Attack of the Hordes

Before I begin our story for the day, I feel the need to tell you about something kind of strange that the Church did in the late 1090’s.

First off, you should know that the Church was all powerful. I mean, if the Church said that’s how it was, then that’s how it was-- and no one questioned it. Well, sometime in the 1090’s, the Church decided to outlaw war-- or bloodshed.

But, they didn’t outlaw it entirely. You see, they outlawed warfare during holidays, during harvest, and from Wednesday evening to Monday morning. Which pretty much left about two days a week that people could fight each other. All in all, about eighty days a year were open for warfare.

But, there was a group of people during this time period who had been bred for combat. The nobles, the aristocracy-- many of them had been trained their whole lives to fight-- and now fighting was illegal for 280 days of the year. These men who had been trained to fight, we called the Knights.

So, to entertain themselves, these Knights began having contests of skill, tournaments-- or “mock” battles.

There were all sorts of different competitions-- like jousting, for example. When two opponents jousted, they would ride towards each other with eighteen foot long lances (spears). If one opponent was knocked off his horse, then the other would dismount and they would fight it out on the ground until one of them gave up, fainted, suffered a serious wound or died.

There was another contest called a melee. This was kind of similar to jousting, but they just forgot the horses. The two guys would just hack away at each other with swords.

Then there was the tourney, which was actually the mock battle between two armies of Knights. But, considering that people actually died during these “mock” battles, I don’t know how mock they were (In one, over 60 Knights were killed).

By the way, I should mention that each of these Knights wears a 50 pound suit of chain mail armor, a ten pound helmet and carries a sword that weighs in between 20 and 30 pounds. For comparison, the average bat used by a Major League baseball player weighs about 2 pounds.

And when we talk about warfare, it’s the most barbaric kind. They just hacked everyone and everything to pieces. They didn’t have guns or gunpowder, it wasn’t invented yet. They didn’t even have crossbows or longbows-- those don’t come along until later.

These guys are almost all illiterate, so they don’t know anything about military tactics or strategies-- and they all wanted to be first into battle, so when they fought, both armies just formed really long lines and charged at each other. And with all of that armor on, if they fell off their horse, they were likely to be killed or captured.

Well, as I was saying, the Knights participated in these tournaments-- but the tournaments weren’t good enough. They needed a real enemy and a real war-- all they needed was an excuse. Well, they got their excuse in 1095.

Pope Urban II had summoned all of the French nobles to a council. This was really unusual, a Pope had never done this before. There were thousands of Lords and Knights gathered for this meeting.

They are all standing in this field waiting for the Pope to speak, and finally, he does. The Pope delivers a really dramatic speech. He tells them that a cursed race of people from the land of Persia has invaded the land of the Christians.

These barbarians had invaded the holiest of Holy Cities, Jerusalem. He told them that these people tortured others by cutting holes in their stomach, pulling out their intestines and nailing it to the ground. Then, they would make them run around in circles until all of their intestines had been pulled out.

He said, “Jerusalem implores you to come to its aid.” He promised that any man who helped in the cause would be forgiven of their sins. As he was beginning to conclude his speech, everyone in the crowd began chanting “God wills it! God wills it!”

And the Pope responded, “Yes, God wills it. And we will be God’s Holy Army!” and with that, he held a large cross high above his head. The Knights began swinging their swords high above their heads and shouting wildly.

At the close of the ceremony, a bishop asked if he could lead the Christian warriors into the Holy Land, the Pope gave him his blessing. At this point, thousands of Knights swear that they saw the clouds part and the Holy City appeared in the sky. They felt for certain that God would be with them on this Crusade.

Over the next two years, the Pope will travel around Europe building his army to fight this Crusade. He set their departure date for August of 1096.

OK, now wait a second here. Where did the Pope get this whole idea from, anyways? Did he just dream it up one night?

Well, it all started with a plea for help from the Byzantine Emperor, Alexis. You see, Byzantium is a Christian kingdom, just to the south and east of Europe (modern day Hungary, Greece and Turkey).

