Ion Alexandru MIZGAN* Abstract. The crusades represent one of the most complex phenomena of the Middle Ages and in time many historians have tried to untangle the mysteries which generated them. According to most historians, political, religious and economic factors are working together to create the crusade phenomena. One of the important consequences of the Western knights' expeditions in the East is the worsening or tensioning relationships between the Byzantine Empire and the Western Europe. Many times the Western knights blamed the Byzantines for the failure of the Westerns troops in the Orient and considered that in order to enjoy a complete success, Constantinople, the capital of the Byzantine Empire, had to be conquered. This happened during the Fourth Crusade, in 1204, when Constantinople was conquered and plundered by the Western knights. As British historian Steven Runciman has pointed out, this tore apart the Eastern and the Western worlds forever.
Keywords: crusades, Middle Ages, Constantinople, Byzantine Empire.
The Genesis of the Crusades
When defining the Crusades, many historians state that they are a complex phenomenon typical for the feudal era of the Middle Ages1, which was generated by several factors. Etymologically, the Crusades denote the name given to military expeditions undertaken by the feudal Western knights between 1096-1270 in the Middle East under the pretext of liberation of the Holy Places, namely Jerusalem and the Holy Sepulchre2. The concept or term of crusade appeared in Medieval Latin before the middle of the thirteenth century, the participants in these expeditions being called Crusaders, after the red sign of the
* Ph.D. in History, Priest, St. Andrews Church, Oradea, amizgan@yahoo.com
1 Ioan Rămureanu, Milan Şesan, Teodor Bodogae, Istoria bisericească universală, vol.II, Editura Institutului Biblic şi de Misiune al Bisericii Ortodoxe Române, Bucureşti, 1993, p. 17.
2 Romanian Academy, “Iorgu Iordan” Linguistic Institute, Dicţionarul Explicativ al Limbii Române, ediţia a II-a, Editura Univers Enciclopedic, Bucureşti, 1998, p. 244; Vasile Breban, Dicţionar al limbii române, Editura Ştiinţifică şi Enciclopedică, Bucureşti, 1980, p. 130.
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Holy Cross that they had sewn on their clothes3. In most historians‟ opinion, the Crusades can be defined as military expeditions of the Western feudal people sponsored by the Church of Rome, in order to conquer and colonize certain regions of the Middle East, especially Palestine and Jerusalem, which had fallen into the hands of Muslims. Contemporary historians differ in their assessment of the Crusades and of their purposes, the complexity of the crusades phenomenon making the clear separation of the causes which delimited it impossible. The American historian Williston Walker states that crusading expeditions are in many respects the most remarkable phenomena of the Middle Ages4. Historian A.S. Atiya believes that the Crusades should be regarded as a huge demonstration of the medieval ideal of superstate political unity, of establishment of that “Respublica Christiana”, greatly discussed at that time5. Another historian, H.E.J. Cowdrey, identifies several factors responsible for the genesis of the Crusades in the Middle Ages: population growth, the intertwining of the social and religious issues in the class of kings, a radical change of the official Christian ethics of war and the stress of the penitential system of the Western Church which burdened the society of the times6. Thus, the nature and causes of the Crusades were both religious and secular. They emerged in a society booming from a political and military point of view, being attended by all classes and walks of life, from simple peasants or city dwellers to kings or emperors.
Stemmed from the social-economic, political and religious conditions of the time, the Crusades are distinct from the regular military expeditions due to their international character and their religious mark. Their religious aspect is proved by the fact that these expeditions were accompanied from the beginning by a Christian ideology. Researcher Florentina Căzan from the University of Bucharest considers the Crusades from the eleventh-thirteenth centuries first of all as expeditions of conquest and colonization, being the expression of a Europe which found itself in a process of deep transformation and economic expansion, which involved a number of social changes7. The same researcher notes that these expeditions, being generated by a moral-religious feeling that overlapped material interests, were one by one regarded by historiography, sometimes as a heroic epic, nourished by a noble ideal, and other times as a mystical exaltation
3 Nicolae Iorga, Istoria vieţii bizantine. Imperiul şi civilizaţia după izvoare, Traducere de Maria Holban, Editura Enciclopedică Română, Bucureşti, 1974, p. 391.
