Byzantine Crusades

IMO, one of the greatest missed opportunities for successful Crusades was the warm and cold nature of relations with the Byzantine Empire. This prompted me to wonder what Crusades originated by the Eastern Orthodox Church would have looked like and how and why they would have done so. I'm assuming this is post Great Schism, but not necessarily so. Does anyone have any good ideas?

The most important aspects i can see are:
The Byzantine Empire must be weak, otherwise they'd go to war on their own.
No other nations involved should be significantly stronger than the Byzantines, because the strong nation might get greedy and the Byzantines would be wary of that possibility leading to reciprocal suspicion from the strong nation, &c.
The Orthodox Church would have to be stronger than OTL. This would most likely mean a weaker Roman Church.
Constantinople should be the center of the Orthdox Church for the church leaders to care enough to call for crusade. Going by OTL, not as important, but if not it these Crusades wouldn't benefit the Byzantines much.
 

archaeogeek

Banned
Had the Byzantines not been so weak there would likely not have been crusades: one of the reasons they were called in the first place was to divert the normans to the south because Byzantium, between arab wars and norman raids, was about to fall apart. Without the roman church there couldn't be crusades either, because without the disarray of the time there would have been no reason to call one. And without the Fatimids being at their weakest, the crusades would never have succeeded.

They also didn't have a regular native army because after a few centuries of pretty much defining the meaning of holy war for christendom and islam, they were on a "pacifist" streak where a member of the church of Constantinople could only serve in the military in a few limited contexts.
 
Yeah, Byzantine Crusades aren't going to happen. Whenever Emperors suggested any idea of "Holy War", the clergy was generally up in arms in sheer horror: the idea simply did not fit with the Byzantine mindset.
 

Don Grey

Banned
Had the Byzantines not been so weak there would likely not have been crusades: one of the reasons they were called in the first place was to divert the normans to the south because Byzantium, between arab wars and norman raids, was about to fall apart. Without the roman church there couldn't be crusades either, because without the disarray of the time there would have been no reason to call one. And without the Fatimids being at their weakest, the crusades would never have succeeded.

They also didn't have a regular native army because after a few centuries of pretty much defining the meaning of holy war for christendom and islam, they were on a "pacifist" streak where a member of the church of Constantinople could only serve in the military in a few limited contexts.

Yeah, Byzantine Crusades aren't going to happen. Whenever Emperors suggested any idea of "Holy War", the clergy was generally up in arms in sheer horror: the idea simply did not fit with the Byzantine mindset.

Mostly this and this.

To the OP. You said it your self. If they were powerfull enough on there own they would have gone to war on there own.
 
All mature civilized societies become progressively more pacifistic.

The Romans started out as a tough, aggressive people and basically bred out their own aggressive tendencies as they conquered and had other people fight for them.

Byzantium was simply at a stage of civilized development that France, Spain and England would be at in a few centuries. That the Orthodox church retained Christendom's original proclivities towards pacifism only intensified Byzantium's introspective behavior.

The way I see it, one should not confuse pacifism for weakness.
 

archaeogeek

Banned
All mature civilized societies become progressively more pacifistic.

The Romans started out as a tough, aggressive people and basically bred out their own aggressive tendencies as they conquered and had other people fight for them.

Byzantium was simply at a stage of civilized development that France, Spain and England would be at in a few centuries. That the Orthodox church retained Christendom's original proclivities towards pacifism only intensified Byzantium's introspective behavior.

The way I see it, one should not confuse pacifism for weakness.

I'm not confusing it for weakness, but the Byzantine empire was weak, period. It was down to Thrace, Achaia, Macedonia and some random bits of the Anatolian coast at that point and was being harried by pretty much everyone, whether Normans, Slavs, Turks or Arabs. The Crusades were as much to save Byzantium as to retake Jerusalem, although I suspect few people were that aware of the first intent.

And they didn't conserve it, they went back to it: the Byzantines basically defined Holy War when they invaded Persia in the 6th century.
 
I'm not confusing it for weakness, but the Byzantine empire was weak, period.

Simply depends on how you define weakness.

Does a weak society lose its religious, economic, and cultural capitol of centuries, lose half its territory and ruling family, and still go on to revive itself and continue its existence for centuries?

Byzantium post Manzikert may no longer have been capable of being a Mediterranean superpower, but it was by no means a weak state.
 
Yeah, Byzantine Crusades aren't going to happen. Whenever Emperors suggested any idea of "Holy War", the clergy was generally up in arms in sheer horror: the idea simply did not fit with the Byzantine mindset.
Would you please suggest sources?


To everyone else, thank you for the discussion. Unfortunately, i think i worded my question wrong. I'm not thinking that this hypothetical Byzantine crusade would happen in anything close OTLs geopolitical situation or even in the same time frame as OTLs Crusades. I'm thinking more what would have to happen for them to do something like that and for anyone else to consider coming. Kind of like, i'm getting from archaeogeek's first post that there needs to be a weak state(s) to crusade against and disunity amongst the crusading nations and that the Normans will have to be dealt with.

I'm going for a crusading movement that's evocative of our Crusades, in that it's a religiously united, politically disunited movement to 'free' the Holy Land from the heathens.
 
It's my understanding that the theology of Christian holy war was constructed from the Augustinian theory of just war by Catholic theologians over a long period of time.

The same sort of lead up to a crusading theology didn't exist in the Byzantine Empire. They had wars couched in religious symbology and meaning, but that's not the same as a meritorious war fought for the indulgence of remission of sin. And if a crusading theology was ever developed, it most likely wouldn't trace the same steps as Augustine was never as important in the East as in the Catholic church.
 
I'm not confusing it for weakness, but the Byzantine empire was weak, period. It was down to Thrace, Achaia, Macedonia and some random bits of the Anatolian coast at that point and was being harried by pretty much everyone, whether Normans, Slavs, Turks or Arabs. The Crusades were as much to save Byzantium as to retake Jerusalem, although I suspect few people were that aware of the first intent.

And they didn't conserve it, they went back to it: the Byzantines basically defined Holy War when they invaded Persia in the 6th century.

You're exaggerating a little here- the Byzantines controlled the entire Balkan peninsula, plus Cyprus and the Crimea, in addition to having several dependent states in coastal Italy. The Empire was in a bad place when the Komnenoi came to the throne, but the ship had basically been steadied before the Crusaders arrived. Alexios didn't want to save his Empire at this stage- he wanted a force of formidable Norman mercenaries of his own with which to scare the Turks. He didn't even envisage a proper reconquest of Anatolia, since as far as Constantinople was concerned, the Turks were vassals and thus part of the Roman Empire anyway.

The invasion of Persia took place in the 7th century, and was sort of a holy war- but the context is very different, and can't really be compared to the running conflict with the Islamic states that followed it.
 
theres also the issue of centralization in the greek orthodox church. unlike the catholic church with a single head in the pope, the orthodox church has patriarchs, several of them in different places usually. one of the main things that caused the great schism was that the greeks didn't think the pope had as much power as the latins thought.
and even if a notable patriarch did call crusade, i think the only people to respond beside greeks/byzantines would be russians (who hated the byzantines), and some slavs in the balkans. if somehow the russians warmed up to the greeks a hell of a lot more, it might be possible. successful, however, is a different story
 
The Byzantines never developed a taste for holy wars like their neighbors did. They saw them as an excuse for random violence. They never even wanted the Western Europeans to retake the Levant, they just wanted assistance in defending their own land.
 
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