A History of the Crusades-Vol 1 (7 page)

Eighth-and
Ninth-Century Pilgrims

During the eighth century the number of
pilgrims increased. Some even came from England; of whom the most famous was
Willibald, who died in 781 as Bishop of Eichstadt in Bavaria. In his youth he
had gone to Palestine, leaving Rome in 722 and only returning there, after many
disagreeable adventures, in 729. Towards the end of the century there seems to
have been an attempt to organize pilgrimages, under the patronage of Charles
the Great. Charles had restored order and some prosperity to the West and had established
good relations with the Caliph Harun al-Rashid. The hostels that were erected
by his help in the Holy Land show that in his time many pilgrims must have
reached Jerusalem, and women amongst them. Nuns from Christian Spain were sent
to serve at the Holy Sepulchre. But this activity was short-lived. The
Carolingian empire declined. Moslem pirates reappeared in the eastern
Mediterranean; Norse pirates came in from the West. When Bernard the Wise, from
Brittany, visited Palestine in 870, he found Charles’s establishments still in
working order, but empty and beginning to decay. Bernard had only been able to
make the journey by obtaining a passport from the Moslem authorities then
governing Bari, in southern Italy; and even this passport did not enable him to
land at Alexandria.

The great age of pilgrimage begins with the
tenth century. The Arabs lost their last pirate-nests in Italy and southern
France in the course of the century; and Crete was taken from them in 961.
Already by then the Byzantine navy had been for some time sufficiently in
command of the seas for maritime commerce in the Mediterranean to have fully
revived. Greek and Italian merchant ships sailed freely between the ports of
Italy and the Empire and were beginning, with the goodwill of the Moslem
authorities, to open up trade with Syria and Egypt. It was easy for a pilgrim
to secure a passage direct from Venice or from Bari to Tripoli or Alexandria;
though most travellers preferred to call in at Constantinople to see its great
collections of relics and then to proceed by sea or by the land route, which
recent Byzantine military successes had now made secure. In Palestine itself
the Moslem authorities, whether Abbasid, Ikshid or Fatimid, seldom caused
difficulties, but, rather, welcomed the travellers for the wealth that they
brought into the province.

The improvement in the conditions of pilgrimage
had its effect on western religious thought. It is doubtful at what age
pilgrimages were first ordered as canonical penances. Early medieval
poenitentialia
all recommend a pilgrimage, but usually without giving a specified goal. But
the belief was growing that certain holy places possessed a definite spiritual
virtue which affected those that visited them and could even grant indulgences
from sin. Thus the pilgrim knew that not only would he be able to pay reverence
to the earthly remains and surroundings of God and His saints and so enter into
mystical contact with them but he might also obtain God’s pardon for his
wickedness. From the tenth century onwards four shrines in particular were held
to have this power, those of Saint James at Compostella in Spain and of Saint
Michael at Monte Gargano in Italy, the many sacred sites at Rome, and, above
all, the holy places in Palestine. To all of these access was now far easier,
owing to the retreat or the goodwill of the Moslems. But the journey was still
sufficiently long and arduous to appeal to the common sense as well as to the
religious feeling of medieval man. It was wise to remove a criminal for the
space of a year or more from the scene of his crime. The discomforts and
expense of his journey would be a punishment to him, while the achievement of
his task and the emotional atmosphere of his goal would give him a feeling of
spiritual cleansing and strength. He returned a better man.

The Great Age of
Pilgrimage

Casual references in the chroniclers tell us of
frequent pilgrimages though the names of the actual pilgrims that we now
possess are inevitably only those of the greater personages. From amongst the
great lords and ladies of the West there came Hilda, Countess of Swabia, who
died on her journey in 969, and Judith, Duchess of Bavaria, sister-in-law of
the Emperor Otto I, whose tour took place in 970. The Counts of Ardeche, of
Vienne, of Verdun, of Arcy, of Anhalt and of Gorizia, all were pilgrims.
Leading ecclesiastics were even more assiduous. Saint Conrad, Bishop of
Constance, made three separate journeys to Jerusalem, and Saint John, Bishop of
Parma, no less than six. The Bishop of Olivola was there in 920. Pilgrim abbots
included those of Saint-Cybar, of Flavigny, of Aurillac, of Saint-Aubin d’Angers
and of Montier-en-Der. All these eminent travellers brought with them groups of
humble men and women whose names were of no interest to the writers of the
time.

