 Yaghi Siyan, Turkish commander and
governor and Antioch, 120, 158
Valens, Roman emperor, 169
Valerius Flaccus, author of Argonautica, Zangi, turkish ruler of Syria, 23, 81
203 Zardana, 198