A History of the Crusades (17 page)

Since crusade songs frequently take the form of
sirventes
, both praise and criticism of individuals and of political events are common. Marcabru’s
Lavador
song urges the importance of the Spanish crusade rather than that to the East. The topic of the rival claims of the two enterprises recurs in Gavaudan’s song which appeals to the emperor, to Philip II of France and his nobles, and to Richard I of England to help Spain. Salvation depends on choosing the right way: ‘Jesus Christ, who preached to us so that our end might be a good one, shows us which is the right path’ (‘Senhor, per los nostres peccatz’, ll. 37–9). The ‘right path’ here is more than the usual Christian metaphor for the way to salvation: it is the path that leads to Spain.

Frequently poets urge barons or monarchs to take the cross, to set out, to do more than they have. Gaucelm Faidit, in ‘Tant sui ferms e fis vas Amor’ (1188/9), speaks of the shame that all must suffer

.… for the false race who do not believe in him are disinheriting him and insulting him in that place where he suffered and died. It behoves everyone to consider going there, and the princes all the more so since
they are highly placed, for there is not one who can claim to be faithful and obedient to him if he does not aid him in this enterprise.

To the count, my lord, I wish to say that, as he was the first to have the honour, let him take care that God should have reason to thank him, for the praises come with the going [itself]! (ll. 54–64)

The ‘count’ is probably Richard, as count of Poitou, one of the first to take the cross after the battle of Hattin. Virtually the entire career of Richard in connection with the crusade may be traced through troubadour songs. His own poem, ‘Ja nus om pris ne dira sa raison’, is not exactly a crusade song, but is written as from his prison in Vienna.

No man who is a prisoner can truly speak his mind except in sorrow; but to comfort himself he may write a song. I have plenty of friends but their gifts are poor; they will be shamed if, for the sake of my ransom, I remain a prisoner here for two winters.

It is no wonder that my heart is sad when my overlord oppresses my lands. If he were now mindful of our oath which we both swore together, I know for sure that already I would no longer be a prisoner here. (ll. 1–6, 19–24)

The overlord is Philip II of France who had taken advantage of Richard’s imprisonment to invade Normandy despite the oath which they had sworn in December 1190 to protect each other’s lands for the duration of the crusade. Richard’s death is lamented by Gaucelm Faidit and by Peirol; both have a poor opinion of certain other leaders: ‘England has but poor compensation for King Richard; and France with its flowers used to have a good king and good lords, and Spain had another good king, and likewise Montferrat had a good marquis, and the empire had an esteemed emperor; I do not know how those who are here now will behave’ (Peirol, ‘Pus flum Jordan’, ll. 15–21). Peirol was writing this in 1221 or 1222 but still felt that the monarchs of his time were far inferior to those involved in the Third Crusade.

The Albigensian Crusade produced an interesting situation for the poets. If, in the eastern crusades, God was the victim whose rightful lands and inheritance had been usurped by the Muslims, then for some of the troubadours, this position was
occupied by the count of Toulouse. If, in the songs associated with the
Reconquista
, the menacing foreign hordes were those of the Moors, for some poets of Languedoc the invaders were the French. In 1209, Raymond Roger Trencavel, viscount of Béziers, was rumoured to have been assassinated by order of Simon of Montfort. Guillem Augier Novella’s lament for him treats the French in much the same way as other crusade songs treat the Muslims: ‘They have killed him. Never did anyone witness so great an outrage, nor was so great a wrong ever done nor such a great departure from the will of God or Our Lord as the
renegade dogs
have committed, those of Pilate’s treacherous lineage, those who have killed him’ (‘Quascus plor e planh’, ll. 11–16). Guilhem Figueira, in his famous
sirventes
, first accuses Rome of having been responsible for the loss of Damietta because of the Pope’s ‘cowardly negotiations’, then of offering a false pardon to the French crusaders: ‘Rome, in truth I know, without a doubt, that with the fraud of a false pardon you delivered up the barons of France to torment far from Paradise, and, Rome, you killed the good king of France by luring him far away from Paris with your false preaching’ (‘D’un sirventes far’, ll. 36–42). The ‘false pardon’ and the ‘false preaching’ reflect Guilhem’s view that the expedition against the Cathars was no true crusade and could not attract the benefit of a plenary indulgence. Louis VIII died at Montpensier in 1226 from a disease contracted in Languedoc. Where conventional crusade songs identify the way to Paradise with the crusade, Guilhem makes clear that this expedition is a barrier to salvation: ‘Thus, in winter and in summer alike, a man who follows your path follows a bad guide, for the devil will carry him off into the fires of Hell’ (ibid., ll. 54–6).