Like I said, they’re Christians and they need help, badly. The Byzantine Empire is being overran by Seljuk Turks. These Turks are barbarians. They’re nomadic warriors who live wherever they please, loot cities and capture people as slaves. They are destructive, and unstoppable. It just so happens that they are also Islamic (Muslim).

So, these Turks are uncontrollable. They are swarming all over the place and attacking both Christians in Byzantium and Muslims in the Holy Lands. So, basically, nobody likes these guys.

That’s why Emperor Alexis of Byzantium writes the Pope and asks for help. And, that’s how we end up with the Pope asking all of these Knights to go on a Crusade to free the Holy Lands. What could be better for a bunch of Christian Knights-- now they get to kill people and they can call it “the Lord’s work”.

But, before the real Crusade ever got under way, there was another group that though they’d take a whack at it. They were lead by a guy named Little Peter. Little Peter was a hermit who was down right ugly. Most people swore that he looked like a donkey. He was fat, short, bald, dirty and he wore the same clothes every day.

And yet, he was an incredibly charismatic leader and people flocked to him. He believed that he had been commissioned by God to lead a Crusade of the Poor. He believed that the poor were the only ones who could free the Holy Lands, because they were Gods people.

Thousands of people started following him, believing that he was either a Saint or an angel. By the time he and his followers set out for Jerusalem, he has attracted well over 100,000 people to his cause.

But, the Crusade of the Poor turned out to be a pretty poor crusade. First, as they were marching through present day Hungary, they came across a city full of people they thought were Turks-- so they killed them all, about 5000 of them. The only problem was, they weren’t Muslim Turks, they were Byzantines and fellow Christians.

Keep in mind, when you have an army made up of really poor people in 1096, that basically means it’s made up of thieves and murderers, and other law breakers. And, just because they are on a holy quest doesn’t mean they are going to stop stealing and killing.

As they worked their way through Byzantium, they stole livestock and burned several houses (remember, they are supposed to be here to HELP the Byzantines).

One Byzantine warlord got mad at them for stealing his livestock, so he attacked them, and killed about 15,000 of the Crusaders.

Finally, after all that, the Crusade of the Poor makes it to the Byzantine capital of Constantinople. And what a city it is. They’ve never seen anything like it before. Big, beautiful palaces and churches, lots of gold and silver, strange animals they had never seen before. And as the Crusaders stared in disbelief at the city of Constantinople, the people of the city stared in disbelief at the Crusaders.

Emperor Alexis had expected a well trained army to come to his aid (it hadn’t even left yet), and what shows up-- thousands of peasants. In the mean time, Little Peter’s band of peasants kind of settles in, stealing from houses, churches and fields.

Then, one of the Turkish Kings, King Arslan, learns that these Christians have invaded one of his cities and stolen a bunch of stuff from him. So, he sends out a fake message saying that a group of Christians have captured the city of Nicea and were claiming all the loot for themselves.

Well, all of the Christian peasants wanted to get in on that, so they started out for Nicea and right into a trap. They were ambushed by the Turkish Army and mowed down. About 20,000 peasants were killed on the road to Nicea.

After that, the Turks invaded the Christian camp and killed the women and the old people. Only about 3,000 from the Crusade of the Poor actually survived.

As for Little Peter, he manages to escape the slaughter and returns to Europe in time to join the official Crusade.

And we’ll talk about the official Crusade....tomorrow.

Extra Facts:

--When the Church outlawed war, they specifically outlawed “the spilling of blood”. So, the nobles invented a weapon called a mace that could crush an opponent’s skull without spilling any blood.

--This is considered “The Age of Chivalry”. Chivalry is a code of conduct the Knights upheld which included Strength, Courage, Honor, Loyalty, Courtesy and Generosity.

--When a Knight became a Knight, the ceremony was held in a church. After he was knighted, the Knight would mount his horse and ride it OUT of the Church while swinging his sword above his head.