The Crusades

By Robert Silverberg

Beginning in 1095, Christianity and Islam clashed repeatedly over a 200-year period in the Middle East, in the series of wars we call The Crusades. This era saw naked scheming, selfish grabs for power, treachery of all kinds, and horrific battles--and many examples of nobility, heroism, and faith on both sides.

Fantasy & Science Fiction Grandmaster Robert Silverberg brings alive the human participants in these wars, and demonstrates why they remain so strikingly relevant to the political situation of our modern-day world. With dozens of illustrations by noted SF author and artist Judith Ann Lawrence (Judy Blish).

• Language: English
• Publisher: ReAnimus Press
• Release date: Jul 21, 2019
• ISBN: 9780463919309

Robert Silverberg

<p>Robert Silverberg has won five Nebula Awards, four Hugo Awards, and the prestigious <em>Prix Apollo.</em> He is the author of more than one hundred science fiction and fantasy novels -- including the best-selling Lord Valentine trilogy and the classics <em>Dying Inside</em> and <em>A Time of Changes</em> -- and more than sixty nonfiction works. Among the sixty-plus anthologies he has edited are <em>Legends</em> and <em>Far Horizons,</em> which contain original short stories set in the most popular universe of Robert Jordan, Stephen King, Ursula K. Le Guin, Gregory Benford, Greg Bear, Orson Scott Card, and virtually every other bestselling fantasy and SF writer today. Mr. Silverberg's Majipoor Cycle, set on perhaps the grandest and greatest world ever imagined, is considered one of the jewels in the crown of speculative fiction.</p>

Book preview

THE CRUSADES

by

ROBERT SILVERBERG

Illustrated by Judith Ann Lawrence

Produced by ReAnimus Press

Other books by Robert Silverberg:

The Gate of Worlds

Conquerors from the Darkness

Time of the Great Freeze

Enter a Soldier. Later: Another

The Longest Way Home

The Alien Years

Tower of Glass

Hot Sky at Midnight

The Queen of Springtime

Shadrach in the Furnace

The Stochastic Man

Thorns

Kingdoms of the Wall

Challenge for a Throne

Scientists and Scoundrels

1066

The Pueblo Revolt

The New Atlantis

The Day the Sun Stood Still

Triax

Three for Tomorrow

Three Trips in Time and Space

© 2019, 1965 by Robert Silverberg. All rights reserved.

https://ReAnimus.com/store?author=robertsilverberg

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Table of Contents

Maps

God Wills It

I - The Holy Land

II - The Armies Gather

III - On to Constantinople!

IV - Crusader Against Saracen

V - Jerusalem Regained

VI - The Kingdom of Jerusalem

VII - The Triumph of King Baldwin

VIII - The Death of Princes

IX - The Fall of Edessa

X - The Second Crusade

XI - Peril out of Egypt

XII - The Might of Saladin

XIII - The Horns of Hattin

XIV - The Third Crusade

XV - The Crusade that Went Astray

XVI - The Children's Crusade and the Fifth Crusade

XVII - The Emperor Frederick's Crusade

XVIII - Saint Louis and the Seventh Crusade

XIX - The End of the Crusades

Bibliography

About the Author

I promise you in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost, that all those who take part in this war and die while bearing arms, if their hearts are contrite and if they have been confessed, shall enter into possession of that Kingdom which the Lord has conquered for us by the Cross, and here and now I invest you with that Kingdom by that same cross, by the cross which I offer you. Come therefore, and may no one of you refuse to accept so glorious an investiture, so formal a warranty of the throne which is waiting for you above....

—Humbert of Romans, about 1256 A.D.

Maps

God Wills It

On an August day in 1095, workmen appeared at the cathedral of the French town of Le Puy. Wielding picks, they began to smash a hole in the wall of the building. No sacrilege was involved; Bishop Adhemar himself had given the orders. A new entrance was to be cut into the cathedral—an entrance to be used only once, on a high ceremonial occasion, and then to be sealed forever.

The occasion was the arrival of Pope Urban II in Le Puy. The Pope, head of Western Christendom, had been journeying westward all summer. When he entered the cathedral, Bishop Adhemar felt, it would be a moment of such historic importance for Le Puy that nothing less than a new entrance was necessary.