Political allusions are rarer in French and German songs until we come to the works of Rutebeuf in the late thirteenth century. The new form which he used, the
dit
, much longer than the
trouvères
’ songs, gave him scope to speak his mind, to refer explicitly to events, persons, and attitudes, to rail against his favourite target, the mendicant orders, which he saw as diverting both the attention of Louis IX and much-needed finance from the crusade.

In summing up, then, we may say that crusade songs served several purposes. From the point of view of the poet-performer, they provided material for
sirventes
, a counterpoint to and a source of variations on the theme of courtly love, a range of allegories and structures of thought. From the point of view of the audience—for we must not forget that these songs were written to be performed—they presented, in a palatable way exclusive to their milieu, the doctrine, information, and propaganda that was otherwise delivered by preachers or diffused by clerks. At the same time, the songs reinforced the audience’s self-image and showed how the crusade itself could confirm their possession of the virtues of nobility, holding up models for them to emulate and to inspire their
esprit de corps
. But the songs could also express their worries and uncertainties if things went badly, their protests against injustice or against the mishandling of God’s enterprise.

JONATHAN PHILLIPS

THE
First Crusade established a Latin Christian presence on the eastern Mediterranean seaboard which lasted for almost 200 years. The expedition contained contingents from many areas of Europe, including Flanders, Normandy, Languedoc, and Lorraine. Notwithstanding their different origins, the crusaders who settled in the Levant were identified by the word ‘Franks’ by contemporary Muslims and Latins in the East. The capture of Cyprus in 1191 strengthened their community in the Levant and the island remained a Christian outpost long after the fall of the mainland settlements. Following the sack of Constantinople in 1204 the crusaders took control of most of the former Byzantine empire. The Greeks recovered much of their territory quite rapidly but Venetian Crete and the Latin principality of Achaea survived. Each of these western settlements had a distinctive identity. This chapter will examine their character and their impact on the conquered lands.

Between 1098 and 1109 the Franks carved out four settlements in the eastern Mediterranean region: the county of Edessa, the principality of Antioch, the kingdom of Jerusalem, and the county of Tripoli. It is a controversial issue whether these territories were an early example of western European colonialism.

Some historians believe that the concept of colonialism carries too many emotive associations to be useful when discussing the history of the crusades because it tends to evoke images based upon episodes such as the British settlement of North America or the Spanish invasion of the New World. They maintain that traditional definitions suggest that a colony is politically directed by, or economically exploited for the benefit of, a homeland, or subject to really large-scale migration. These do not fit the Latin settlements in the Levant before 1291.

Guibert of Nogent, writing in
c
.1108, described the Frankish settlers as ‘Holy Christendom’s new colonists’. The thirteenthcentury writer of
L’estoire de Eracles
, claimed, ‘When this land was conquered it was by no chief lord, but by a crusade and by the movement of pilgrims and assembled people.’ Conquest was undertaken to recover and assure the security of Christian control of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem, and therefore it may be worth putting forward the concept of religious colonization. The resulting ‘colony’ can be defined as territory captured and settled primarily for religious reasons, the inhabitants of which maintain close contact with their homeland principally on account of a shared faith, and their need for financial and military assistance.

