Blog Post 2

Motives for the Crusades

Urban II’s Call for a Crusade is a collection of four accounts of a speech made by Pope Urban II to Christians in 1095 recruiting soldiers for a Crusade to regain the Holy Land. These four accounts are recordings of the speech taken by four different men, and even though all four are significantly different, they do share similar aspects. The recordings are by Fulcher of Chartress, Robert the Monk, Baldric the Dol, and Guibert of Nogent. As I was reading through the different versions of Pope Urban II’s speech, I could see why Christians were convinced to go to war for their religion, but some of the reasons made for going to war were the same reasons why the Crusades were unsuccessful.
Pope Urban appeals to Christians by promising salvation if the Crusade results in their death, pointing out the hardships that Christian pilgrims now face if they wish to journey to the Holy Land, and describing the plight of the Christians who are at the mercy of Muslims in the Holy Land. I believe the third reason was in a way both a blessing and a curse for the Crusade, because the way he describes the actions the Muslims take against the Christians certainly helped recruiting many more soldiers and gained momentum for the Crusade as a whole. However, I think this reason also provoked an unforeseen backlash. According to Fulcher of Chartress the Pope says “[The Muslims] have killed and captured many, and have destroyed the churches and devastated the [Byzantine empire]” (39), and Baldric of Dol records the Pope saying “Holy men do not possess those cities; nay, base and bastard Turks hold sway over our brothers” (43). Both these claims are bold and effective, but the quote from Robert the Monk is much more gruesome. According to Robert, Pope Urban II announces
“[The Muslims] circumcise the Christians and pour the blood from the circumcision on the altars or in the baptismal fonts. Some they kill in a horrible way by cutting open the abdomen, taking a part of the entrails and tying them to a stake; they then beat them and compel them to walk until all their entrails are drawn out and they fall to the ground” (41).
I do not know whether or not this brutality actually occurred. In fact it probably did not. Most likely Pope Urban II was playing with his listeners imaginations to help his cause. It was definitely effective because thousands of Christians suited up and went to war for the Holy Land. However, I think it was because they went for wrong reasons such as this that the Crusades were eventually doomed. Mental ideas and images created by Pope Urban II and others resulted in vengeance becoming soldiers’ motives for going to the Holy Land. With revenge in their minds, upon arriving in the Middle East they committed horrible crimes against Muslims even after the land had been regained and violence was over. This only stirred up resentment and provided motivation for the Muslims to retake the Holy Land, which they did. The crusaders even attacked Christian towns and villages and during the last Crusades they infamously sacked Constantinople. These actions led to increasing resistance and diminishing support for the Crusades until they fell apart. I think the images placed in Christians’ minds by descriptions from religious leaders such as Pope Urban II played a direct role in how the crusaders behaved on the Crusades and therefore how the Crusades ended.


Hugh Harwood



Bibliography



Urban II’s Call For A Crusade