Isn't that basically what the pope did historically with most crusades? Give them money that is?
And All Nations Shall Gather To It - Volume I: The Abode of Peace
- Thread starter Ricard (i.e. Rdffigueira)
- Start date
Isn't that basically what the pope did historically with most crusades? Give them money that is?
trajen777
Banned
The interesting thing about the new situation is the Crusader withdrawal (or Route) would have most likely left a series of blockades or would the Turks withdraw. With the heavy infantry involved most likely you would have sieges. So to save the situation the only real solution would be an intervention by the Byz out of Antioch for a timely "save the situation". Reinforcement would take to long from Europe to save various cities before they are lost.
Guessing that the Byz would keep about 5000- 12,000 in Antioch which would be the most viable force available. This could (lets say 3500 - 4000) could move south to support the crusaders till reinforcements could arrive from Const. and later from Europe.
Guessing that the Byz would keep about 5000- 12,000 in Antioch which would be the most viable force available. This could (lets say 3500 - 4000) could move south to support the crusaders till reinforcements could arrive from Const. and later from Europe.
There might be charitable donations by popes, kings and great magnates, but that doesn't change the fact that it is unsustainable. The Kingdom of Jerusalem must be able to muster its own warchest. It also needs time to raise troops, grow food, train soldiers and assemble for campaigns...
trajen777
Banned
100% correct
The funds were often raised by the Church but this was only a small % of the cost of any crusade. One of the best run Crusades was Richards in that the logistics and finances were excellent. His reasoning during the third crusade was the need to take Egypt in that this was by far and away the the richest part of the middle east
Md139115
Banned
Yes, but he failed to realize how this financing would nearly wipe out England’s economy...
That is fair, but I meant more in terms of getting them out of this current crisis, the pope funding or helping fund some Italian crusaders to send in a hurry could be what helps them survive.
In the longterm, I'd want to establish a chain of forts from Aqaba to Gaza, to prevent, or at least bleed, any forces transiting from Egypt to Syria.
Having just dug through my copy of Dr. Thomas Asbridge's Greatest Knight, it was not Richard alone. While he was away, John managed to lose half of Angevin France, and then on arriving back, Richard had to spend six months fighting a rebellion in Britain before setting out to France to put down the Capetians... three wars in short succession, with three years of England's revenue also gone in ransom to Duke Leopold of Austria...
Simply: a new Crusade!
Three miracles, in fact. I'm not joking.
And yes, a Crusade counts a miracle, considering the circumstances, which takes me to the point addressed by the other readers...
You are correct, of course. Crusades were extremely expensive investments; in fact, in terms of military expenditure, I imagine they were completely unprecedented in the Middle Ages, involving relatively large armies, travelling across immense distances, and taking in consideration that they could not depend on the land as much as when they fought in Europe.
Yes, @ElMarquis and @trajen777's comments are spot on. AFAIK the Popes did not actually invest directly in the Crusades (in the First one he might even had dedicated a few donations, but by large they were financed by the lords and, incredibly enough, by the pilgrims/soldiers themselves). I've read an interesting account about the efforts needed to get hard cash to go Crusading. The Church usually provided the money, but it rarely came as a donation, most of the times being a loan with real estate or other property given as warranty. For example, Raymond of Toulouse and Godfrey of Bouillon in the First Crusade mortgaged various of their own personal lands to the abbeys to get the money.
Later Crusades which involved monarchs took extreme efforts to obtain resources, from basic taxing, to new revenues, donations and also loans from organized financial brokers such as the Templars and the bankers. It is no coincidence that the Templars became so well established in France, the country from which most of the Crusaders came from (besides the fact that most of the Grandmasters were themselves Frenchmen).
That's basically OTL, the Crusaders established fortresses in specific places with enormous strategic significance. It is impressive how they managed to erect huge stone strongholds in very arid places and they were actually maintained. Saladin had a lot of trouble with the Crusader castles during his invasion of Jerusalem, and even ordered some of them demolished due to the fear they might be used against him in other opportunities.
ITTL, you will see that, in time, the Latin Orient will be even more dotted with castles and forts of all types. I have drafted some stuff about Crusader castles, so you know that we'll be delving in the matter in a near future.
I'll give a look to find Asbridge's book. I've heard about the author, but do not have access to his works. Do you recomend it as a source to the Crusades?
And, indeed, I was under the impression that it took a combination of the ransom for Richard's imprisonment with a succession of wars (the Crusade likely being one of the most expensive, considering it involved a large army and ships). This is indeed a good comparison for us to work with when trying to picture how much a Crusade would be worth in financial terms.
ar-pharazon
Banned
Is there anyway European participation in the crusades could be broadened? More troops and support from Eastern Europe, Scandinavia, etc...
As stated above it was overwhelmingly Frank's and Germans-how can you get broader sections of Christendom to chip in? Hungary? Poland? Denmark? Etc...
As stated above it was overwhelmingly Frank's and Germans-how can you get broader sections of Christendom to chip in? Hungary? Poland? Denmark? Etc...
