The 11th Century
Part TEN of my 12 Centuries in 12 Months Series...
We are officially in the High Middle Ages now, which ranged from circa 1000-1300 CE. We ended the Early Middle Ages in the tenth century where I wrapped things up with…
“The tenth century was really about the bond between rulers and the church being strengthened; the symbiotic relationship that was a pillar of the Middle Ages further entrenched. This relationship allowed for a cohesion within states which countered (but not fully replaced) the fragmentation so prevalent in the beginning of the century.”
SETTING THE SCENE
Forest clearance and improved drainage was a development in the eleventh century. This improved food production and increased wealth…for the lords and nobility (Holmes, 128). It also led to an increase in population and a gradual shift of people moving back into urban settings which made the size of towns and cities swell. This in turn led to commercial expansion and contributed to the rise of the burgher/merchant class (Cantor, 243). The political landscape didn’t change much this century, but within it the power dynamics shifted greatly.
KEY PLAYERS
In my novice opinion, the key players significant enough to mention are: the papacy and Christian church, the Normans, the Seljuk Turks, and the Byzantine Empire. This does not mean those not mentioned were insignificant, I just chose to focus on the four listed. On a side note, after doing this series I have a newfound respect for historians who take on the challenge of comprehensive historical surveys. It’s impossible to discuss everything and the struggle of deciding what is important enough to include is a dangerous game of bias and runs the risk of portraying an incomplete and/or incorrect historical narrative. And I sincerely apologize if I do this in any way. I’m a novice.
PAPACY & CHRISTIAN CHURCH
The church in the tenth century was run by laymen, many who had been given their positions and were controlled by aristocratic rulers (Hollister, 216). Due to this, there was an abundance of corruption (such as simony, the practice of purchasing ecclesiastical offices) and churchmen having wives and concubines (despite the canonical law of celibacy). The power balance being tipped to the side of secular influence unsettled the papacy who desired to have ultimate authority over all things spiritual. They had idealistic goals for an ordered society led by the papacy (Hollister, 216). This vision and their discontent with the imbalance of power would lead to monumental events that affected the rest of the Middle Ages.
It all came to a head in the 1040s, when the scandalous Pope Benedict IX sold his papacy title because he didn’t want the responsibilities, then decided he liked the influence and perks, so tried to take it back. This led to three different men claiming to be pope. King Henry III of Germany intervened in 1046 CE when he traveled to Rome, declared the papal throne empty, condemned all three popes, then chose the next one himself, placing Clement II in the hot seat…who in turn crowned Henry as Holy Roman Emperor (aka HRE) (Holmes, 139). The two of them then set about reforming the papacy and church. A result of their reform was that popes began to exercise their rights more energetically, traveling extensively outside of Italy and intervening in church affairs, pushing back on the local aristocratic power and influence (Holmes, 139).
The next big event was the Great Schism in 1054 CE created by disagreements between Constantinople and Rome over matters of fasting and the eucharist bread. This seems a trivial thing to divide over, but it led to the Cardinal of Rome excommunicating the Patriarch of Constantinople who in turn excommunicated the Cardinal (Wise-Bauer, 594). This schism permanently divided the east and west into what we are familiar with as the Eastern Orthodox and Roman Catholic Churches.
However, the process of events I feel was the most influential of this century is the Election Decree of 1059 CE, which led to Gregorian Reform, then to the Investiture Controversy of 1075/6 CE, which led to the Synod of Worms in 1076 CE, which led to the “Humiliation of Canossa,” and a monumental shift of power. I know, it’s a lot. Let me explain.
When the Holy Roman Emperor Henry III died, leaving a child as heir, the papacy seized the opportunity to make a power move. They issued a “Papal Election Decree” which declared all popes would no longer be elected by the emperor, but by a small group of clergy, later known as the College of Cardinals (Holmes, 189). Simultaneously, Pope Nicholas II made a treaty with the Normans in southern Italy, called the Treaty of Melfi, where the papacy recognized the Norman rulership in those southern Italian territories, who would in turn recognize the pope’s spiritual authority (Wise-Bauer, 594). This diminished the HRE’s holy authority in that region, because the Normans now promised to fight for the pope, including against the HRE, if necessary. This was a major disruption to the balance of power between the HRE and the Church (Wise-Bauer, 594). The Election Decree coupled with the Treaty of Melfi set the papacy free from its dependency on the goodwill of the HRE (Wise-Bauer, 594). Here we begin to see a major tear in the fabric of that symbiotic relationship between church and rulers I highlighted last century.