4 Williston Walker, A History of the Christian Church, New York, 1959, p. 219.
5 A. S. Atiya, The Crusader in the Middle Ages, London, 1938, p. 3.
6 H. E. J. Cowdrey, The Genesis of the Crusades: The Springs of Western Ideas of Holy War, in The Holy War. Conference on Medieval and Renaissance Studies, 5th, Edited by Thomas Patrick Murphy, Ohio State University Press: Columbus, 1976, p. 24.
7 Florentina Căzan, Cruciadele. Momente de confluenţă între două civilizaţii şi culturi, Editura Academiei Române, Bucureşti, 1990, p. 9.
or as a form of aggression, justified only by the desire of conquest of the Western feudal people, by the thirst to fight, both urges being disguised under a religious coating8.
No matter how they were judged, the importance of the Crusades cannot be denied, as they are undoubtedly the major political phenomenon of Occidental Middle Ages by both their duration and their multiple implications in the different spheres of social, economic political, cultural and religious life.
Historian Williston Walker stresses the importance of the economic aspect, but goes further by showing how it has influenced the religious feeling9. The very difficult economic conditions of the eleventh century had led to the deepening of the religious feeling, which was expressed through monastic and ascetic forms with a strong sense of the afterlife. The strong religious feeling of the eleventh century had led to the reform of papacy which took place at that time. Therefore, it is no surprise that the regions that have strongly influenced this reform (France, Lorraine, Southern Italy) were those from which most of the Crusaders were recruited.
The complex phenomenon of the Crusades has received much attention from older or newer historians, a very rich literature existing nowadays in this regard. For a more balanced and genuine perception of the Crusades phenomenon we recommend the work dedicated to the Crusades of the renowned British historian Steven Runciman10, a work through which the famous historian put an end to the deformed Western tradition on the Crusades, which idealized the Western knights who fought in the name of the Cross. By analyzing the impact of the Crusades in the Eastern world objectively, with scientific exactness and without prejudices, Steven Runciman's scientific approach has become a reference point for the researchers of history, even if today there are historians who do not fully share the point of view of the distinguished British historian11.
Unlike Western historiography before him which largely saw the Crusaders as heroes who fought against the barbarians, relying on Eastern sources (Muslim, Greek and Armenian), Steven Runciman said that the “Holy War” of the Crusaders, held in God‟s name was often polluted by cruelty and greed, being a sin against the Holy Spirit. The British History shows that the Crusades in general and especially the Fourth Crusade, brought to an end the
8 Ibidem, p. 7.
9 Williston Walker, op. cit., p. 219.
10 Steven Runciman, A History of the Crusades, 3. vol., Cambridge University Press, London, 1951-1954.
11 First of all, we consider historians Alfred J. Andrea and Thomas F. Madden who condemn Steven Runciman for not taking into account the previous research on the issue of Crusades. In reality, Runciman did nothing but show, based on the Eastern sources during Crusades, that those who went in these expeditions were not animated only by noble ideals, but that their deeds were often extremely cruel.
From Periphery to Centre
separation between East and West, making the reconciliation between the two Christian worlds impossible12.
Starting with the eleventh century, the chivalrous ideal proposed by the clergy of that period was born in the West. It was favoured by the reform of Pope Gregory VII (1073-1085), who decisively strengthened the idea that the Church, especially the papacy, could have wars for their own purpose, against both internal and external enemies. For the time being, the Church was allowed to use armed force against local agitators and against “infidels”, namely against Arabs.
It is than that, expressions such as “militia Christi” or “militia Sancti Petri” come into being to designate the warriors from the Pope‟s service13. This fact was recorded by the Greek historian Aristeides Papadakis who showed that the assimilation of the class of warriors in the life of the Church was encouraged by the reforming papacy, Gregory VII being the most warlike of the popes14.
In the Western Christian world, pilgrimages to the Holy Places had a special meaning, thanks to the canonical decisions adopted by the Western Church in this regard. For example, the second canon of the Council of Clermont from 109515 provided: “If someone decides out of pure devotion, and not to his own glory, or for any earthly use, to free the Church of God in Jerusalem, then the journey made by him shall be considered as an act of penance“16. Originally, pilgrims to the Holy Places had no right to carry weapons, but after papacy‟s preaching of the Crusades, the expeditions of this kind became an armed pilgrimage. The militarization of the pilgrimage would become attractive to the European knight. The soldier could gain eternal life through the holy war17. Pilgrimages were not a new thing in the eleventh century. They were practiced since early times and had continued in Palestine after the Arab conquest, but along with the conquest of Asia Minor by the Seljuk Turks (after the Battle of Manzikert in 1071 and after their conquest of Palestine 1078), pilgrimages were quite hindered. Pilgrims who enjoyed great prestige in the eyes of the people of the West, hampered by the presence and behaviour of Seljuk Turks in the Holy Places, were those who urged the regain of these places out of the hands of the Turks. Their call was positively received by Pope Gregory VII, who was thinking
12 Steven Runciman, A History of the Crusades, volume III, The Kingdom of Acre and the Later Crusades, Cambridge University Press, London, 1954, p. 131.
