Armies of Heaven (6 page)

To make this case, Urban II had a number of horrific images to draw upon. He may have even called on volunteers from the audience, veterans of the Jerusalem pilgrimage, to share their stories. The poet and abbot Baudry attributed these words to the pope: “How many injuries pilgrims have endured, you know best, you who are here and who have returned from there, who have sacrificed your possessions and your blood for God.” Baudry may not have remembered exactly what the pope said, but he did at least remember veterans of the Jerusalem pilgrimage, spreading their tales of horror and Muslim atrocities. “Sometimes,” Baudry wrote elsewhere, “we saw among us citizens of Jerusalem, poor and exiled men, as well as beggars from Antioch, lamenting the state of the holy places and begging for some sort of public relief for their own poverty.”
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At Clermont Urban II gave at least tacit endorsement to their complaints (whether he made arrangements to relieve their poverty as well, we don't know; Peter the Hermit likely did so). In the hands of a skilled preacher, these pilgrims' tales of woe could become the stuff of nightmares. Consider how another crusade chronicler called Robert the Monk reimagined Urban II's sermon:

“From the land of Jerusalem and the city of Constantinople, troubling news has arisen and many times has now come to our attention—namely, that the people of the kingdom of Persia, a foreign people, a people entirely hostile to God,
a generation whose heart was not steadfast and whose spirit has not kept faith with God
, has attacked Christian lands and devastated them with sword, plunder, and fire. Some of the captives they have led into their own land, while others they have laid low with a wretched death. The churches of God they have altogether overthrown or enslaved to their own cult. The altars they have wrecked, polluted with their filth; for they circumcise Christians and either pour the blood from the circumcision over the altars or else use it to fill baptismal vessels. And if it amuses them to punish someone with a truly foul death, they puncture his navel and pull out the ends of his intestines. These they bind to a pole, and then by whipping their victim, they force him to run around and around until his intestines have all come out and he falls dead to the ground. Some they tie to poles and shoot with arrows; others they force to stretch out their bare necks so that with their swords they can cut off their heads in a single blow. What can I say about the wicked violations of women? To speak of it is worse than to keep silent.”
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Such charges sound incredible. But the images were carefully chosen. Consider, for example, the idea of “forced circumcisions.” Most obviously it tapped into fears of castration, which in the eleventh century was not a psychological anxiety but was instead a common judicial penalty. More subtly, circumcision—though associated with Islam—was a Jewish rite. By forcing it on Christians, the Saracens were effectively compelling them to undergo a Jewish initiation and thus, on a ritual and physical level, to renounce their faith. The Saracens were also making a mockery of baptism, filling baptisteries with Christian blood. Baptismal water washed away sins. This Christian blood, shed into baptisteries, polluted churches and robbed fonts of their efficacy. Pouring this same blood onto altars,
moreover, made a mockery of the Eucharist—where priests regularly created a more potable manifestation of Christ's blood.