Gregorian reform began in 1073 CE (named after the most influential man of the movement, Pope Gregory VII). The movement had two tenets: clerical purity and the redefinition of the bases of power and authority in the Church (Holmes, 188). Hollister explains there were the moderates who simply wanted to eliminate simony, enforce clerical celibacy, and improve the morality of churchmen. It was more focused on in-house matters. The radicals were, well, more radical. They basically wanted to demolish lay control and rebuild a society where churchmen and even kings were subordinate to papal authority. “The moderate reformers endeavored to heal society; the radicals were determined to transform it into an international spiritual monarchy centering on the pope,” (Hollister, 217). This all came to a head in 1075 CE with the Investiture Controversy.
A disagreement arose between Pope Gregory VII and the German King Henry IV over whether secular rulers could appoint bishops without papal approval (Jones, 268). It became a back and forth argument between the two men. Pope Gregory VII claimed the pope alone could appoint and remove bishops, he even had the right to depose emperors if he so desired and “All princes should kiss his feet,” (Wise-Bauer, 643). Henry IV argued his defense of the traditional social order of divinely ordained kings ruling over bishops (which makes sense, because that was how it had been done for centuries). But Pope Gregory denied this sacred quality of a king (Hollister, 221). So in 1075 CE, Henry withdrew his obedience to the pope, claiming that Pope Gregory VII had seized the papacy without due election (Wise-Bauer, 644). Gregory then excommunicated Henry. Many German aristocrats and churchmen refused to serve an excommunicated king, so in 1077 CE, Henry traveled to Canossa Italy, prostrated himself barefoot in the snow before Gregory and begged his forgiveness…which was granted. “Through the centuries, Canossa has symbolized the ultimate royal degradation before the power of the Church,” (Hollister, 222). Click HERE for an article going into more detail on the significance of Canossa.
This was a huge shift in ideas and power. Since Charlemagne, the spiritual power and authority had been divinely given to kings. Now the papacy declared they held the ultimate and superior spiritual authority. This even put imperial power as a whole into question (Holmes, 189). It also propped up the papacy to make some big decisions that would shape the Middle Ages to come…which we’ll see in a minute.
NORMANS
But first, we need to discuss the Normans. “Perhaps the most militant force in Europe’s eleventh-century awakening was the warrior-aristocracy of Normandy,” (Hollister, 183). It’s worth mentioning their influence and reach because it affected many other players and events. There are three areas of Norman action to address: Normandy, Italy, and England.
Normandy, and the rest of France, was chaotic in the eleventh century. So much so, there was a Peace of God movement, where men swore oaths of peace. It aimed to quell the violence done by the warrior nobility against noncombatants and their property (Hollister, 188). The clergy wanted them to stop plundering churches, killing, raping, and robbing people (Jones, 269). I won’t get into the movement in detail, but it’s important to paint the picture of restless Norman warriors/knights hungry for conquest, land, and wealth. I point this out because there was a need to find a solution for these men, something that would redirect them. And they were the perfect solution to another problem in another part of the world…the Middle East. You’ll see this thread get weaved into my narrative in a minute.
Norman mercenaries (mainly men whose families were of little prominence in Normandy) traveled to Italy as ‘lances for hire,’ fighting for whoever promised them a share in the booty (Holmes, 210). But these men began amassing great wealth and prestige. For example, Robert Guiscard, who began as a bandit but quickly moved to conquest, then became the leader of all Normans in Italy (Hollister, 183). He was the one recognized by the pope in the Treaty of Melfi in 1059 CE. In 1071 CE he captured Bari, a Byzantine seaport. In 1072 CE, he captured the Muslim city of Palermo, a Muslim key to the central Mediterranean. “With Palermo, Bari, and all of Southern Italy under his control, Guiscard was now in a position to dominate Mediterranean commerce,” (Hollister, 184). The epitaph on his tomb read, “Here lies Guiscard, the terror of the world, who out of Rome the Roman Emperor hurled…” (Hollister, 184-5). In 1085 CE, Pope Gregory VII crowned another Norman nobleman Roger II, “King of Sicily, the duchy of Apulia, and the principality of Capua,” (Homes, 212). This officially established a Norman kingdom in Italy. And this was just their reach in Italy. These mercenaries turned rulers were hungry for more conquest and claimed passion for church reform. They were primed and ready for the Crusades…which I’ll mention in a minute. But first, let’s see their reach into Anglo-Saxon Britain and how they changed the political landscape there as well.