I dunno about Scandinavia or eastern Europe, more due to the sheer distance. Dunno if getting any other orthodox people in the Balkans is possible due to the overwhelming catholic nature of the crusades. Maybe as auxiliaries to the Byzantines, but even then I dunno.
The king of Norway was the earliest king to participate in a crusade in the Holy Land.IOTL,King Sigurd I led a fleet to the Holy Land between 1107-1110.
That's something I'm constantly thinking about ITTL. How to have an increasingly "cosmopolitan" participation of other nations and kingdoms of Europe in the Crusades. IOTL, for example, we had the English and the Norwegians going from the "periphery" of Europe (considering western and central Europe to be its supposed center), I don't see why we couldn't have, for example, the Scottish, the Welsh or even a minor Irish king, or, in the other side, larger realms such as Poland and Hungary. IOTL, Crusadism did not "catch" among the Orthodox kingdoms, I suppose due to the fact that they did not consider themselves under the authority of the Papacy, but then we could have Georgians included in the broad definition of Crusaders if they formed an alliance with Latin-Levantine polities.
Overall, I guess that OTL the Crusader movement took "other directions" by the simple fact that each of these regions of Europe had their own micro-level geopolitical concerns, which became increasingly convenient to be grouped into the overly broad definition that the idea of "Crusade" took in the later centuries. Originally it was a war to rescue Jerusalem, then it became war against the Muslims in general, then against all the non-Christians and against enemies of the Papacy (the Albigensian Crusade, the much-later Crusade against the Hussites, etc.). The King of Denmark or the King of Poland had no incentive to go as far as jerusalem when they could wage their own holy war against the Baltic pagans, just as the Swedish would do with the Finns, and the Iberian monarchies with the Moors (Pope Urban II himself, who called the 1st Crusade, wrote to the bishoprics and monarchs of Iberia to discourage them from going to Jerusalem as long as their own lands were assaulted by the Moors, which demonstrates that, even if the perception of Crusadism was universalist, it would inevitably be used as a pretext to solve regional power disputes).
I'm not sure distance by itself is a reliable factor that we must base ourselves on. France and the Low Countries are geographically farther from Palestine than Germany or the Balkans, but it was the part of Europe that most produced Crusaders. Germany itself gave something of a contribution to the Crusades (ever since the Peoples' Crusade all the way to the Second and Third Crusades, with Barbarossa's disastrous expedition) in comparison to Italy, for example, because, excepting the maritime republics, the feudal lords of Italy almost never participated in Crusades (excepting Boniface of Montferrat during the 4th). I think the explanation owes more to peculiar situations in each of these (macro)regions of Europe than distance by itself (be them social, economic or even political), as well as the simple fact that, after the disasters of the 2nd to 4th Crusades, the very idea of a reconquest of Jerusalem became increasingly distant, and not even served as an interest to the Papacy, barring exceptions such as the almost-fanatical dedication of Saint Louis (King Louis IX). I'm excluding later Crusades such as Nicopolis and Varna because they were more military coalitions against the especific threat of Ottoman expansionism, but the religious pretext was ever secondary in regards to the fear of a Turkish political domination of the Balkans.
Yeesss, King Sigurd. I have not forgotten about him... But, for the time being, let's pretend I did.
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ar-pharazon
Banned
Assuming you could get broader European participation could that give more concrete weight to the idea of "Christendom"?
Huh I honestly didn't know that. I suppose ive spent too much time looking up Richard III and not the rest of the crusaders
26. Raymond of St. Giles hurries to Jerusalem (1109)
Before the Crusader Era, the city of Jerusalem had long since turned into a shadow of its former self. The city prospered somewhat under the Umayyad Caliphate, but the change of the epicenter of the Islamic geopolitical and economic axis to Baghdad and Cairo again doomed Jerusalem to status of a simplory and backwater province. Under the Crusaders, the city would regain some status, being the political center of the Latin State, even if many of the secular rulers would prefer to live in their own palaces in the coastal cities such as Haifa and Tyre.
If the combined Turkish and Egyptian legion had expected that Duke Welf’s humiliation would impress the citizens of Jerusalem to the point of a peaceful capitulation, they were wholly mistaken. Not only the Jerusalemites refused to open the gates, forcing the besiegers to hurry to build siege engines and ladders, but their own militia – headed by a cadre of 40 knights led by Renald de Cahors (one of Duke Raymond’s vassals who, being too old for this world, expected to soon collect his spiritual reward by slaying the “pagans”) – launched almost daily attacks against the camp of the besiegers, frustrating their sapping and engine-building works, mainly by volleys of arrows and cavalry charges. To the irritation of the Saracens, after the Crusaders captured Jerusalem, almost ten years before, they went to great lengths to fortify it against future offensives, and even built Rhōmaîon-styled springalds - a tortion-based engine, similar to a ballista, that threw lead darts - and new battements and bastions.
