A History of the Crusades-Vol 2 (33 page)

Proceeding into France, the Pope met King Louis
at Dijon in the first days of April and arrived at Clairvaux on 6 April. Conrad
sent him an embassy there to ask for an interview at Strassburg on the 18th;
but Eugenius had promised to spend Easter, on 20 April, at Saint-Denis and
would not alter his plans. Conrad prepared to depart for the East without the
personal blessing of the Pontiff. Eugenius meanwhile had many interviews with
the abbot Suger, who was to govern France while Louis was away. He held a
council at Paris to deal with the heresy of Gilbert de la Poree, and he saw
Louis again, at Saint-Denis, on 11 June. Then, while Louis completed his last
preparations, he moved slowly southward to return to Italy.

1147
^:
King Conrad leaves Germany

While the Kings of France and Germany were
preparing for the Crusade, planning a long overland journey, a humbler
expedition composed of Englishmen, together with some Flemings and Frisians,
was inspired by the preaching of Saint Bernard’s agents to set out by sea for
Palestine. The ships left England in the late spring of 1147; and early in June
bad weather forced them to take refuge at the mouth of the river Douro, on the
Portuguese coast. There they were met by emissaries from Alfonso-Henry, Count
of Portugal. He had recently established his country’s independence and was
negotiating with the Papacy for the title of King, giving as its justification
his successful campaigns against the Moslems. Taking advantage of the
difficulties of the Almoravids, he had won a great victory at Ourique in 1139,
and in March of 1147 he had reached the banks of the Tagus and had captured
Santarem. He now wished to attack the local Moslem capital, Lisbon, and needed
naval help for it. The Crusaders’ arrival was timely. His chief envoy, the
Bishop of Oporto, pointed out to them that there was no need to make the long
voyage to Palestine if they wished to fight for the Cross. There were infidels
close at hand, and not only spiritual merit but rich estates could be won here
and now. The Flemings and Frisians agreed at once; but the English contingent
hesitated. They had vowed to go to Jerusalem; and it needed all the influence
of their leader, Henry Glanville, Constable of Suffolk, whom the Bishop had won
over, to persuade them to remain. Once the terms were arranged, the flotilla
sailed down to the Tagus, to join the Portuguese army; and the siege of Lisbon
was begun. The Moslems defended their city valiantly. It was only in October,
after four months of fighting, that the garrison surrendered, on the guarantee
that their lives and property would be preserved. The Crusaders promptly broke
the terms and indulged in a glorious massacre of the infidel, in which the
English, congratulating themselves on their virtue, only played a minor part.
After the campaign was over, some of the Crusaders continued their journey to
the East, but many more remained as settlers under the Portuguese crown. The
episode, though it heralded the long alliance between England and Portugal and
though it laid the foundations for the spread of Christianity beyond the
oceans, did little to help Christians in the East, where sea-power would have
been invaluable to the cause.

While the northerners delayed in Portugal, the
Kings of France and Germany set out by land to the East. King Roger of Sicily
had sent to each of them to offer to transport them and their armies by sea. To
Conrad, who had long been Roger’s enemy, the offer was obviously inacceptable,
and Louis also declined it. The Pope did not wish for Roger’s co-operation; and
it is doubtful whether in fact the Sicilian marine was large enough to carry
all the soldiers bound for the Crusade. Louis had no desire to entrust himself,
separated from half his army, to a man whose record for duplicity was notorious
and who was bitterly hostile to the French Queen’s uncle. It was safer and
cheaper to travel by land.

King Conrad intended to leave Germany at
Easter, 1147. In December he had received a Byzantine embassy at Spier, which
he told of his immediate departure to the East. In fact it was not till the end
of May that he started his journey. He left Ratisbon towards the last days of
the month and passed into Hungary. His army was of formidable proportions. Awed
chroniclers spoke of a million soldiers; and it is probable that the whole
company, armed men and pilgrims, numbered nearly twenty thousand. With Conrad
came two vassal-kings, Vladislav of Bohemia and Boleslav IV of Poland. The
German nobility was headed by Conrad’s nephew and heir, Frederick, Duke of
Swabia. There was a contingent from Lorraine, led by Stephen, Bishop of Metz,
and Henry, Bishop of Toul. It was a turbulent army. The German magnates were
jealous of each other; and there was constant friction between the Germans, the
Slavs and the French-speaking Lorrainers. Conrad was not the man to keep it
under control. He was now well over fifty years of age, of indifferent health
and a weak,
uncertain
temperament. He had begun to delegate much of his authority into the vigorous
but inexperienced hands of his nephew Frederick.

