1. Discuss the hawk and dove debate for Christians. During this period, the supremacy of the Papacy continued to develop. The crusades were used by the pope to give him the right to tell people to go to war for the cause of the church or even for the Lord. Should Christians be warmongers or pacifists? That has always been an issue, and in the early church, many did not go into the Roman army because they thought it wrong to kill. As a result, however, many of those who refused to fight faced persecution. Many of the persecuted Christians in the early church ran from persecution and tried to get away from violence rather than embrace it. The Mennonites and Anabaptists, of the 16th and 17th centuries, were pacifists. Today, the Mennonites and the Society of Friends are still pacifists, but some Christians have taken more of a hawkish approach to battle, particularly because of the Old Testament. Jesus did not use violence, and He did not permit others to use violence on His behalf. But during the Crusades, being a warrior was the Christian thing to do. Luther and Calvin both supported the use of violence against heretics. So, this issue has always had proponents and opponents since the beginning of time.

2. Discuss how the First Crusade (1096-1099AD) started. In the 11th century, Christians were not pacifists. When the Arabs (Islamic people) chose to raise the sword against them, the Christians chose to fight back. Back then, it was seen as the only way to stop Islam. To form an army, though, one had to have access to the Holy Land (Jerusalem). Also, being close to Jerusalem was an important part of Christian worship (to find relics) for the west, but the Turks (allies with the Islamic people) stood in the church’s way of that. So, the Christians had to fight Asia Minor, which is present day Turkey, so that they could later fight the Arabs. To wage these battles, the western church needed the support of the eastern church, and since the eastern church feared the Turks, they eagerly agreed to let the western church fight them.

To have a land route to Greece and Asia Minor, it was necessary for Hungary to be converted. Also, because of the long range battle to be waged, the west needed a navy that could provide them with supplies when they were far from home. The Normans, who were fierce seamen comparable to the Vikings, provided that navy capability. So, by the end of the 11th century, everything was in place for the First Crusade. Their goal was to rescue the Holy Land from the Islamic people, and the pope was the only western official who could order such a war without it being called murder. So, he did, and that made it a spiritual war with united Christendom battling against their common enemies. The First Crusade was from 1096-1099AD, and it lasted much longer than anyone had originally thought.

3. Discuss the leaders of the First Crusade. Pope Urban II (1088-1099AD) was the Roman bishop at the time of the First Crusade. He called upon all the kings of the feudalistic countries to come together, and he offered indulgences (issued by pope to reduce or eliminate the number of years in Purgatory) to anyone who fought and/or died in the crusade. Giving these indulgences was great incentive to the lowly serfs who had no other hope, so they eagerly jumped at the opportunity. The "crux" (Latin for cross) became the name and symbol for the crusade, and Urban II was the primary spiritual leader. Adhemar of Monteil was a bishop in Rome at the time, and he became the pope’s representative in the battles. He was killed during the battle in Antioch. Peter the Hermit was an individual French monk (not of any particular order), and he made a significant blunder that actually helped the crusade. He began a battle with the Turks and was soundly defeated, so the Turks initially thought that the crusaders would be pushovers. Goddfrey of Bouillon was a descendant of Charlemagne. Hugh of Vermandois was the son of Henry I of France. Raymond of Toulouse was from France, and Robert of Normandy and Bohemond were from Normandy. Without a significant leader, keeping them united for the battle was a big concern.

4. Discuss the progress of the First Crusade. The First Crusade took much longer than anyone had expected, from 1096 until 1099AD. In 1096AD, they got to Constantinople with their 50,000 French, English, and Italian troops. The patriarch of the eastern church felt uneasy about having so many crusaders from the west in town, so he encouraged them to quickly get on with their battle with the Turks. In 1097AD, they fought and took Nicaea from the Turks. Because of Peter the Hermit, though, the Turks had badly underestimated how many troops they would need for the battle. They ended up having two-thirds of their army away from Nicaea at the time of the invasion. Even still, the Catholics did not succeed at first with Nicaea. But the gate was secretly opened in the middle of the night, and the eastern Catholics went in and killed everyone. After they took the city, they refused to let the western Catholics enter.

The remaining Turkish troops returned and fought about 20,000 of the western troops. Then, two more of the western crusading battalions entered the skirmish, bringing their contingency up to full force, and defeated the Turks. As the western forces moved towards Jerusalem, the remaining Turks stopped up wells and tried to take natural resources and supplies away from them. But the Normans got through with what was needed, and Antioch was taken.

In 1098AD, the Arabs were in Mecca, and the northern division of the western troops had to fight them. Also, the Arabs surrounded the crusaders inside the wall at Antioch where Peter Bartholomew was inside in the process of becoming a spiritual leader of the west (after the death of Adhemar). He claimed to have had a vision from God in which he was told that the spear used to pierce Jesus’ side was buried in Antioch. This was not true, but there were probably lots of spearheads buried there. So, the people started digging and found a spearhead. Thinking that it was the same one used on Jesus, they became very excited, grabbed their swords, burst out of Antioch, and destroyed the unsuspecting Arabs outside the wall. Then, they moved toward Jerusalem.

Peter Bartholomew wanted to take a city on the way, called Acer, a seaport town, but the others in the group did not like the idea. He submitted to a trial by fire (walking across white hot coals), but fell into the fire when only about halfway across and died. Therefore, they did not go to Acer. At Jerusalem, the city was well fortified by its wall. So, the people tried marching around the wall and shouting and blowing their trumpets (like Gideon had once done), but this tactic did not work. They built scaling towers, but the Arabs built the walls higher at the same locations as the towers. Finally, they built scaling towers on wheels so that they could move it to a low point on the wall. This worked, and in 1099AD, Jerusalem was taken back from the Arabs. Urban II died about two weeks later before ever receiving word of the crusade’s success.

				Tom of Bethany

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Lesson 25. The Crusades II

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