This activity was mainly the result of private
enterprise. But a new force was appearing in European politics, which amongst
its other work set about the organization of the pilgrim traffic. In 910 Count
William I of Aquitaine founded the Abbey of Cluny. By the end of the century
Cluny, ruled by a series of remarkable abbots, was the centre of a vast
ecclesiastical nexus, well ordered, closely knit and intimately connected with
the Papacy. The Cluniacs regarded themselves as the keepers of the conscience
of western Christendom. Their doctrine approved of pilgrimage. They wished to
give it practical assistance. By the beginning of the next century the
pilgrimages to the great Spanish shrines were almost entirely under their
control. At the same time they began to arrange and to popularize journeys to
Jerusalem. It was owing to their persuasion that the Abbot of Stavelot set out
for the Holy Land in 990 and the Count of Verdun in 997. Their influence is
shown by the great increase in the eleventh century of pilgrims from France and
Lorraine, from districts that were near to Cluny and her daughter houses.
Though there were still many Germans amongst the pilgrims of the eleventh
century, such as the Archbishops of Trier and Mainz and the Bishop of Bamberg,
and many pilgrims from England, French and Lorraine pilgrims now by far
outnumbered them. The two great dynasties of northern France, the Counts of
Anjou and the Dukes of Normandy, were both, despite their mutual rivalry, the
close friends of Cluny; and both patronized the eastern journey. The terrible
Fulk Nerra of Anjou went to Jerusalem in 1002 and twice returned there later.
Duke Richard III of Normandy sent alms there, and Duke Robert led a huge
company there in 1035. All these pilgrimages were faithfully recorded by the
Cluniac historian, the monk Glaber.

Scandinavian
Pilgrims

The Normans followed their Dukes’ example. They
had a particular veneration for Saint Michael; and great numbers of them made
the journey to Monte Gargano. From there the more enterprising would go on to
Palestine. In the middle of the century they formed so large and so fervent a
proportion of the Palestine pilgrims that the government at Constantinople,
angry with the Normans for their raids on Byzantine Italy, began to show some
ill will towards the pilgrim traffic. Their cousins from Scandinavia showed an
almost equal enthusiasm. Scandinavians had long been used to visit
Constantinople; and its wealth and wonders greatly impressed them. They talked
in their northern homes of Micklegarth, as they called the great city; which
they even at times identified with Asgard, the home of the gods. Already by 930
there were Norsemen in the Emperor’s army. Early in the eleventh century there
were so many of them that a special Norse regiment was formed, the famed
Varangian Guard. The Varangians soon acquired the habit of spending a leave on
a journey to Jerusalem. The first of whom we have a record was a certain
Kolskeggr, who was in Palestine in 992. Harald Hardrada, most famous of the
Varangians, was there in 1034. During the eleventh century there were many
Norwegians, Icelanders and Danes who spent five or more years in the imperial
service, then made the pilgrimage before they returned, rich with their
savings, to their homes in the north. Stimulated by their tales their friends
would come south merely to make the pilgrimage. The apostle to Iceland,
Thorvald Kodransson Vidtforli, was in Jerusalem about the year 990. Several
Norse pilgrims claimed to have seen there Olaf Tryggvason, first Christian king
of Norway, after his mysterious disappearance in 1000. Olaf II intended to
follow his example, but his voyage never took place except in legend. These
Nordic princes were violent men, frequently guilty of murder and frequently in need
of an act of penance. The half-Danish Swein Godwinsson set out with a body of
Englishmen in 1051 to expiate a murder, but died of exposure in the Anatolian
mountains next autumn. He had gone barefoot because of his sins. Lagman
Gudrodsson, Norse king of Man, who had slain his brother, sought a similar
pardon from God. Most Scandinavian pilgrims liked to make a round tour, coming
by sea through the Straits of Gibraltar and returning overland through Russia.

