Питер Франкопан - The First Crusade - The Call from the East

The emperor, wrote his daughter, was like a helmsman guiding his vessel through endless battering waves. Scarcely had one wave broken than the next rolled towards him: ‘There was a never-ending succession of woes, an ocean of trouble, as it were – so that he was allowed no chance to breathe nor even rest his eyes’. 93Alexios had responded to this onslaught with extraordinary boldness.

The story of the First Crusade has been told many times before. The exploits of men like Bohemond, Godfrey of Bouillon and Raymond of Toulouse have passed from one generation to another for centuries. The names and deeds of Baldwin of Calderun and Achard of Montmerle, who failed to return, were preserved for posterity, to be remembered for their heroism and selflessness in trying to liberate the Holy City of Jerusalem.

Less well known are the names of those who caused the First Crusade. Yet Abu’l-Kasim, Çaka, Bursuk, Togortak and Nikephoros Diogenes should feature in any discussion of the expedition that reshaped medieval Europe. They brought Byzantium to the verge of collapse and forced Alexios to look to the west. The attacks, intransigence and revolts of these men led, ultimately, to the restoration of Christian control of Jerusalem more than 450 years after it had fallen to the Muslims.

But it is one man, above all others, who stands out. Alexios I Komnenos put in motion the chain of events that introduced the Crusades to the world. The call from the east was to reshape the medieval world, massively expanding the geographic, economic, social, political and cultural horizons of Europe. After more than 900 years in the gloom, Alexios should once again take centre stage in the history of the First Crusade.

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1. Fulcher of Chartres, I.2.i, pp. 62–3. • 2. Robert the Monk, I.1, p. 79. • 3. Ibid., pp. 79–80. • 4. Fulcher of Chartres, I.3.iv, p. 66. • 5. Baldric of Dol, IV.1, p. 15. • 6. Robert the Monk, I.1, pp. 79–80. • 7. All the main accounts of Urban’s speech were written at the start of the twelfth century, after the Crusade. For some comments on the significance, see below, Chapter Twelve, pp. 200–1. • 8. Guibert of Nogent, I.1, p. 87; also Fulcher of Chartres, I.3.v–viii, pp. 66–7; Robert the Monk, I.2, p. 81; R. Somerville, The Councils of Urban II: Decreta Claromontensia (Amsterdam, 1972), p. 74. • 9. Robert the Monk, I.2, pp. 81–2; Fulcher of Chartres, I.4.iv, p. 68; Guibert of Nogent, II.5, p. 117. • 10. V. Tourneur, ‘Un denier de Godefroid de Bouillon frappé en 1096’, Revue belge de numismatique 83 (1931), pp. 27–30; cf. N. Bauer, ‘Der Fund von Spanko bei St Petersburg’, Zeitschrift für Numismatik 36 (1926), pp. 75–94. • 11. See, for example, J. Riley-Smith, The First Crusade and the Idea of Crusading (London, 1986), pp. 31ff. • 12. For the decree about Jerusalem that was passed at Clermont, see Somerville, Councils of Urban II , pp. 74, 124, and also R. Somerville, Papacy, Councils and Canon Law (London, 1990), pp. 56–65 and 325–37. Also Riley-Smith, First Crusade , pp. 13–30. • 13. The letter states that the Crusade force numbered 300,000 as it gathered at Nicaea in 1097, and just over 20,000 at the battle of Ascalon in September 1099, although this figure did not include the garrison at Jerusalem or other towns held at this time by Western knights. Barber and Bate, Letters , pp. 34–5. For the size of the Crusader army, see J. France, Victory in the East: A Military History of the First Crusade (Cambridge, 1993), pp. 122–42. • 14. Raymond of Aguilers, I, p. 18; Albert of Aachen, V.40, pp. 392–4. • 15. Albert of Aachen, III.28, p. 182. • 16. Ralph of Caen, 119, p. 135. • 17. See, for example, J. Riley-Smith, The First Crusaders 1095–1131 (Cambridge, 1997); M. Bull, Knightly Piety and the Lay Response to the First Crusade: The Limousin and Gascony (Oxford, 1993); France, Victory in the East ; T. Asbridge, The First Crusade: A New History (London, 2004). For surveys of the Crusades in general, C. Tyerman, God’s War: A New History of the Crusades (London, 2006), J. Phillips, Holy Warriors: A Modern History of the Crusades (London, 2010). • 18. J. Nesbitt, ‘The rate of march of crusading armies in Europe: a study and computation’, Traditio 19 (1963), pp. 167–82; A. Murray, ‘The army of Godfrey of Bouillon 1096–9: Structure and dynamics of a contingent on the First Crusade’, Revue Belge de Philologie et d’Histoire 70 (1992), pp. 301–29; B. Bachrach, ‘Crusader logistics: From victory at Nicaea to resupply at Dorylaion’, in J. Pryor (ed.), Logistics of Warfare in the Age of the Crusades (Aldershot, 2006), pp. 43–62. • 19. For example, S. Edgington, ‘Albert of Aachen reappraised’, in A. Murray (ed.), From Clermont to Jerusalem: The Crusades and Crusader Societies (Turnhout, 1998), pp. 55–67; J. France, ‘The use of the anonymous Gesta Francorum in the early twelfth century sources for the First Crusade’, in ibid., pp. 29–42; J. Rubenstein, ‘What is the Gesta Francorum and who was Peter Tudebode?’, Revue Mabillon 16 (2005), pp. 179–204. • 20. A. Vauchez, ‘Les composantes eschatologiques de l’idée de croisade’, in A. Vauchez (ed.), Le Concile de Clermont de 1095et l’appel à la Croisade (Rome, 1997), pp. 233–43; H. Möhring, Der Weltkaiser der Endzeit: Entstehung Wandel und Wirkung einer tausendjahrigen Weissagung (Stuttgart, 2000), and B. E. Whalen, Dominion of God: Christendom and Apocalypse in the Middle Ages (Cambridge, Mass., 2009). • 21. J. Bliese, ‘The motives of the First Crusaders: A social psychological analysis’, Journal of Psychohistory 17 (1990), pp. 393–411; G. Anderson, R. Ekelund, R. Herbert and R. Tollinson, ‘An economic interpretation of the medieval crusades’, Journal of European Economic History 21 (1992), pp. 339–63. • 22. C. Ottoni, F-X. Ricaut, N. Vanderheyden, N. Brucato, M. Waelkens and R. Decorte, ‘Mitochondrial analysis of a Byzantine population reveals the differential impact of multiple historical events in South Anatolia’, European Journal of Human Genetics 19 (2011), pp. 571–6. • 23. A. Johansen and D. Sornett, ‘Finite time singularity in the dynamics of the world population and economic indices’, Physica A 294.3–4 (2001), pp. 465–502, citing J. DeLong’s University of California, Berkeley ‘Estimating World GDP’ project. • 24. Bernold of Constance, p. 520. • 25. Anna Komnene, XIII.6, p. 373. • 26. Ia. Liubarskii, ‘Ob istochnikakh “Aleksiady” Anny Komninoi’, Vizantiiskii Vremennik 25 (1965), pp. 99–120; for Anna’s sources, actual and possible, see J. HowardJohnston, ‘Anna Komnene and the Alexiad ’, in M. Mullett and D. Smythe (eds.) Alexios I Komnenos – Papers (Belfast, 1996), pp. 260–302. • 27. R. Bedrosian (tr.) Aristakes Lastivertc’i’s History (New York, 1985), p. 64.