After the capture of Jerusalem strategic and economic considerations dictated that the Franks’ main priority was to secure the coastal cities of the Levant. In 1101 Arsuf and Caesarea fell, in 1104 Haifa and Acre were taken, in 1110 Beirut and Sidon, and in 1124 Tyre. The only major port still to elude their control was Ascalon. This was particularly dangerous for the Franks because it acted as a base for the Egyptian fleet to raid the coast and it was the source of numerous incursions into the southern area of the kingdom of Jerusalem. King Fulk (1131–43) reduced the threat by constructing castles in the vicinity of Ascalon and this increased pressure on the city was the prelude to a successful siege in 1153. The establishment of Frankish authority over some inland regions was a slow process and the eastern spread of the Christian settlements was checked and sometimes countered by neighbouring Muslim powers; Antioch, for example, faced a series of attacks from the Seljuk
Turks between 1110 and 1115. The Franks had conquered parts of Cilicia during the First Crusade but their hold on the region was rarely secure; it was subject to Byzantine invasions, while the native Armenian princes also contested control and by the late 1130s had secured the upper hand over the Latins. Frankish expansion to the south and east of the Dead Sea was initiated by King Baldwin I and the lordship of Transjordan was established, based at the castle of al-Shaubak.

The settlers had conquered an area inhabited by a bewildering variety of races and creeds. There was a native Jewish population; Druzes; Zoroastrians; Christians such as Armenians, Maronites, Jacobites, and Nestorians, together with a sizeable Greek Orthodox community. There were also Muslims: both Sunni and Shi’i. Some Europeans were familiar with the eastern Mediterranean on account of pilgrimage and commerce but because the crusaders wanted to capture and settle the Holy Land the relationship between the Franks and the indigenous population was very different to that in any of their previous encounters.

An important element in the process of settlement was the Latins’ treatment of the native inhabitants. The early years of the conquest were marked by a series of massacres, probably as a result of a policy whereby sites of religious or strategic significance were to be reserved to Christians. But it soon became apparent that this was counterproductive. The Franks had taken control of a large area of land; certainly too much for them to occupy with their own people. After the capture of Jerusalem many of the crusaders returned home. A second wave of crusaders arrived in 1101 but again relatively few remained in the Latin East. Although a steady flow of westerners came to settle, it was obvious that the Franks lacked sufficient manpower to rebuild and defend urban communities. In consequence their approach to the local population changed. At Sidon in 1110 the Muslims negotiated the opportunity to remain on their land and to cultivate it for the benefit of the Franks. Further north, Prince Tancred of Antioch was so concerned that native labourers should stay on his lands that he arranged for the wives of local workers to return from Aleppo where they had
fled for safety. Such episodes did not mark a definitive turning point in the treatment of the indigenous population but it is evident that the Franks became aware of the need to form a
modus vivendi
with it. A growing sense of realism extended to relations between the Franks and their Muslim neighbours. Important activities such as trade could not take place without a high level of interaction between them and numerous truces were agreed because it was simply not possible to fight all the time. In some instances contact between Muslims and Christians developed further and on rare occasions there is evidence that close relationships formed. For example, Usamah ibn Munqidh, a contemporary Muslim commentator, was friendly with a group of Templars who protected him from harassment by an over-zealous westerner. This incident also demonstrates how the occasional crusader found it hard to understand the settlers’ ability to coexist with the Muslims at some times and to fight holy wars against them at others.

Because it was impractical for the Franks to drive out or persecute all those who did not observe the Latin rite, they adopted an attitude of relative tolerance towards other creeds, whether they were eastern Christian, Jewish, or Muslim. All were permitted to practise their faith, albeit under certain restrictions; for example, Muslims and Jews, who, as we shall see, had a status similar to Christians and Jews in Islamic states, could visit Jerusalem, but in theory were not allowed to reside in the holy city. Muslims and Jews formed the lowest level of society in the Latin East, at least when it was expressed in legal terms. Above them were the eastern Christians and at the top, the Catholic Franks. Of the native Christians, the monophysite Jacobites, Armenians, and Maronites (before 1181 when their Church joined with Rome) were allowed to preserve their religious autonomy, but in spite of being Christian their heretical beliefs meant that they were excluded from the precincts of the Holy Sepulchre. Religious differences notwithstanding, some intermarriage took place between them and the Franks, particularly in the county of Edessa where most of the population was Armenian. The native nobility were seen as worthy marriage partners for the westerners and the county became a
Frankish–Armenian enclave. Society in the rest of the Latin East was more polyglot and probably less integrated than in Edessa.