The news about Duke Welf’s defeat and about Jerusalem’s siege apparently took the frail Raymond out of his stupor in the city of Safed, to where they had retreated after the disaster in Tebnine. The Prince of Jerusalem, by whatever mental regeneration or even otherworldly inspiration, immediately dressed his armor and the Cross of Toulouse surcoat and appeared above his fine Provençal destrier and gave a fervent and heartfelt speech to his demoralized and battered veterans, reminding them of the years of tribulations that their journey from Europe that had passed, and announcing that they were the heralds and keepers of God’s kingdom, and summoned them to again take arms against the infidels. “Deus lo vult” became their war-cry, a now seemingly timeless remembrance from late Pope Urban II’s legendary convocation echoed in a single irate voice among the tired men from Toulouse and Provence.
They were, however, watched in the distance by Toghtekin’s bloody thirsty horsemen, who expected them to leave from the stone belt of walls that protected them. The main force of the Muslims, led by Radwan of Aleppo, was currently besieging Tyre, where Bohemond and Duke William IX had become entrapped, but other companies, such as the one led by Ilghazi, ran at large and overran northern Palestine, raiding the expanse between Acre and the Jordan, and going as far south as Caesarea, but avoiding to pass by the range of the strongholds of the Latins, such as the ancient Roman fort of Tiberias, the small but sturdy walled town of Nazareth or Samaria, cradled by verdant hills.
The Turks near Safed had orders to follow and harass Raymond – easier said than done, because this city crowned a heavily forested slope –, and were thus astonished when he himself advanced in the middle of the night through the woods to attack them, already in late August 1109. His attempt of ambushing the Turkish cavalry encampment was unsuccessful, because most of the Toulousains and Provençals were on foot, but the frenzied and coordinated assault made them breach the palisades, taking even Toghtekin off guard, and he had a hard time to maintain order among his men; the Franks focused their butchery in the horses, and, perhaps incensed by the slaughter of their kind, many mounts went amok, increasing the confusion. By the morning, the Turks had fled the field of battle, and, without even considering rest, Duke Raymond’s host immediately marched south along the Jordan valley to relieve Jerusalem.
The exhilarated Occitan army allegedly walked across Palestine in a single bound without even stopping to eat, and, thus, arrived in their holy city a few hours before the dawn of the following day. The besieging Fatimids and Tutushids were vigilant in expectation about a possible Bavarian offensive from the west, and were somewhat surprised by the arrival of another Christian force from the northeast, by the way of the Jordan, but, nevertheless, had mounted a reliable defensive camp and made their resistance.
The Provençals attempted to dislodge them by storm in the same act, but, being so tired, were easily repelled, and it took another two days for them to attempt again, when the Bavarians led by Duke Welf came from Bethsames, and the city’s own garrison launched a sortie led by Renald de Cahors. Yet again, the Saracens claimed they had divine favor, capitalizing on their numerical superiority to overwhelm the uncoordinated Christian alliance. Nevertheless, even if each of the Frankish companies was forced to retreat – with the Provençals and Bavarians hurrying into the safety of Jerusalem’s walls under a rain of arrows and leaving many of their comrades dead and maimed in the sandy outskirts of the city – both the Egyptians and the Turks suffered substantial casualties in that engagement.
*****
To the defenders’ dismay, Toghtekin arrived a few days later to reinforce them, having reorganized his battered army, and Ilghazi in the next month, his men heavy with plunder. By now, they decided against launching a direct attack, realizing that the city had too many battle-ready men, and opted to await for complete starvation, even if it took months.
The Franks had only a tenuous hold over Judaea and Samaria, that is, the heartlands of Palestine, between the Dead Sea and the Mediterranean, and some castles in the region of Galilee, mainly in the proximities of Lake Tiberias, and in the hinterland protected by Haifa and Acre.
Yet, their main armies were divided and besieged in either Jerusalem or Tyre, and their remaining forces were scattered among the castles, becoming easy preys after the inevitable fall of Jerusalem. Indeed, the Mohammedans had figured that capturing Jerusalem with most of the Franj trapped like rats inside it would not only decapitate, but effectively destroy the Crusader realm, as none of its surviving remnants in Gaza, Ascalon, Acre, Haifa, Tyre, or anywhere else, would be able to mount a concerted defense, and could be brought down one by one, and, in a few years, that Frankish infestation would have been eradicated.
Archbishop Gerard of Jerusalem, who had remained in the holy city and even dressed for battle, taking a mace to fight in the ramparts of the holy city – thus circumventing the rule by which members of the clergy could not shed blood – in the day of St. Bartholomew, led a procession across the city’s districts to pray for God’s deliverance against the Saracens.
In the next day, the watchers in the walls hurriedly called for Duke Raymond, who had made the Tower of David his headquarters, saying that he would not believe what they had saw, lest he see it with his own eyes: the plain-green banners of the Fatimids were looming far in the horizon, increasingly further, as if they were marching away from Jerusalem, heading back west, in the direction of the littoral. The Crusaders could not believe it, but, after some hours of tension and heavy breathing, they could finally word it: the whole Fatimid host led by Shams al-Khilafa had deserted the siege, and returned to the Gaza, leaving the Syrians, Kurds and Turks of Tutush II, Toghtekin and Ilghazi to engage in the capture of Jerusalem on their own.
A miracle? A miracle, indeed!
Yet... it would take even more than a sole divine miracle to save the Crusaders from the ultimate fate.
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