In 1064 CE, Harold Godwinson, a powerful English nobleman shipwrecked on the beaches of Normandy. He appealed to William the Bastard, duke of Normandy, to provide him the resources to return to England. Within this conversation something was said that convinced William that the current king of England, Edward the Confessor, promised him the crown. So when King Edward died in 1066, William began preparing to invade England. Meanwhile, in a surprising turn of events (at least to William) Harold Godwinson was crowned king. But this did not deter William. At the famous Battle of Hastings, William the Bastard of Normandy defeated and killed King Harold, claiming the crown and becoming William the Conqueror. This was a decisive turn of events. England’s ongoing struggle against Vikings had officially ended with a former Viking, now Norman, king taking full possession of the English throne,” (Wise-Bauer, 611).
Once William was crowned everything was rebuilt and established in Norman ways. “For at least a century and a half after the Norman Conquest, England was culturally a province of France,” (Cantor, 280). But William also utilized the extensive administration in place and issued a census (the Domesday Book) that gave him an inventory of wealth and landholdings he could tap into for tax and litigation purposes. Cantor goes into detail about how the way William handled England protected him from the threats of the Investiture Controversy. “They ended by developing a new king of medieval kingship that relied upon administration and law to unify the realm, allowing them to dispense with the traditional ideological basis of monarchy. At the very time that the Gregorian revolution was undermining the old religious foundation of kingship, the Anglo-Norman rulers were fashioning a most effective substitution that was relatively invulnerable to papal condemnations. The Norman Conquest, therefore, is of the greatest significance for medieval civilization because it made possible the creation of a new kind of state, initiating the movement toward the secularism and absolutism that was to mark the twelfth and thirteenth centuries,” (Cantor, 277). We shall see if Cantor’s claim can be seen in the next few centuries. So keep this is mind.
SELJUK TURKS
The third key player this century were the Seljuk Turks. They were a group of Turks who were Sunni Muslims. They stepped into the spotlight in the 1050s CE when they took control of Baghdad, seizing it from the Buyid dynasty, dividing the political and spiritual power of the Abbasid realm (Wise-Bauer, 629). A young Seljuk prince named Alp Arslan, aka ‘the heroic lion’ took over and extended the Seljuk’s power into the Caucasus region and further west (Ansari, 127). Their infamous battle was the Battle of Manzikert in 1071 CE where they defeated the Byzantine army and took the emperor prisoner. Ansari says that while this was considered a victory for the Seljuks, it would eventually prove to be their biggest mistake (Ansari, 127). Why, you ask? Well, the fear this victory instilled in the Byzantine emperor pushed him to reach out for help from the west. He claimed that if Constantinople fell to the Seljuk Turks, aka the infidels, there would be a flood of Moslems into the west. This is argued to be the genesis of the First Crusade.
In 1073 CE, the Seljuk Turks attacked Jerusalem, seizing it from the Fatimids (another Muslim dynasty) and placing it under the control of Alp Aslan’s son Malik Shah (Wise-Bauer, 649). In 1092 CE, the leaders of the Seljuk Empire were assassinated, leaving it fragmented and crumbling (Ansari, 132). This, coupled with the infighting between Sunni and Shi’i that had caused much instability and fragmentation for the Islamic Empire set the stage for the success of the First Crusades (Holmes, 185).
BYZANTINE EMPIRE
The last player to discuss, mainly due to how entangled their history was to the other three players I’ve mentioned, was the Byzantine Empire. All four of the key players made decisions that directed events which led to the culmination of the First Crusades at the end of the century.
The eleventh century in Byzantium was rife with coups led by military leaders and governors vying for control. Amidst the constant internal instability, the empire was being threatened by two outside enemies: the Turks and the Fatimids in Egypt (Jones, 266). Strong imperial rule was re-established in the reign of Emperor Alexius Comnenus, who entered the scene in the 1080s, and had a plan on how to respond to all of the chaos and threats (Holmes, 177). “A major reordering of the near and Middle East was underway,” (Jones, 266).
Alexios I Komnenos (another spelling of the emperor’s name) immediately sought aid from the west. Dan Jones says, “Alexios sent an SOS call that would change history. Byzantine ambassadors were packed off to the realms of the west, to ask for military and moral support from the “other” half of Christendom: Western Europe and the lands of the Franks. They had set in chain events that would coalesce as one of the most astonishing events in medieval history—the First Crusade,” (Jones, 267).