13 Ibidem, p. 102.
14 Aristeides Papadakis, The Christian East and The Rise of the Papacy: The Church 1071-1453 A.D., Crestwood, St. Vladimir‟s Seminary Press, 1994, p. 82.
15 Council held on November 27, 1095 in France, under Pope Urban II (1088-1099), who asked by means of a passionate the release by the Holy Land.
16 Philippe Contamine, Un război pentru împărăţia cerurilor, in the volume Cruciadele, cuvânt înainte de Robert Delort, traducere de George Miciacio, Editura Artemis, Bucureşti, 1999, p. 99- 100, p. 103.
17 Aristeides Papadakis, op. cit., p.83.
about establishing a universal monarchy of the Pope over the whole Christian world in the West and Central Europe18.
Despite the fact that at first the Crusades were directed against the Muslim Middle East, they were inimical to the interests of the Byzantine Empire. The suspicion of the Byzantines against the Crusades was driven by certain political considerations, by the excesses of the Crusaders on the lands of the Empire, as well as by the anti-Orthodox attitude of the Crusaders, who saw the Greek only as a nation of schismatics who broke with the Church of Rome. The Crusades of the thirteenth century, namely the Fourth Crusade, were nothing but a manifestation of the Latins‟ hostility toward the Byzantine Empire. Helene Ahrweiler believed that “the very purpose of the Crusade, namely the war for the liberation of the Holy Places, left speechless the Byzantines who saw it, at the very least, as an attempt to usurp their title of defenders of Christianity and (...) a pretext to mask the unconfessed expansionist projects of the West against the East”19. Historian Şerban Papacostea shows that the Western world engaged ever since the second half of the eleventh century in a big assault on Islam in the Mediterranean, has decisively oriented its expansionist tendencies toward the Eastern part of the continent, towards the vast territories dominated by Byzantium and by the peoples formed in its area of civilization20. Florentina Căzan believes that without the idea of political unity of Europe, of an imperium mundi, the successor of the Roman Empire, sponsored by Rome and by the Western Church, the Crusades would not have existed21. Historian Şerban Papacostea shows that the symbol which conducted the conquering momentum of the Latin world in the East was the Catholic faith and its military crusading expression. The force which has conducted and coordinated the expansion was the Western Church, which manifests universal ambitions and which reached the peak of prestige and of its means of action. The ultimate goal of theocratic papacy at that time was the restoration of Christian unity thorough the integration under its own guidance both of the Eastern Church and of the pagan peoples on the European continent22.
The Fourth Crusade occupies a special place among the Western expeditions in the East, due to the consequences it has had on the Byzantine civilization, on the relations between East and West, and on the religious-political situation in the South-Eastern European area. According to British historian Steven Runciman, the devastation of Constantinople by the knights of the Fourth
18 Milan Şesan, Cruciadele şi Biserica Ortodoxă, Cernăuţi, 1938, p. 12.
19 Helene Ahrweiler, Ideologia politică a Imperiului bizantin, Postfaţă de Nicolae Şerban Tanaşoca, traducere de Cristina Jinga, Editura Corint, Bucureşti 2002, p. 74.
20 Şerban Papacostea, Românii în secolul al XIII-lea. Între cruciadăşi Imperiul mongol, Editura Enciclopedică, Bucureşti, 1993, p. 7.
21 Florentina Căzan, op. cit., p. 7-8.
22 Şerban Papacostea, op. cit., p. 7.
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Crusade is the climax of the separation between the East and the West, which had made the reconciliation between the two Churches impossible, despite the attempts of union that followed until the fall of Constantinople under the Turks in 145323. In the following lines we will present the tensions generated by the first Crusades between East and West of Europe.