Tenth-century pilgrims from the West had been obliged
to travel by sea across the Mediterranean to Constantinople or to Syria. But
fares were high and berths not easy to obtain. In 975 the rulers of Hungary
were converted to Christianity; and an overland route was opened, going down
the Danube and across the Balkans to Constantinople. Till 1019, when Byzantium
finally established control over the whole Balkan peninsula, this was a
dangerous road; but thenceforward a pilgrim could travel with very little risk
through Hungary to cross the Byzantine frontier at Belgrade and then proceed
through Sofia and Adrianople to the capital. Alternatively, he could now go to
Byzantine Italy and make the short sea-passage across from Bari to Dyrrhachium
and then follow the old Roman Via Egnatia through Thessalonica to the
Bosphorus. There were three good main roads that would take him across Asia
Minor to Antioch. Thence he went down to the coast at Lattakieh and crossed
into Fatimid territory near Tortosa. This was the only frontier that he had to
pass since his arrival at Belgrade or at Termoli in Italy; and he could proceed
without further hindrance to Jerusalem. Travel overland, though slow, was far
cheaper and easier than travel by sea, and far better suited to large
companies.

Travel across
the Frontier

So long as the pilgrims were orderly they could
count on hospitable treatment from the peasants of the Empire; and for the
earlier part of their journey the Cluniacs were now building hostels along the
route. There were several hospices in Italy, some restricted to the use of
Norsemen. There was a great hospice at Melk in Austria. At Constantinople the
Hospice of Samson was reserved for the use of western pilgrims; and the
Cluniacs kept up an establishment at Rodosto in the suburbs. At Jerusalem
itself pilgrims could stay at the Hospital of St John, founded by the merchants
of Amalfi. There was no objection to the great lords of the West bringing with
them an armed escort, so long as it was properly under control; and most
pilgrims tried to join some such company. But it was not uncommon, nor
particularly risky, for men to travel alone or in twos and threes. At times
there might be difficulties. During Hakim’s persecution it was uncomfortable to
stay long in Palestine, though the flow of pilgrims was never wholly interrupted.
In 1055 it was considered dangerous to cross the frontier into Moslem
territory. Lietbert, Bishop of Cambrai, was not granted an exit-visa by the
governor of Lattakieh and was forced to go to Cyprus. In 1056 the Moslems,
perhaps with the connivance of the Emperor, forbade westerners to enter the
Holy Sepulchre and ejected some three hundred of them from Jerusalem. Both
Basil II and his niece the Empress Theodora caused offence by ordering their
customs officers to levy a tax on pilgrims and their horses. Pope Victor II
wrote to the Empress in December 1056, begging her to cancel the order; and his
letter suggests that her officials were also to be found in Jerusalem itself.

But such inconveniences were rare. Throughout
the eleventh century till its last two decades, an unending stream of
travellers poured eastward, sometimes travelling in parties numbering
thousands, men and women of every age and every class, ready, in that leisurely
age, to spend a year or more on the voyage. They would pause at Constantinople
to admire the huge city, ten times greater than any city that they knew in the
West, and to pay reverence to the relics that it housed. They could see there
the Crown of Thorns, the Seamless Garment and all the major relics of the
Passion. There was the cloth from Edessa on which Christ had imprinted His
face, and Saint Luke’s own portrait of the Virgin; the hair of John the Baptist
and the mantle of Elijah; the bodies of innumerable saints, prophets and
martyrs; an endless store of the holiest things in Christendom. Thence they
went on to Palestine, to Nazareth and Mount Tabor, to the Jordan and to
Bethlehem, and to all the shrines of Jerusalem. They gazed at them all and
prayed at them all; then they made the long voyage homeward, returning edified
and purified, to be greeted by their countrymen as the pilgrims of Christ who
had made the most sacred of journeys.

But the success of the pilgrimage depended on
two conditions: first, that life in Palestine should be orderly enough for the
defenceless traveller to move and worship in safety; and secondly, that the way
should be kept open and cheap. The former necessitated peace and good
government in the Moslem world, the latter the prosperity and benevolence of
Byzantium.