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thousand years: Judaism, Christianity, and most recently, Islam.
The Roman empire invaded the land of the Jews with their gods. Then, the Romans converted to Christianity at the beginning of the fourth century. For nearly three hundred years, the Holy Land was dominated by Rome and its new official religion. All this ended when Islamic warriors took Jerusalem in the seventh century.
The new emperors of the region practised a relatively benign rule until the eleventh century, when a new nomadic group of horse warriors established dominance of Asia from Afghanistan to the western sea. From 1055 on they held the successor of the Prophet Mohammed - the Caliph of Baghdad - as their puppet. In 1071 at the battle of Manzikert they crushed the army of the Romans, and from that time on all the land south of the Bosphorus came under their sway. They were no beneficent despots, but ruthless and only barely civilized bandits.
The Crusading Europeans of the eleventh century stamped their own pattern on the pre-existing geographical, cultural and political patterns.
Thus, the northern county of Edessa was centred on the Euphrates, and remained a land only ever sparsely populated with Crusaders, its people mainly consisting of relatively amenable Christian Armenians.
To the east of this was the principality of Antioch, formed around the rule of invading Norman Italians presiding over a local population of Orthodox Syrians and Armenian Christians, as well as Moslems.
To the south, Raymond of Toulouse founded the county of Tripoli along the coastal strip. Most of the European settlers in this area were southern French, dominating Moslems and some Maronite Christians.
Below Tripoli, the kingdom of Jerusalem was composed of a variety of smaller counties. The kingdom's border went from just north of Beirut to the Red Sea, and extended inland to the edge of the desert. This vast territory had a mixed population including Moslems, Christian sects and Jewish communities.2
A scaffolding of law held together this rickety edifice, a western style feudal system imposed on the whole region, attempting to dominate very independently minded fief holders. No copy of these laws survives in entirety, but there are detailed near contemporary descriptions of them.
The counts of Tripoli and Edessa were direct vassals of Jerusalem and the lords of Palestine were generally required to render military service to the King of Jerusalem and to accept his judgements in the High Court. The Court consisted of his chief vassals. The states virtually governed themselves, however, and large tracts of land and towns and castles were often granted by the king to fief holders who ruled with free lordships.
In the long run, this was to help bring down the kingdom in the face of concerted Moslem pressure under their supreme ruler, Saladin.
The mainstay of the economy was trade, rather than agriculture as in Europe. The Crusader states were at the crossroads of world trade, and they grew wealthy from the caravans bringing spices from India and China to the royal ports such as Acre.
The conquest had been bloody, but the settlement promised to be more peaceable. An Islamic commentator, Ibn Jubayr, travelled through Palestine early in the twelfth century, and commented favourably on the treatment of his fellow Moslems. He described a series of villages and cultivated lands inhabited by the Moslems living in great well-being under the Franks, paying less tax than they had previously.
Eastern commentators were highly critical of the Franks, yet they generally agreed that the first groups of Christian settlers attempted to live more or less peaceably with the previous occupants of the land.
The real trouble was to come when late arrivals came, interlopers who had not experienced the mighty struggle of the first journey which had in its own way bonded Christian and Moslem in a ceremony of blood.
But all together, they created a fabled land which was to inspire changes in European culture across the complete spectrum of life: in trade, urban landscapes, food, literature, costume, music, architecture, domestic and religious activities, medicine, philosophy and the relationships of the sexes.
Of course, the exact extent to which the Crusades were the key element in bringing East in contact with West is debatable. Subsequent chapters will deal at greater length with issues such as whether it was purely the impact of Crusading which triggered off changes in castle architecture.
What does seem clear, however, is that the flow of ideas was largely one way traffic. Thus, Seward says:
... the (Norman) reconquest touched off a series of military aggressions against Islam in which all Europe soon joined. Ironically, the Crusades not only failed in their objective, but also accelerated the flow of Eastern ideas to the West. To Europe, the Crusades were an event of epochal importance. To Islam, they were as routine as the border wars that periodically engaged their forces on the frontiers of the empire."3
The influence of the East appears in every significant aspect of post eleventh century European life.
Frankish warriors learned new military skills, some of which they invented and some borrowed from long times inhabitants of the holy Land. Siege tactics developed rapidly, as did communications learned from the Moslems, such as carrier pigeons.
Moslem martial games and armorial bearing were echoed in tournaments and heraldic devices.
As well, there was an enormously expanded demand for Middle Eastern goods, and Normans brought home a taste for sesame seeds, carob beans, maize, rice, lemons, melons, apricots, and shallots.
Muslins from Mosul and baldachins from Baghdad, damasks from Damascus introduced new clothing materials as did cotton or kutn.
Persian tapestries and carpets, glass mirrors, face powder, brilliant dyes such as lilac and carmine enlivened appearance.
Cleanliness was reintroduced through regular bathing, and the Church imported through the agency of St Dominic the rosary, which was inspired by the chains of beads used by Moslems to read off the names of God.4
One should be cautious, however, in linking the Crusades too directly or in a completely overarching way with the changes occurring in Europe after the eleventh century. The great transmission was probably occurring at various times and places and through many means right throughout that period following the collapse of Rome and the exploration of
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