The 1054 moment in the confrontation between Constantinople and Rome American historian John Meyendorff considers the Schism between Constantinople and Rome in the eleventh century as the most tragic event in the history of the Church, which largely determined the fate of the East and of the West24. British theologian Timothy Ware states in a church history work that the divergences between Mihail Cerularie and Cardinal Humbert conventionally mark the beginning of the Great Schism between the Eastern and the Western Church. British historian J.M. Hussey formally showed that the separation between the two Churches appeared when, following the arrogant attitude of the papal legate Humbert, the Church of Constantinople ceased to mention the Pope during the Mass25. Historian Nicolas Zernov catalogued the Schism between East and West as one of the greatest calamities or disasters in the history of the Church26. One of the greatest church historians of our country, Professor Teodor M. Popescu, rightly considered that the Schism between East and West could not be seen and understood only in the context of the conflicts in the ninth and eleventh centuries, as the causes of the distancing between East and West were much older and deeper27. Historian John Meyendorff also points out that it would be wrong to cling to the idea of the existence of an undivided Church in the first Christian millennium as the Church knew schisms and heresies ever since its inception28. Most historians agree that the Schism between East and West, which became permanent in time, did not appear suddenly; instead, it gradually deepened and cannot be dated29. Nicolas Zernov shows that the Schism was a gradual process that developed up to hatred and hostility30. The evolution of Christian life throughout history recorded differences in terms of the theological nature and liturgical practice between the Christian communities from the East
23 Steven Ruciman, op. cit., p. 131.
24 J. Meyendorff, Biserica Ortodoxă ieri şi azi, Editura Anastasia, ediţie nouă revăzută şi editată de J. Meyendorff şi N. Lossky, traducere Cătălin Lazurca, Bucureşti, 1996, p. 39.
25 J. M. Hussey, The Byzantine World, ed. 3, London, 1967, p. 42.
26 Nicolas Zernov, The Church of the Eastern Christians, London, 1942, p. 6.
27 Teodor M. Popescu, „Geneza şi evoluţia Schismei”, in Ortodoxia, Bucureşti, nr. 3, 1954, p.
166.
28 J. Meyendorff, op. cit., p. 39.
29 Idem, Rome, Constantinople, Moscow. Historical and Theological Studies. St. Vladimir`s Seminary Press, 1996, p. 7.
30 Nicolas Zernov, op. cit., p. 7.
2002, pp. 152-255.
and from the West31. Political changes led to an increasing differentiation between the world of the Orient and that of the Occident, which developed separately, this situation obviously creating conflicts and misunderstandings that would deepen the schism between East and West32. Historian Nicolas Zernov highlights the importance of political causes in the increase of hostility between East and West33. Thus, the Schism was an event that occurred slowly, rose discreetly, favoured by multiple causes, political and religious, the act of 1054 being just a brutal confirmation of hostilities gathered in time34.
Religiously, the most favoured element which divided the two Christian worlds was the emergence of the papal primacy, which regarded itself as the final forum in doctrinal and ecclesiastical matters of the bishop of Rome35. The ecclesiological tensions on the subject have appeared since the fourth century and widened over time especially after the coronation of Charles the Great and the emergence of the Carolingian Empire. Westerners‟ claims on papal primacy came against the Eastern concept of a Church based on the authority of the Ecumenical Councils. Historian J. Meyendorff shows that divergences from the ninth and eleventh centuries between Constantinople and Rome broke when the political interests of the Frankish Empire were mistaken for the canonical claims of the papacy to unite in a common opposition against Byzantium36. When the religious conflict between Rome and Constantinople broke out in the ninth and eleventh centuries the Pope in Rome was not alone, but had his French or German king. The opposition between the two Empires on the question of legitimacy appeared at that time, the two Empires disputing over both territories and rights.
There was a competition between the two Empires in terms of their missionary activity among the non-Christian peoples, the Christian mission becoming thus a political issue37. Moreover, the distancing of both worlds became apparent in
31 It is enough to mention the Eastern and baptismal controversy in the first Christian centuries, and the Schism of Hippolytus, Novatian, Meletius, the Acacian schism or heresies such as:
Manichaeism, Montanism, Hiliasm, Donatism, Pelagianism, etc. See the American historian John Meyendorff: Imperial Unity and Christian Divisions: The Church 450-680 A.D. (The Church in history series, vol. II), St. Vladimirs Seminary, 2011, 417 p.
32 The separation of the two worlds from a political point of view began in the time of Emperor
32 The separation of the two worlds from a political point of view began in the time of Emperor