Fear of pollution was the essential theme in the eleventh-century Christian depiction of Islam. Abbot Baudry, who, again, attended Clermont, rhymed the name “Turk” with the Latin word for “filthy”:
Turci spurci
. The same writer dwelt at length on how Saracens tried to spoil all Christian ceremonies in the East. The Turks, he said, drove worshippers from the altars of God, even as they robbed churches of their money. In the very Temple of Solomon (or al-Aqsa Mosque), they set up idols to worship. What the Saracens were doing to the Holy Sepulcher, he preferred not to say. As with the rumored violation of Christian women, readers were left to use their imaginations.
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These missing details can be found elsewhere—at least in regard to women. The Turks, so listeners were told, had raped mothers in front of their daughters, forcing the children to watch, sing obscene songs, and dance as their parents were violated. Wearied with the mothers, the Saracens turned their attention to the daughters, whom they now raped, ordering the mothers to sing and dance in turn. So boundless were Saracen appetites that they also raped men, violating the laws of nature and humanity. Their targets were mainly poor folk, but according to rumor they had also raped and killed a bishop.
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Did Urban II actually use rhetoric such as this in framing his case for the crusade? There is no reason to think that he did not, but without a record of the sermon, we cannot be certain. In a letter written shortly after Clermont to Christians in Flanders, however, Urban did draw attention in a very general way to these charges: “We believe, brothers, that you have already heard through the report of many different people about the savage barbarism that has devastated God's churches in the East with wretched destruction, including the holy city of Christ, made famous through his suffering and resurrection, now disgracefully reduced to slavery along with the rest of churches, shameful to say!”
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Less certain is whether the pope used another type of rhetoric likely to motivate an army of Christian soldiers—the apocalypticism that had helped inspire the great pilgrimages of 1033 and 1064, among others. Did he describe Saracens as harbingers, or even servants, of Antichrist? To some extent, again, it would be surprising if he did not. Urban had been
an active presence in the papal court since 1080, during the worst years of the Investiture Contest, the wars between popes and emperors, when charges of being in league with Antichrist were thrown back and forth with some regularity. On the other hand, Urban II himself used the word “Antichrist” rarely. It can be found only once, in one of his letters, where he described Bishop Otbert of Liège, a supporter of Henry IV's, as “the standard-bearer of Antichrist and the beast of Satan.”
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Still, it was an effective and easy ploy, and at least one version of Urban II's Clermont speech made heavy, if eccentric, use of it. Imagine what would happen, Urban II asks his audience, if Jerusalem, “the mother church of all churches,” were to return to Christianity and, more particularly, if God “might not wish some parts of the East to be restored to the faith, in opposition to the times of Antichrist looming on the horizon.” Antichrist would then arise to fight—not against pagans or Jews but, as his name implies, against Christians. As was known from the Book of Daniel, he would also overthrow the kings of Egypt, Africa, and Ethiopia. Logically speaking, Antichrist could accomplish none of these things unless Christianity had first taken root in those three places, where, in 1095, paganism still thrived.

Jerusalem, this literary pope adds, would be downtrodden until “the time of nations” was fulfilled. This expression, “the time of nations,” taken from Luke 21:24 (and used, as we have already noted, by Peter the Hermit), refers to a point in the future when many unbelievers will finally accept Christianity.

The apocalyptic program outlined here is a convoluted one: Essentially, the crusade had to establish Christianity in the Holy Land so that Antichrist could reverse that gain. But, as we shall see, the language may point toward a more authentic apocalyptic tradition that did play a part in motivating crusaders and in helping them to understand what they were fighting for.
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Though we don't know exactly what Urban II said, we do know what happened after he finished talking. As the crowd roared its approval, one of the local bishops, Adhémar, from the nearby city of le Puy-en-Vélay,
stepped forward and knelt before the pope, the first person to pledge to take up the cross and go to Jerusalem.

Adhémar had been bishop of le Puy since 1089. Its cathedral, dedicated to Notre Dame, sits atop a steep hill but is itself dominated by the tiny church of Saint-Michel d'Aguilhe, or St. Michael of the Needle, an architectural wonder, built in the tenth century atop a steep, sheer volcanic rock nearly three hundred feet high. By the time of Adhémar's episcopacy, it was attracting copious crowds of Christian pilgrims, many of them on their way to or from the famous shrine of St. James in Com-postela. As bishop of le Puy, Adhémar thus understood the power and the magic of pilgrimage. He had reportedly made the journey to Jerusalem himself around 1086. Nothing is known about his trip, however, except that he seems to have gone. Adhémar also understood warfare, coming from a noble family and having been trained as a knight. At the time of the crusade, he was still considered an excellent horseman. And he had been involved with the planning of the crusade for at least three months before Clermont, when Urban II had consulted with him at le Puy in August 1095. It was probably then that they together choreographed this scene, to be performed on November 27.