NOTABLES
There are a lot of notables worth mentioning. Things like the collapse of Cordoba, or the cult group called the Assassins, or the infamous El Cid, or the Domesday Book and Bayeux Tapestry. And I’ve made little mention of the Ottonian Dynasty and Holy Roman Empire. I encourage you to look these things up and learn about them. But I’ve chosen to focus on the First Crusades, because it’s where all my key players finally converged in the 1090s.
The assumption that the Crusades were a holy war between Christians and infidels is a dangerous generalization. It’s not completely inaccurate nor correct either. Let me explain.
When Pope Gregory VII watched the Reconquista in Spain (please look this up for more background) it gave him an idea. He saw how a holy war against the Moslems could also be done in the east and would benefit his reform strategies. Cantor explains, “Such a crusade would be an expression of the supreme pontiff’s moral leadership of the western world (which was one of Gregory’s cardinal doctrines) and would bring the peoples of the north into closer relations with Rome…it would also take a long step toward the assertion of papal hegemony in Greek Christian lands,” (Cantor, 291). It would also help settle the Great Schism between Eastern Orthodox and Roman Catholic Churches. But the opportunity to do so didn’t arise during Gregory’s time. It landed in Pope Urban II’s lap instead.
When Alexius Comnenus made the plea to the west for aid against the Turks, Pope Urban II saw an opportunity to smooth over the divisions from the Gregorian reforms, increase the papacy’s influence and authority, heal the Great Schism, and solve the problem of violent knights terrorizing the French countryside by imploring them to go east and fight the Saracens. He took Comnenus’ simple request for military support and turned it into an entirely different beast.
He began preaching his vision at the Council of Clermont in 1095 CE. The purpose was to defend the Byzantines and Christianity. The goal was to reclaim and protect the Church of the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem and assert the Latin Church as guardian of the holiest places in the Christian world (Jones, 270). He said that any who died on this endeavor would be given a “remission of sins,” their earthly misdeeds forgiven, their passage to heaven smoothed (Jones, 271).
The first group set out in 1096 CE. It is known as the “Popular (or People’s) Crusade” because “the first waves of crusaders were poorly trained and barely controllable zealots,” (Jones, 272). They weren’t organized. They pillaged their way across the Balkans and were quickly massacred by the Turks when they first arrived in Constantinople. “The People’s Crusade did in fact have an army, but it simply lacked any high-profile aristocrats, who preferred to lead their own private armies,” (Wise-Bauer, 657).
The second group was known as the “Prince’s Crusade” which was made up of more organized nobility and their knights who were seasoned warriors. These private armies were led by big names such as Godfrey (who became the duke and protector of Jerusalem) and his brothers Baldwin (who declared himself “Count of Edessa”) and Eustace from Germany, the famous Robert Guiscard’s son Bohemund (who declared himself “Prince of Antioch”), the Frankish duke Raymond of Toulouse, and Robert, Duke of Normandy (Wise-Bauer, 656). They arrived on the scene in 1097 CE, besieged the city of Antioch and then headed for Jerusalem, which fell to them in July 1099 CE (Holmes, 217). Once the victory was done, many returned home, but some felt they would fare much better in the Holy Land and stayed. This new homeland was referred to as Outremer “the land overseas” and was seen as an extension of western society (Holmes, 218-19).
This is a very Christian and Eurocentric perspective of the Crusades. I found it fascinating to read Ansari’s book giving a Muslim perspective. I highly recommend his book. Chapter 9 is all about the Crusades. Ansari says, “When the first crusaders came trickling into the Muslim world, the locals had no idea who they were dealing with,” (Ansari, 137). They weren’t familiar with the kingdoms of the West; they just saw a rag tag army of unskilled fighters that they quickly squashed. But then the Prince’s Crusade arrived and they were much more of a threat. As I mentioned earlier, the Islamic empire was fragmented and struggling with a lot of internal division. All the local leaders were at conflict with one another and refused to come to each other’s aid. In fact, some Muslim leaders would work with the Crusaders in telling them how to attack other Muslim leaders. “From the Muslim side, this was the story of the early Crusades: a tragicomedy of internecine rivalry played out in city after city,” (Ansari, 138).
Ansari also goes into detail of the carnage done. He cites from Frankish sources, not Muslim, telling stories of crusaders boiling, roasting, and eating Muslims, including children (Ansari, 139). In Jerusalem, not a single Muslim survived, up to 70,000 were killed. Not the same heroic sacred victory by devoutly Christian knights fighting for the glory of God is it?