During June the German army moved through
Hungary. The young King Geza was well disposed; and there was no unpleasant
incident. A Byzantine embassy, led by Demetrius Macrembolites and the Italian
Alexander of Gravina, met Conrad in Hungary and asked him on the Emperor’s
behalf whether he came as a friend or foe and to beg him to take an oath to do
nothing against the welfare and interests of the Emperor. This oath of
non-injury was well chosen; for in certain parts of the West it was the usual
oath for a vassal to take to his overlord; it was the oath that Raymond of
Toulouse had taken to Alexius during the First Crusade; yet it was so framed
that Conrad could hardly refuse to take it without labelling himself as the
Emperor’s enemy. He took it; and the Byzantine ambassadors then promised him
every assistance while he should be in imperial territory.

1147:
The
Germans in the Balkans

About 20 July Conrad crossed into the Empire at
Branitchevo. Byzantine ships helped to convey his men across the Danube. At
Nish the governor of the Bulgarian province, Michael Branas, met him and
provided the army with food that had been stored up against its arrival. At
Sofia, which it reached a few days later, the governor of Thessalonica, the
Emperor’s cousin, Michael Palaeologus, gave Conrad an official welcome from the
Emperor. So far all had gone well. Conrad wrote to friends in Germany that he
was satisfied with everything. But after leaving Sofia his men began to pillage
the countryside and to refuse to pay the villagers for what they took, even
slaughtering those who protested. When complaints were made to Conrad, he
confessed that he could not discipline the rabble. At Philippopolis there were worse
disorders. More food was stolen, and a riot occurred when a local juggler, who
had hoped to gain some money from the soldiers by showing off his tricks, was
accused by the Germans of sorcery. The suburbs were burnt down; but the city
walls were too strong for the Germans to attack. The Archbishop, Michael
Italicus, protested so vigorously to Conrad that he was shamed into punishing
the ringleaders. Manuel then sent troops to accompany the Crusaders and to keep
them to the road. This only produced worse disorders, as the Byzantines and
Germans frequently came to blows. The climax came near Adrianople, when some
Byzantine bandits robbed and killed a German magnate who had lingered behind
sick; whereupon Frederick of Swabia burnt down the monastery near which the
crime had been committed and slew its inhabitants. Drunken stragglers, who were
abundant amongst the Germans, were slain in retaliation whenever they fell into
Byzantine hands. When the Byzantine commander Prosuch had restored peace and
the army resumed its march, an embassy came from Manuel, who was now seriously
alarmed, to urge Conrad to take the road to Sestos on the Hellespont and cross
from there into Asia. It would be regarded as an unfriendly act were the
Germans to march on to Constantinople. Conrad would not agree. Manuel then
seems to have decided to oppose the Crusaders by force, but at the last moment
countermanded his orders to Prosuch. The Germans were soon visited by divine
punishment. As they lay encamped at Cheravas on the Thracian plain a sudden
inundation swept through their tents, drowning many of the soldiers and
destroying much property. Only Frederick’s detachment, encamped on higher
ground, were unharmed. There was, however, no further serious incident till the
army reached Constantinople, on about 10 September.

King Louis and the French army followed about a
month behind. The King himself set out from Saint-Denis on 8 June and summoned
his vassals to meet him at Metz a few days later. His expedition was probably a
little smaller than Conrad’s. All the nobles who had taken the Cross with him
at Vezelay came to fulfil their vows; and with the King was his wife, Eleanor
of Aquitaine, the greatest heiress in France and niece to the Prince of
Antioch. The Countesses of Flanders and Toulouse and many other great ladies
travelled with their husbands. The Grand Master of the Temple, Everard of
Barre, joined the army with a regiment of recruits for his Order. The King
himself was aged twenty-six. He was famed for piety rather than for a strong
personality. His wife and his brother both wielded influence over him. As a
commander he was untried and indecisive. On the whole his troops were better
disciplined and less wanton than the Germans, though there were disorders at
Worms at the crossing of the Rhine.

