Oxford Illustrated History of the Crusades, The
Jonathan Riley-Smith
Number of quotes: 12
Book ID: 258 Page: 8
Section: 3H
It was common ground among historians that a crusade was a holy war, proclaimed by the pope on Christ’s behalf, the fighters in which, or a substantial portion of them, took vows of a special kind and enjoyed certain temporal and spiritual privileges, in particular the indulgence.
Quote ID: 6499
Time Periods: 7
Book ID: 258 Page: 9
Section: 3H
And in his The Crusades (first published in German in 1965 and in English in 1972) he defined the crusade narrowly as a ‘a war which is aimed at acquiring or preserving Christian domination over the Sepulchre of Our Lord in Jerusalem i.e. a clear-cut objective which can be geographically pinned down to a particular region’.
Quote ID: 6500
Time Periods: 7
Book ID: 258 Page: 15
Section: 3H
This constitutes perhaps the greatest mental adjustment which a modern observer must make when considering the central Middle Ages. Violence was everywhere, impinging on many aspects of daily life. Legal disputes, for instance, were often resolved by means of trial by battle or by recourse to painful and perilous ordeals. Around the time of the First Crusade it was becoming increasingly common for convicted felons to suffer death or mutilation, a departure from the traditional emphasis on compensating the victims or their families.
Quote ID: 6501
Time Periods: 7
Book ID: 258 Page: 15
Section: 3H
Brutality was so common it could be ritualistic. In about 1100, for example, a knight from Gascony prayed at the monastery of Sorde that God would enable him to catch his brother’s murderer. The intended victim was ambushed, his face was horribly mutilated, his hands and feet were cut off, and he was castrated. In this way his prestige, his capacity to fight, and his dynastic prospects were all irreparably damaged. Moved by feelings of gratitude for what he believed had been divine assistance, the avenging knight presented his enemy’s bloodstained armour and weapons as a pious offering to the monks of Sorde. These they accepted.
Quote ID: 6502
Time Periods: 7
Book ID: 258 Page: 15
Section: 3A2
This case is one small but revealing illustration of the medieval Church’s inability to distance itself from the violent world around it.
Quote ID: 6503
Time Periods: 7
Book ID: 258 Page: 16
Section: 3A2,3A4C,4B
The standard position, which became associated with Augustine and was refined in later centuries, was that the moral rectitude of an act could not be judged simply by examining the physical event in isolation: violence was validated to a greater or lesser degree by the state of mind of those responsible, the ends sought, and the competence of the individual or body which authorized the act.
Quote ID: 6504
Time Periods: 57
Book ID: 258 Page: 16
Section: 3A4C,4B
Thus allowed considerable ideological flexibility, the Church was able to take an active interest in warfare on a number of fronts, including those areas where Latin Christendom came into direct contact with the Muslim world. The second half of the eleventh century was a period of Latin expansion.
Quote ID: 6505
Time Periods: 57
Book ID: 258 Page: 18
Section: 3H,4B
What, then, was it about late eleventh-century Europe which made the First Crusade possible? One basic feature was the thorough militarization of society, a characteristic rooted in long centuries of development.
Quote ID: 6508
Time Periods: 7
Book ID: 258 Page: 24
Section: 3H
But by the 1090s an important and lasting start had been made. A consequence was that when Pope Urban launched the First Crusade he was able to mobilize the resources, enthusiasm, and communication skills of many individual clerics and religious communities, a body of collective support which had already grown sensitive to papal initiatives.
Quote ID: 6510
Time Periods: 7
Book ID: 258 Page: 26
Section: 3H
The First Crusade was therefore preached at a time when many lay people were sensitive to communal pressure, used to dwelling on their behavioural shortcomings, and convinced that their spiritual welfare depended on taking positive action.
Quote ID: 6511
Time Periods: 7
Book ID: 258 Page: 34
Section: 3H
These bands, led by men like Peter the Hermit and Walter Sans-Avoir, were the first to form and the first to depart, as early as spring 1096. Collectively, they are known traditionally as the People’s Crusade, but in reality they were essentially independent groups of the poor, lacking supplies and equipment, though some contained or were even led by knights. Streaming from northern France, the Low Countries, the Rhineland, and Saxony in particular, they sought to reach Constantinople, but many failed to get even that far.
Quote ID: 6512
Time Periods: 7
Book ID: 258 Page: 36
Section: 3H
They began to leave for the East in late summer 1096, gradually mustering at Constantinople later that year and in early 1097. Their long trek finally ended in success over two years later when Jerusalem fell to the crusaders on 15 July 1099. It had been an incredible journey. Against all the odds, and despite fearsome suffering and deprivation, especially during the ghastly protracted siege of Antioch in 1097-8, they had managed to liberate the Holy Places. It is no wonder that many contemporaries regarded it as miraculous.
Quote ID: 6513
Time Periods: 7
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