On the fifteenth of August, Pope Urban celebrated a solemn mass in the cathedral of Le Puy. From miles around crowds flocked to see him, for it was not every day that a Pope visited Le Puy. And this was an unusual Pope, a Frenchman himself, vigorous and wise, tall and handsome, with a grave, courteous manner. Great things were expected of him. He had come to the Throne of St. Peter in difficult times; Christianity was divided and the Holy Land, Christ’s birthplace, was under the rule of Turks and Arabs who followed the teachings of Mohammed.

After the ceremonies, the people scattered again, telling each other they had witnessed a great occasion. But greater events were afoot. That day, in private, Pope Urban conferred with Adhemar, the Bishop of Le Puy. Adhemar had been a knight, a warrior, before entering the Church. Noble in bearing, a true prince of God, Adhemar was respected by all. The two men met and spoke, and the Pope told the Bishop of his grand dream: to free the Holy Land from the grip of the Mohammedans, and make it once again a place where Christian pilgrims could go in safety. A crusade! A holy war! Would Bishop Adhemar support such a scheme, the Pope asked? Adhemar took Urban’s hand in his and pledged his backing.

It was important for the Pope to secure the support of such men as Adhemar before he made his plans public. In those days, the Pope was by no means absolute master of Christianity. Urban had had to struggle to claim his title. The Cardinals of the Church had elected him Pope in 1088, but, for political reasons, a rival had been put forth by Henry IV, the Holy Roman Emperor, who ruled Germany and much of Italy. Henry’s candidate, Guibert, had taken control of Rome itself. Not until May of 1095 was the true Pope able to oust the Antipope. Now, only a few months later, Urban was making his triumphant journey through Europe in the full flush of his victory.

After his conference with Adhemar, Urban sent out messengers to all the abbots and bishops loyal to him. There would be a general council of the Church in the town of Clermont in November. The Pope did not reveal the purpose of the council. That announcement would come in due time.

As November’s chill winds swept across France, the notables of the Church gathered in Clermont. More than 250 bishops and abbots arrived. There were clerical princes from many parts of France, from Spain, from the Duchy of Normandy, even from the Holy Roman Empire. Some were aged men, close to death, who made the journey to show their support of Pope Urban. Some, like Adhemar of Le Puy, were younger and stronger, in the prime of life. The townspeople of Clermont looked on in awe as the glittering prelates swarmed into their town accompanied by retinues of priests, clerks, and servants. Clermont overflowed; tents had to be pitched in the open fields.

From November 18 to November 26, the council transacted the business of the Church in closed session. Certain decrees were passed; one forbade monks to frequent taverns, another granted the right of sanctuary to any criminal who fled from pursuers into a church or other holy place. The Pope spoke harshly of Philip I, King of France, who had put aside his lawful wife to take another. Quarrels between high churchmen were settled.

Then, when the matters before the council had been dealt with, Pope Urban let it be known that he planned to speak in public on Tuesday, November 27. A platform was built outdoors in the marketplace of Clermont. Bishops and monks, barons and knights, peasants and merchants gathered by the thousands to hear the Pope’s words. Few had any idea in advance of what he was going to say. An excited hush fell as Urban rose to speak.

Four chroniclers have left us their accounts of the Pope’s words. At least one seems to have been an eyewitness: Fulcher of Chartres, a monk in the service of a nobleman named Stephen of Blois. According to Fulcher, the Pope began by speaking of the sad plight of the Christians who lived in the East, in that far-off center of civilization, the Byzantine Empire:

It is necessary that you bring to your brothers in the East the help so often promised and so urgently needed. They have been attacked, as many of you know, by Turks and Arabs.... Churches have been destroyed and the countryside laid waste. If you do not make a stand against the enemy now, the tide of their advance will overwhelm many more faithful servants of God.

The Pope spoke of the holiness of Jerusalem, the city where Christ had spent his last days on earth, where the crucifixion had taken place—a city that Christians had regarded as the holiest of shrines for a thousand years. He told of the pilgrims who had ventured there, and of their sufferings at the hands of the unbelievers. Then he delivered this ringing appeal:

I beg and beseech you—and not I alone but Our Lord begs and beseeches you as heralds of Christ—rich and poor alike make haste to drive this evil race from the places where our brothers live and bring a very present help to the worshipers of Christ. I will send the news to those who are far off; but it is the voice of Christ which commands your obedience!