Jones is weary to paint the crusades simply as a holy war of Christians against Muslims. He says this ignores the “complex regional and local politics that informed the waves of crusading…It was about the changing shape of the western world at large…It did not simply define relations between Christianity and Islam: rather, it set a template for the projection of military power against enemies of the Roman Church wherever they could be perceived,” (Jones, 278-79). Hollister claims, “the Crusades represented a fusion of three characteristic medieval impulses: piety, pugnacity, and greed…Without Christian idealism, the Crusades would be inconceivable, yet the dream of liberating Jerusalem and the Holy Land from the infidel and reopening them to Christian pilgrims was reinforced mightily by the lure of new lands and vast wealth. The crusaders were provided a superb opportunity to employ their knightly skills in God’s service—and to make their fortunes in the bargain.” (Hollister, 188).
I think the Crusades were an answer to an amalgamation of problems and desires. If I were to make heretical conjectures (because that’s my business as the Novice Medievalist), I would say they weren’t really holy wars at all. They were the result of political and spiritual maneuvering by a few power hungry elites who seized an opportunity to use a situation to their advantage and then justified it all by slapping their banner “in the name of God” over it. Yet, I wonder what the people on the ground were thinking. Did they have unadulterated conviction? Did they believe they were genuinely carrying out God’s will?
This fall in grad school, I’m taking a class on the Crusades. I’m sure my thoughts and opinions will shift. I’ve quickly glanced at one of the required books, The Crusades: A History by Jonathan Riley-Smith. I can already tell my thoughts are over simplistic and…novice. I see terms describing the many camps people fall in when arguing the cause and definition of crusades, terms like traditionalist, materialist, and pluralist. I’ll report back after I’ve taken the class, so stay tuned! What are your thoughts? Anything to add or contest? I’d love to hear from you and hear differing opinions and insight!
AS FAR AS I CAN TELL…
One thing apparent to me this century was the interconnectedness and entangled history (this is a historiographical approach I am slowly growing very fond of. Read more about it HERE) of all the players. It was difficult to separate each section based on kingdom/state/empire/religion. Events in one usually were the result of ongoings in another. Not that this didn’t exist prior to the eleventh century. But it seemed to me the ripple effect of the happenings of the Normans, the papacy, and the Turks reached all corners of our Eurocentric & Mediterranean map and culminated in the First Crusades.
The symbiotic relationship I labeled as a pillar of the Middle Ages practically crumbled in the eleventh century. It’s not obsolete, but the balance of power drastically shifted. No longer did the church see its need to prop up certain rulers in order to have power and prestige in those regions. They decided they could claim that on their own. I’m curious to see how this affects both the church and the rulers in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries.
Last century, I saw so much about Europe being on the cusp of an intellectual awakening. Yet, I heard little of it in my studies this round. There were some famous Muslim philosophers and physicians on the cutting edge of medicine and science; Ibn Sina (known as Avicenna in the West) was a famous one. Cantor discussed “tremendous intellectual vitality” but didn’t really go into what he meant. Yet, he did mention the transformation of cathedral schools in Northern France and municipal schools in Italy that turned into universities. There were also some very influential women: Queen Emma and Queen Edith in England, Empress Zoe in Byzantium, and the amazing Byzantine princess Anna Comnenus.
RESOURCES & FURTHER READING
Ansary, Tamim. Destiny Disrupted: A History of the World Through Islamic Eyes
Cantor, Norman. The Civilization of the Middle Ages
Hindley, Geoffrey. The Anglo-Saxons: The Beginnings of the English Nation
Hollister, C. Warren. Medieval Europe: A Short History
Holmes, George. The Oxford Illustrated History of Medieval Europe
Jones, Dan. Powers & Thrones: A New History of the Middle Ages
McKitterick, Rosamund. Atlas of the Medieval World
Price, Neil. Children of Ash and Elm: A History of the Vikings
Ramirez, Janina. Femina
Wickham, Chris. The Inheritance of Rome
Wise-Bauer, Susan. The History of the Medieval World
Books on the Crusades (I haven’t read these yet, but they’ve been recommended):
Housley, Norman. Contesting the Crusades
Riley-Smith, Jonathan. The Crusades: A History
Tyerman, Christopher. The Crusades: A Very Short Introduction
Please Note: Some of the copies I used are older publications I found at my local library. These links take you to the most recent edition found on Amazon. So my page references might be incorrect, just FYI. Sorry!