Like all great conflicts the First Crusade, in which the armies of Christendom conquered the Muslim held provinces of the Holy land in the late Eleventh century, had many long-term causes, social, religious and political. Combining as they did created the febrile atmosphere that led eventually to the outbreak of the crusading movement.
Islamic World’s Centuries Long Expansion into the Christian Sphere of Influence
The Christian world in the late ancient world was a globe-spanning conglomeration of disparate states and people. Christendom encompassed Europe, much of North Africa and the Middle East. Following the rapid rise of Islam this hegemony was whittled down to the European heartlands and Asia-Minor. The ever expanding tide of Islam was lapping everywhere at Christendom’s ever-fluid borders as the eleventh century drew to a close.
The tension between the two great religious and social power blocks is one of the primary long-term causes of what became the First Crusade. Islam and Christianity had developed a taste for armed conflict, with the primary battlegrounds being the Spanish peninsula and the borders of the Byzantine Empire. The Reconquista in Spain had been rumbling away for centuries, establishing a novel precedent for fighting Muslim enemies in Christ’s name.
Numerous historians see in the inexorable advance of Islam the theological justification for Holy War. Franks had been crossing the Pyrenees since time immemorial to assist their co-religionists in Spain. The taking of the fight to the enemy in the Middle East was, in the eyes of Steven Runciman, the next logical step. In many ways the geo-political tensions, dating back centuries, provided the major long-term cause of the First Crusade
Europe was Torn By War and Conflict
The centuries preceding the First Crusade had seen the inexorable rise of the castellan class, mounted knights inured to conflict, preying on the weak and strong alike. The collapse of the Carolingian Empire had led to a de-centralisation of power in Christendom’s heartlands, a power vacuum the rapacious nobility were only to hungry to fill.
The growth of The Peace of God movements in the century leading up to the First Crusade provides vivid evidence of a Europe ravaged by conflict and internecine war. Europe had seen the christianisation of a number of hitherto warlike pagan races over the preceding few centuries (Slavs, Vikings and Magyars among others); such warrior people tempered their respect for the cross with a love of rapine and violence. Europe, its borders cramped and hemmed in by enemies was seen by many historians as too small to contain the violent rapacity of such knights.
The Papacy, in attempting to harness the violent energies of such boisterous nobles had created the dangerous precedent of employing them in numerous local conflicts, most notably Gregory in his conflict with the German Emperor Henry the Fourth. Even the conquering Norman Duke William rode into battle on Senlac Hill against the English under a Papal banner. Against those deemed worthy enemies violence was increasingly being utilised by the papacy and their supporters.
Economic and Agricultural Problems in the Eleventh Century
Records from the century preceding the First Crusade talk of failing harvests, land devastation and over-population suggesting a Christian world in decline. Expansion may have been a way to arrest this desultory chain of events. Some have seen in the period a marked predilection for colonizing the more remote frontiers of Christendom; though again modern historians point to the paucity of reliable records from the age, claiming such assertions are impossible to quantify.
The Younger Sons of the Nobility Need New Lands to Conquer
The glue of primogeniture held the Frankish world together, with the patrimony descending only to the eldest son. With a warlike population, whose restless energies have no local outlet is it surprising that expansionism was the result? Consider the numerous sons of the Norman freebooter Tancred De Hauteville, who carved out numerous dukedoms and petty principalities for themselves in Southern Italy and Sicily, denied, as they were richer pickings closer to home.
The restlessness of these younger sons has often been propounded as an explanation for the expansionist warmongering of the Frankish nobility. However, many more modern historians point out the leadership caste of the First Crusade was drawn principally from among the great nobles of France and Germany, casting doubt on the restless energy and ambition of landless nobles as a motivation for crusading.
The Reforming Papacy Helped Shape the Political Landscape that Led to Conflict
The Christian Church had undergone a series of major reforms over the preceding century. Under first Leo the Ninth and most notably under Gregory the Seventh the Bishop of Rome had extended and refined his powers and extended his authority. The Investiture Controversy (over who had the power to invest Bishops) appeared to have been won by Gregory, following the German Emperor’s embarrassing climb down at Canossa in 1076.
In aggressively attempting to expand their power base succeeding Popes may have helped precipitate the First.The Christian churches of Rome and Byzantium had been in schism since 1054 and an armed mobilisation towards the East may have been intended to further strengthen the Pope’s hand. Long decades of Machiavellian manoeuvring by a succession of Popes can be seen as leading to firstly an attempt to export the Latin brand of Christianity into the East and secondly recapture the holy places of the faith.
The Long Term Causes of the First Crusade
The First Crusade was the result of a great many disparate long-term causes. Church reforms, centuries of conflict between Islam and Christianity, internecine conflict and restless in Europe allied to a changing economic situation in the heartlands of Christendom all played their part. Yet if these were the factors that sparked the flame of conflict between the two great religions of the age it took a number of epoch defining events to fan those flames into the conflagration that would resonate down the centuries.
Sources:
Steven Runciman: The First Crusade, Cambridge University Press, 2005
Tom Holland: Millennium, Abacus Publishing, 2006
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