In the past, the Church had always spoken out bitterly against war. How could the followers of Jesus, that man of peace, be encouraged to take up arms? Urban was careful to draw the distinction between a holy war and the evil strife of the past:

"Before this, you have waged unjust warfare, slaying each other and sometimes wielding mad weapons for the sake merely of greed and pride. For this you have earned everlasting death and the ruin of certain damnation. Now we set before you wars which have in themselves the glorious reward of martyrdom and the halo of present and everlasting fame.

 If anyone who sets out should lose his life either on the way, by land or by sea, or in battle against the infidels, his sins shall be pardoned from that moment. This I grant by right of God’s power to me, Urban promised.

He cried out to the warlike barons, to all men of blood, to brigands and hired killers, to put aside their grim sports and join the holy army. Join us without delay! he implored. Let those who are going settle up their affairs and collect what they will need to pay their expenses, so that when the winter is over and the spring comes they may set off joyfully under the guidance of Our Lord.

There was silence as the Pope finished. His listeners were stunned. So great a dream! So glorious a goal! To liberate the Holy Land, to smite the infidel and drive him out. It was a prospect to set the blood pounding and the head spinning. A deafening shout rang out across the market square of Clermont. Deus lo volt! God wills it!

God wills it!

Who would come forth, the Pope asked, to join the crusading army? Who would vow to go to Jerusalem, for the sake of true religion, not for honor or riches but in order to free the Church of God? He held forth his hands, and Bishop Adhemar of Le Puy came forward and begged to be the first to join.

Red cloth was brought, and eager hands cut from it a little cross that was sewn to the shoulder of Adhemar’s robe. The Cross, the red insignia of Christianity, became the symbol of the Crusades. After Adhemar came others, hundreds of them, demanding to take the Cross too.

Bishop Adhemar takes the Cross

Pope Urban had kindled a fire that day, a blaze of religious zeal that was destined to burn for centuries, now flickering fitfully, now leaping furiously to the heavens. Under the hot Asiatic sun lay the Holy Land, in unbelievers’ hands, and freeing it became the goal of every Christian. Wars would follow, thousands would perish, and European knights would become kings in Jerusalem. A procession of noble heroes and black villains was about to form; the Crusades were beginning, the central and guiding enterprise of the early Middle Ages, and by the time they had run their course the path of world events would have been greatly changed.

Men would soon be going east—some out of religious zeal, others in search of gold and glory, a few simply from the desire to kill or be killed. An epic was beginning, a romantic tale of chivalry and of greed, of bravery and of treachery, of virtue and of wickedness. Pope Urban had spoken better than he knew that November day in Clermont. The answering shout, God wills it, was heard in many lands. All Europe heard it and responded. It echoed in gleaming Constantinople, the capital of Eastern Christianity. Its roar reverberated as far as the Holy Land itself, to the ears of the sultans and caliphs of the Moslem world. They frowned, and then smiled, and wondered if anything would ever come to pass from all this fervor.

I - The Holy Land

Jerusalem, the heart of the Holy Land, was sacred to men of many creeds. Jews venerated it because it had been the capital of the ancient Kingdom of Israel in the time of David and Solomon. To Christians the city was sacred because of its many associations with Jesus. And Mohammedans came to revere it because Allah—God—had brought the Prophet Mohammed there one night before revealing heaven itself to him.

At the time that Christ lived and died in Jerusalem, the entire area that would later be called the Holy Land was under Roman rule. Rome had built a vast empire that stretched from the boundaries of Persia in the east to England in the west, from the Danube River in the north to the sandy wastes of the Sahara in the south. Rome was pagan, then; but the religion of Christ, at first an underground movement, took root and flourished, and by the early fourth century the Emperor Constantine had made it the official religion of the empire. It was Constantine, too, who built an eastern capital for the empire. In November, 324, he journeyed to the place where Europe and Asia meet, where the strait called the Bosporus links the Black Sea and the Mediterranean. An ancient town called Byzantium stood at that point, and near it Constantine established the magnificent city of Constantinople, or New Rome.