1147
^:
The French arrive at Constantinople

When all the French contingents had joined the
King the army set out through Bavaria. At Ratisbon, where it arrived on 29
June, ambassadors from the Emperor Manuel were waiting. These were Demetrius
Macrembolites, who had already interviewed Conrad in Hungary, and a certain
Maurus. They asked for guarantees that Louis would behave as a friend while in
imperial territory and that he would promise to restore to the Empire any of
its former possessions that he should conquer. Apparently they did not require
him to swear the oath of non-injury, whose significance he might have realized
too well. Louis declared formally that he was coming as a friend, but he gave
no promise about his future conquests, finding the request dangerously vague.
From Ratisbon the French journeyed peaceably for fifteen days through Hungary
and reached the Byzantine frontier at the end of August.
They
crossed the Danube at Branitchevo and followed the main road through the Balkans.
They found some difficulty in procuring sufficient food; for the Germans had
consumed all that was available, and the excesses committed by the Germans made
the local inhabitants suspicious and unwilling to help. Moreover, the local
merchants were far too ready to give short measure after insisting on
pre-payment. But the Byzantine officials were friendly, and the French
commanders kept their men in order. There was no serious trouble till the army
drew near to Constantinople, though the French began to feel resentment against
both the Byzantines and the Germans. At Adrianople the Byzantine authorities
tried, as with Conrad, to persuade Louis to by-pass the capital and cross the
Hellespont into Asia, but with equal unsuccess. Meanwhile, some of the French,
impatient with the leisurely progress of their army, hurried ahead to join with
the Germans. But the Germans were unfriendly, refusing to spare them rations.
The contingents from Lorraine, already on bad terms with their German comrades,
joined with these Frenchmen and inflamed French public opinion against the
Germans. Thus, before ever the French King arrived at Constantinople, relations
between the two Crusading armies were suspicious and embittered, and Germans
and French alike were ill-disposed towards Byzantium. It did not augur well for
the success of the Crusade.

CHAPTER II

CHRISTIAN
DISCORD

‘
Debates
,
envyings
,
wraths
,
strifes
,
backbitings
,
whisperings
,
swellings
,
tumults.’
II CORINTHIANS XII, 20

When the news of the coming of the Crusade first
reached Constantinople, the Emperor Manuel was engrossed in Anatolian affairs.
Despite his father’s and his grandfather’s campaigns, the situation in the
Asiatic provinces of the Empire was still worrying. Only the coastal districts
were free from Turkish invasions. Farther inland almost yearly a Turkish
raiding force would sweep over the territory, avoiding the great fortresses and
eluding the imperial armies. The inhabitants of the frontier-lands had
abandoned their villages and fled to the cities or to the coast. It was Manuel’s
policy to establish a definite frontier-line, guarded by a closely knit line of
forts. His diplomacy and his campaigns were aimed at securing such a line.

1146: Manuel’s
Campaign against Konya

The Danishmend emir Mohammed ibn Ghazi died in
December 1141. He had been the chief Moslem power in Asia Minor; but his death
was followed by civil wars between his sons and his brothers. Before the end of
1142 the emirate was split into three. His son Dhu’l Nun held Caesarea-Mazacha,
his brothers Yakub Arslan ibn Ghazi and Ain ed-Daulat ibn Ghazi Sivas and
Melitene respectively. The Seldjuk Sultan of Konya, Mas’ud, saw in the division
his chance of establishing a hegemony over the Anatolian Turks. He invaded
Danishmend territory and established his control over districts as far east as
the Euphrates. Frightened by his aggression the brothers Yakub Arslan and Ain
ed-Daulat sought the alliance of Byzantium, and by a treaty, probably concluded
in 1143, they became to some degree his vassals. Manuel then turned his
attention towards Mas’ud, whose raiders had penetrated to Malagina, on the road
from Nicaea to Dorylaeum. He drove them back, but returned soon to
Constantinople owing to his own ill-health and the fatal illness of his beloved
sister Maria, whose loyalty to him had been proved when her husband, the
Norman-born Caesar John Roger, had plotted for the throne at the time of his
accession. In 1145 Mas’ud invaded the Empire again and captured the little
fortress of Pracana in Isauria, thereby threatening Byzantine communications
with Syria, and soon afterwards raided the valley of the Meander, almost as far
as the sea. Manuel decided that the time had come to strike boldly at Mas’ud
and to march on Konya. He had recently been married, and it was said that he
wished to show to his German wife the splendours of Byzantine chivalry. In the
summer of 1146 he sent the Sultan a formal declaration of war and set out in
gallant style along the road past Dorylaeum down to Philomelium. There Turkish
detachments attempted to check him but were repulsed. Mas’ud retired towards
his capital but, though he strengthened its garrison, he kept himself to the
open country and sent urgently for reinforcements from the East. The Byzantine
army encamped for several months before Konya, which was defended by the
Sultana. Manuel’s attitude towards his enemies was courteous. When it was
rumoured that the Sultan was killed, he sent to inform the Sultana that the
story was untrue; and he attempted, vainly, to make his soldiers respect the
Moslem tombs outside the city. Suddenly he gave the order to retire. It was
said later that he had heard rumours of the coming Crusade; but he could hardly
have been notified yet of the decision made at Vezelay that spring. He was definitely
suspicious of Sicilian intentions, and he may already have realized that
something was afoot. He learnt, too, that Mas’ud had received a considerable
addition to his army, and he was afraid of being caught with long and risky
lines of communication. He retreated slowly in perfect order back to his own
territory.