Crusade of 1101
The 1101 crusade was a smaller crusade that actually consisted of three different movements organized after the successful First Crusade .
When the young Kingdom of Jerusalem called for reinforcements, Pope Paschalis II , the successor of Urban II , urged a new campaign. In particular, he addressed those who had made a vow of the crusade but had not set out on the First Crusade, and those who had turned back before reaching Jerusalem . Some of these people had already returned home and faced scorn and enormous pressure to return to the East. Adela of Blois , wife of Stephen II of Blois , was so ashamed of her husband's escape from the siege of Antioch in 1098 that she did not allow him to stay at home.
The Lombards
In September 1100 a large group of Lombards left Milan , mostly small farmers unskilled in combat, led by the Archbishop of Milan , Anselm IV. When they reached the territory of the Byzantine Empire , they carelessly plundered the country, so that the Byzantine Emperor Alexios I Komnenos had them escorted to a camp outside Constantinople . From there they set out for the city, where they looted the Blachernen Palace . The emperor had the Lombards quickly taken to the other side of the Bosporus , where they settled at Nicomedia to wait for reinforcements.
In Nicomedia, a smaller but better armed group of French , Burgundians and Germans under Stephan von Blois, Stephan von Burgund , Odo von Burgund and Konrad, the constable of Emperor Henry IV , joined them in May . Added to this was Raymond IV of Toulouse , one of the leaders of the First Crusade, who was now in the service of the Byzantine emperor and was appointed supreme leader. Alexios had them escorted by a group of Pechenegic mercenaries under the command of General Tzitas.
At the end of May this crowd marched towards Dorylaum , following the route that Raimund and Stephan had already chosen in 1097. They planned to continue their route via Iconium , but the Lombards, whose population outnumbered all other contingents, were determined to go north to Niksar , where Bohemond of Taranto was being held by the Danish Mends. After the capture of Ankara on June 23 and the return of the city to Alexios, the crusaders turned north, where they were immediately attacked by the Rum Seljuks . The Turks harassed the crusaders for weeks; a grocery group was destroyed near Kastamonu in July .
Battle of Mersivan
After the Lombards realized their mistake, the whole army turned east and invaded the area of the Danischmenden. The Seljuks under Kilij Arslan I , who had identified their disagreement as the reason that they could not stop the First Crusade, now allied themselves with the Danischmenden and Ridwan of Aleppo . At the beginning of August, the crusaders met the Allied Muslim troops at Mersivan . The crusaders were divided into five groups: Burgundians, Raimund and the Byzantines, the Germans, the French and the Lombards. The Lombards as a vanguard were defeated, the Pechenegs deserted, the French and the Germans had to withdraw. Raimund was surrounded on a rock and saved by Stephan and Konrad. The battle continued the next day, the crusaders' camp was captured, the knights fled, leaving women, children, and priests to be killed or enslaved. Most of the Lombards who did not have horses were soon tracked down and killed by the Turks. Raimund, Stephan von Blois and Stephan von Burgund fled to Sinope in the north and returned to Constantinople by ship.
The Nivernaiser
Shortly after the Lombards left Nicomedia, another army under William II of Nevers arrived in Constantinople. They had crossed the Adriatic Sea from Bari and crossed the Byzantine Empire without incident. Wilhelm quickly set out again to meet the others, but did not find them, although both armies must have been very close to each other several times. He briefly besieged Iconium, but could not conquer it, and soon afterwards he was ambushed near Herakleia by Kilij Arslan, who had just defeated the Lombards in Mersivan and urged that this new army also be driven out as quickly as possible. Nearly all of Wilhelm's troops were wiped out at Heraklea, with the exception of Wilhelm and some of his men. Wilhelm von Nevers then fled to Tarsus .
The French and the Bavarians
At the moment that Wilhelm II left Constantinople, a third army arrived there, under the command of Wilhelm IX. of Aquitaine , Hugo of Vermandois (one of those who had not fulfilled their vows from the First Crusade) and Welf IV of Bavaria . In her company was Ida of Austria , the mother of Leopold III. of Austria . They had plundered Byzantine territory on the way and a battle with Hepenegian mercenaries sent by Byzantium could only just barely be done through the intervention of William IX. and Welf IV. can be prevented.
In Constantinople the army was divided into two parts. One traveled directly to Palestine by ship; among them was the chronicler Ekkehard von Aura . The other took the land route, reached Heraklea in September and, like the previous army, was destroyed in an ambush by Kilij Arslan. Wilhelm and Welf managed to flee, but Hugo was fatally wounded. The survivors eventually reached Tarsus, where Hugo died on October 18. Ida disappeared during the ambush and was likely killed. Later legends, however, claim that she was captured and became the mother of Zengi , a major enemy of the Crusaders in the 1140s.
Onward journey to Jerusalem
The survivors gathered in Tarsus. Raimund von Toulouse later also arrived with the survivors from Sinope. Under his command they then conquered Tortosa with Genoese help , but the crusade was now more of a pilgrimage. At the end of 1101 Antioch was reached, Easter 1102 Jerusalem .
effect
After the Crusaders reached Jerusalem, many simply went home, having no other purpose than to fulfill their vows. Others helped King Baldwin I defend the country against an Egyptian invasion at Ramla . Stephan von Blois was killed in this battle, as was Hugo von Lusignan , ancestor of the later Lusignan dynasty in Jerusalem and Cyprus . Joscelin of Courtenay stayed in the country and became Count of Edessa in 1118 .
The victory over the Crusaders allowed Kilij Arslan to move his capital to Iconium. Moreover, this defeat showed the Muslim world that the Crusaders were by no means unbeatable, as it had seemed during the First Crusade. The Crusaders and Byzantines blamed the other side for the defeat, but neither was able to guarantee a safe route through Anatolia , where Kilij Arslan had now strengthened his position. The only open route to the Holy Land was by sea, which in turn benefited Italian cities. The lack of safe road links also benefited the principality of Antioch , where Tankred , who ruled for his uncle Bohemond , was able to consolidate his power without interference from Byzantium.
The Second Crusade , while attempting to cross Anatolia, suffered a fate similar to that of the 1101 Crusade.
swell
- Albert von Aachen : Historia Hierosolymitana.
literature
- Steven Runciman : The Kingdom of Jerusalem and the Frankish East, 1100-1187. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 1951 ( A History of the Crusades. Volume 2).
- Kenneth Setton (Ed.): A History of the Crusades. University of Wisconsin, Madison 1969-1989.
- Hans Eberhard Mayer: History of the Crusades. 10th edition, Kohlhammer, Stuttgart 2005, pp. 88-91.