By 364, the Roman Empire was divided, with one Emperor ruling at Rome and another at Constantinople. While hordes of barbarians were descending from the north to crush Rome, the eastern empire was thriving and growing ever more powerful. Within a century, the Rome of the Caesars was only a memory, but the eastern empire, now called the Byzantine Empire, reigned in splendor over much of eastern Europe and also over such former Roman territories as Egypt, Asia Minor, Syria, Lebanon, and Palestine.

So Jerusalem came under the control of the Byzantines as the heirs of Rome. That fact alone made Constantinople the real center of the Christian world. There was a Pope in Rome, but Rome was under the thumb of rough barbarian chieftains. By a decree of the year 451, the Pope was the head of the Church in name, but his eastern rival, the Patriarch of Constantinople, was actually his equal in power. And it was through the fabulous city of Constantinople that all pilgrims had to pass on their way to Jerusalem.

Jerusalem was a magnet for Christians. A pilgrimage to the Holy Land was the goal of every worshiper: to see the places where the story of Jesus had been acted out, to kneel where the Savior had knelt, to pray where Christ had prayed. Folk who knew the Bible as they knew no other book were steeped in tales of Palestine. They knew its geography and envisioned its landmarks; they yearned to see it all with their own eyes. There are many accounts of early pilgrimages, such as that of the Abbess Etheria of Gaul, who journeyed to the Holy Land in 386, and that of an unknown man of Bordeaux who made the trip fifty years before her. By 500 A.D., with the Byzantines firmly in control of the eastern world, a steady flow of pilgrims traveled to Jerusalem.

The travel was a good business for Byzantium. The pilgrims had to pay heavy tolls as they passed through Constantinople, and more cash had to be handed to the Byzantine guardians of the holy places of Palestine. Despite the high costs and the severe hardships, the pilgrims came gladly. And, obligingly enough, the Byzantines took them on tours, showed them the sacred relics. Where the relics no longer existed, or had never existed at all, it was always possible to manufacture them. In a pilgrim’s account written about 525 the traveler says he was able to see in Jerusalem the horn with which David and Solomon were anointed.... the Holy Lance, made of the wood of the Cross, which shines at night like the sun in the glory of the day.... the earth of which Adam was formed.... the cup of the Last Supper.... the crown of thorns.... the rod with which Jesus was whipped. It was possible to follow the footsteps of Christ as he walked through the city toward the place of his crucifixion. At nearby Nazareth could be seen the book from which our Lord learned his A B C. Bones of the saints, dishes from which the apostles had eaten, and other relics just as unlikely, all made the pilgrims glow with joy. It was thought that seeing and handling such things brought the sinner into contact with God and helped him to obtain pardon for sin.

All this was changed by the coming of Mohammed.

He was a man of Arabia, born about 570 A.D. in the city of Mecca. His family was poor, and he entered the service of Khadijah, the widow of a rich merchant. Though she was about fifteen years older than he was, she became fond of him and took him as her husband. The marriage, when Mohammed was about twenty-five, freed him from the need to earn a living and gave him time to ponder questions of religion.

Arabia then was a land of idol worshipers. Jews and Christians dwelled in Mecca, and no doubt Mohammed had occasion to discuss their religion with them. Meditating as he rode from city to city on merchant’s business, jogging on camelback through the baking desert heat, Mohammed turned away from the multitude of gods that Arabia followed and embraced the Judaeo-Christian idea of One True God.

There is no God but God, and Mohammed is his Prophet, his followers declare to this day. Mohammed had the gift of leadership, granted to him as it has been to few others. This not very dynamic businessman of Mecca was transformed into the voice of Allah, and men listened to him. The religion that he preached owed much to Judaism and Christianity, which Mohammed did not deny; he recognized Moses and Jesus as great prophets also. But his creed, simple and direct, went to the hearts of the Arabians. It had no rituals, no elaborate doctrines, no priesthood. Mohammed called on all men to bow to God, to accept Allah’s will, and to recognize all other men as brothers. The name of the religion, Islam, meant surrender, and Mohammed’s followers were called Moslems, those who surrender themselves.

Not all Arabs accepted Islam’s severe, pious teachings. In 622, Mohammed was attacked by assassins. He narrowly escaped and was forced to flee from Mecca. He made his way to the city of Medina. This journey, called the hegira or Flight of the Prophet, is so important in Moslem history that the year 622 A.D. has become Year One of the Mohammedan calendar.