In any case, before a rapturous audience, Adhémar asked permission to become the first warrior-pilgrim pledged to travel to the Holy Land, promising to depart by August 15, 1096. Urban not only readily assented but also appointed Adhémar to be his legate, to offer judgments and counsel about matters spiritual and military throughout the course of the campaign, speaking as if with the voice of the pope.
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At this point Urban apparently quoted Scripture: “If anyone does not take up his cross and follow me, he is not able to be my disciple.” It was a metaphorical exhortation from the gospel, referring to a moment where Christ urged His followers to be ready to suffer on His account. But Urban and Adhémar interpreted it in a dully literal fashion. For as Adhémar knelt before the pope, a seamstress stepped forward, needle at the ready, and sewed a premade cross onto the right shoulder of Adhémar's cloak. The audience again roared in approval. Laymen and clerics together shouted their willingness to go to Jerusalem, to battle against the Saracens, and to liberate Christ's sepulcher. As they did, a small army of seamstresses rushed into their midst, carrying hundreds of cloth crosses in
hand, ready to stitch them onto the shoulders of cloaks as quickly as vows were made.

Not wishing to underplay the theatrics, Urban and Adhémar had also arranged for representatives of the count of Toulouse, Raymond of Saint-Gilles, to arrive at precisely that moment and announce that their lord, along with countless of his followers, had already received the cross and vowed to go to Jerusalem. A wealthy and powerful lord, Raymond's comital authority stretched roughly across what is today southern France, known in the Middle Ages as “Occitania” because of the dialect of French spoken there. Raymond was also, like Adhémar, an experienced pilgrim, who (according to a highly suspect rumor) had lost his eye on an earlier trip to Jerusalem. The bold count ever afterward carried the eye with him, a reminder of what Christ's enemies were capable of doing and a prod to think always on Jerusalem. In 1095 he would have been in his mid-fifties. He had fought Muslims in Spain, and he had for decades been counted among the pope's special warriors, “The Faithful Men of St. Peter.” The crusade represented for him a capstone to his career and his life.
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At news of Raymond's decision (news with which Adhémar and Urban had long been familiar), the pope broke into another rapturous oration. Upon seeing Bishop Adhémar alongside envoys of Count Raymond, he all but proclaimed an end to the war between church and empire: “Behold! Thanks to God! Now for the Christians about to depart there will be two outstanding leaders to the fore! Behold! Priesthood and kingdom—the clerical order and the lay order brought to concord to lead the army of God. Bishop and count, Moses and Aaron envisioned anew before us!”
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The furor to go to Jerusalem grew still more heated, and the oath taking and the cross sewing continued, possibly for hours. But once an appropriate sense of calm began to fall over the assembly, in a final bit of stagecraft a cardinal named Gregory stepped forward and cast himself down on the ground before the pope, begging absolution for his sins. All of those in attendance followed his example, beating their chests and crying for forgiveness for every wrong they had done. Pope Urban obligingly granted them their indulgence, at the same time encouraging all of the bishops and abbots and priests to spread the word among the laypeople about his new project. He urged his clerical listeners to tell everyone about the dangers faced by Christians in the East, about the threats to
the Holy Sepulcher, about how pagans were corrupting the altars of God and torturing Christians, and about how wicked knights could now make peace at home and win honor for themselves abroad and in heaven. He commanded all the recognized preachers to spread this message. But he also encouraged anyone who had accepted a cross onto his shoulder to use it as a prop and to make known the same message to his family and friends. An ill-prepared army of lay preachers was thus added to the mix of papal plans and crusading passions stirred up by the likes of Peter the Hermit.
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With this sudden, public rollout, and with no official record of council proceedings to fall back on, Urban II essentially surrendered control of his message. He would try to take it back and even hone it during the next several months, as his preaching itinerary around the south of France continued. But soon after November 27, there were as many ideas about the crusade as there were people wearing crosses sewn onto their cloaks (and, eventually, tattooed onto their bodies). Whatever the pope may have chosen to emphasize at Clermont, the crusade over the next several months would become an aggressive and apocalyptic institution, one with eyes focused simultaneously on earth and on heaven, on Islam and on Antichrist, embracing far more wide-open possibilities of forgiveness and redemption than Urban II ever intended. The stakes of the battles would stretch beyond anyone's previous experience or imaginings.