What motivated Pope Urban II to call for the First Crusade?

by curtyfresh

I know it was officially to help the Roman Empire fight the Turks, but what other factors led to this decision? We’re there other parties interested in conquering the Holy Land, or was Urban the main instigator?

CaptainOfMySouls

So this is taken from an answer I gave to another thread which covers the idealogical origins of the First Crusade more generally. You can find that thread here: https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/8psuvc/there_are_two_contrasting_narratives_about_the/

Edited for formatting issues.

The Inception of the Crusade

Main Sources: Western Society and the Church in the Middle Ages by R. W. Southern; The First Crusade: The Call from the East by Peter Frankopan; God's War: A New History of the Crusades by Christopher Tyreman; The Two Cities: Medieval Europe 1050-1320, 2nd Edition; How to Plan a Crusade by Christopher Tyreman; The Crusades: 1095-1198 by Johnathan Riley-Smith in The New Cambridge Medieval History Volume 4 Part 1; The First Crusade and the Idea of Crusading by Johnathan Riley-Smith.

Church Context and Motivation for the Crusading Ideology

  • The casus belli was the invasion and occupation of most of Asia Minor by the Turks. The threat posed led the Byzantine Emperors in Constantinople to appeal for aid from popes and important laymen in the west.
    • The First Crusade was called for in November 1095, but as far back as 1074 Pope Gregory VII proposed to lead an army of 50,000 men east. In 1089/1091 it's possible Pope Urban was considering calling for French and other volunteers to help the Greeks; and in 1090 the Count of Flanders entered into an agreement to serve the Byzantines with 500 knights for pay.
    • This means that there were pre-existing initiatives underway to help Orthodox Christians in the east, so there was already some semblance of tradition. In the same way this can be viewed as a continuation of the Byzantine tradition of using foreign forces adeptly with their tremendous wealth (but more on that later).
  • When Pope Urban II called for the First Crusade in response to a Byzantine plea, he proposed a much more ambitious strategy - the recapture of Jerusalem. This wasn't new either.
    • This had been already been discussed in papal circles for some time: in 1074 Pope Gregory VII suggested that the same expedition could liberate Jerusalem; Alexios I (the current Byzantine Emperor) suggested aid to Jerusalem in his letters to French nobles and ther is some evidence that Peter the Hermit had begun to summon the French for this same aim before the First Crusade was even called for.
  • The Church was already supporting a was against the Muslims in Sicily and Spain and had been using the term 'liberation' for it.
    • From the beginning of his time as Pope, Urban II had been backing a drive to occupy Tarragona (a city 50 miles south of Barcelona).
    • He had already suggested that those planning a pilgrimage to Jerusalem should instead try and restore Tarragona where they could get the same spritual benefits.
  • At Clermont, where the Crusade was first preached, Urban proposed two war aims: the salvation of the eastern christians (people) and the salvation of Jerusalem (a place). This has to be viewed in the context of the eleventh century reformation that was happening in the west.
    • The Papacy had split with the Holy Roman Empire, and with Imperialists occupying Rome and the Pope residing in exile, the reformers in control of the Papacy had turned to sympathetic nobles for military support. This was building on the idea of milites sancti Petri that Pope Gregory VII had espoused, wherein he imitiated the standard fealty between a bishop and his vassals by putting forward the idea of a body of knights, scattered throughout Christendom, who were bound by duty to the Churhc and the Pope as its head.
    • This in turn led to a need for the Church having a spiritual basis by which to sanctify the use of violence, a number of scholars had been doing research into this and the most eminent among them was Anselm of Lucca.
  • All these things build into the fact that the Papacy was just exiting a period of being weak(er) that it had been historically.
    • The issues with the Holy Roman Empire notwithstanding, there was also monastic reform, new heretical movements, new applications of logic to theology and endemic warfare between Christian nobles/rulers.
    • The Church had many threats within, as well as without and a Crusade was an outlet that solved many of these issues in one fell swoop by granting the Papacy a significant method of projecting power.
  • The goal of Jerusalem synthesised the traditions of warfare and pilgrimage and formalised the concept of penitiential warfare.
    • This strengthened to the appeal significantly, as pilgrimages had become increasingly popular over the previous century. It had done so even in the face of disapproval from some quarters of the Church - which should give you an idea of how strong a grip it held on the minds of the general populace, as many, many, other trends did not survive the Church's disapproval.

Urban II's Specific Theology of War for the First Crusade

Main sources: War, peace and Christian order by Ernst-Dieter Hehl in The New Cambridge Medieval History Volume 4 Part 1; The First Crusade and the Idea of Crusading by Johnathan Riley-Smith;* Western Society and the Church in the Middle Ages by R. W. Southern; God's War: A New History of the Crusad*es by Christopher Tyreman.

  • The call for the First Crusade was based on the presupposition that under specific circumstances, participation in a military campaign was not a sin.
    • We can see this as he offers spiritual rewards for the endeavour.
  • In this war, the crusaders were directly obeying the will of God.
    • Guibert of Nogent names his chronicle, 'The Deeds of God through the Franks' (Gesta Dei per Francos).
    • The crusaders often described themselves as 'the army of God' (exercitus Dei).
    • The fact that the expedition encoutered great difficulties only served to make the victory seem miraculous and strengthen the belief.
  • As I mentioned earlier, Urban II had already framed previous territorial acquisitions from the Muslims as the will of God.
    • He describes the Norman Conquest of Sicily and the Reconquista in this way.
    • In 1091 he quoted Daniel (2:21): 'he changeth the times and the seasons; he removeth the kings, and setteth up kings' to describe how God was turning His face back Christians as they regained his favour.
  • Urban's ideas cast the past in a negative light, all of Christendom's losses to Muslims were a result of the sins of Christians, so an effort to retake said lands must involve penance. Thus, he promised the crusading indulgence and created the crusading vow.
    • The precise conditions for the vow were not granted for the warlike deeds themselves but for personal attitude.
    • Only those who went to Jerusalem 'solely from the devotion of God' to liberate the church would receive it.
    • This was the only way the war could be both just and holy in the eyes of God.
    • This would have driven home to anyone who considered signing up for greed, that he would be going against the will of Christ's representative on earth if he did so.
  • It's also important to recognise how Urban was redefining penance.
    • Beforehand, you went to confession, reconciled with the Church and then went and did your penance. The spiritual rewards came from the self-punishment.
    • Now, the reward came from offereing one's life for a cause pleasing to God. This meant that not only did the penace of a crusade purify you in the eyes of the Church, it did so directly in the eyes of God as you did his will.

I hope this is helpful.