In Medina, supporters flocked to Mohammed’s cause. He formed an army of men willing to shed blood in Allah’s name, and the Moslem conquests began. Islam was a strange combination of the austerely religious and the bloodthirsty; the wars of the Moslems were wars of piety which used the sword to bring the message of Allah’s justice to unbelievers.

Mohammed sent a message to Heraclius, the Byzantine Emperor, asking him to embrace Islam. Heraclius paid no attention to the desert prophet; he had bigger enemies to cope with. Between 613 and 620, Persian armies had conquered Syria, Egypt, and Asia Minor, murdering thousands of Christians and carrying off the True Cross on which Christ was said to have been crucified. From 622 to 628, Heraclius led what could be called the first of all the Crusades. He drove the Persians from the Holy Land and recaptured the True Cross.

The glorious victory brought him letters of congratulations from as far away as France and India. Heraclius had emerged as the hero of Christendom. Giddy with his triumph, he could not be disturbed by the ravings of an Arabian prophet. Safe in mighty Constantinople, with its shrines blazing with bright mosaics, the Byzantine Emperor, conqueror of the Persians, had little to fear from Mohammed.

But Islam spread. When the Prophet died in 632, his friend Abu Bakr succeeded him, taking the title of Caliph, or Commander of the Faithful. Arab armies marched against the already battered Persians and destroyed them. Steadily the Moslems advanced out of Arabia, under Abu Bakr and then under his successor, the Caliph Omar. The trumpet rang; the curved swords gleamed in the sunlight; Moslems surged onward through Palestine, Syria, Egypt, North Africa.

A clash with Byzantium was inevitable. In 636, Moslem met Christian in Palestine, and a fierce battle took place on the banks of the Yarmuk, near the Sea of Galilee. In a blinding sandstorm, the Arabs slew thousands of Byzantine troops. Twelve thousand Christian Arabs deserted Heraclius and converted to Islam en masse. Byzantium, wearied by its bitter war with Persia, could not withstand the Moslem onslaught.

So Jerusalem passed into Moslem rule. The Church of the Holy Sepulchre built by the Emperor Constantine was demolished, but otherwise the Arabs did not harm the shrines of Christendom. Even in these harsh times, a few Christian pilgrims continued to make their way east.

The Arab advance continued. They crossed the Mediterranean and conquered Spain; they crushed Persia completely; they attacked Constantinople itself in 718, but were thrown back. Fourteen years later, at the battle of Tours, they met another defeat when Charles Martel halted their invasion of France. After that, the tide of Moslem expansion slowed, and Christianity began to come to terms with the powerful new religion.

With their early lust for battle wearing off, the Arabs grew more peaceful. Except in occasional moments of fanaticism, they tolerated Christians and Jews in the lands they had conquered. The Christians of the Holy Land found them easy masters. Taxes were lower than they had been under the rule of Byzantium, and the Moslem sense of justice created an atmosphere of tranquility. There had long been sharp quarrels between different sects of Christianity, and the Byzantine Christians had sometimes been savage in their persecution of those who did not worship Christ in the same way they did. Now, under the Arabs, all the squabbling divisions of Christianity had equal protection before the law, and the persecutions ended.

Meanwhile, in Western Europe, great changes were occurring. The barbarians who had swamped Rome had had time to grow civilized and Christianized, and out of the Dark Ages of the fifth through eighth centuries had come new order. The Franks, a Germanic people, had beaten the Arabs in the days of Charles Martel; now that leader’s grandson forged an empire that claimed to succeed that of ancient Rome. He was Charlemagne, the first Emperor of the West, who regarded himself as the rival of the Byzantine Emperor.

Charlemagne communicated with Haroun al-Rashid, the Caliph of that day, who ruled from the new Arab capital of Baghdad. Haroun, a wise and tolerant man, acknowledged that Christians had the right to visit Jerusalem. By the year 800, monasteries and churches again were being built by Christians in the Holy Land, and the stream of pilgrims grew. So long as they paid their tolls, visiting Christians were as welcome as they had been when the Byzantines governed the Holy Land.

The Arab civilization grew rich and complex. Poets, physicians, scholars clustered at Baghdad, and also in Spain, at the western end of the Moslem domain. The Arabs translated into