Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-4rdpn Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-05T13:41:00.852Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Probing the Passions of a Norman on Crusade: the Gesta Francorum et aliorum Hierosolimitanorum

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  12 September 2012

Get access

Summary

When Pope Urban II preached the crusade at Clermont in 1095, he had good reasons to hope that Normans would volunteer for the mission. They were formidable fighters, a fine match against the Seljuq Turks, who had taken Jerusalem, overrun Syria, and swept through ‘Romania’ (the Byzantine heartland of Asia Minor) following the debacle at Manzikert in 1071. Surely Norman warriors could restore Jerusalem to the Christian world. Their journeys to Jerusalem would bring another benefit to Christendom, too: the disappearance of those fractious Normans from the west.

Urban must have been pleased, then, with the list of Norman knights and lords who took the cross. Normans arguably dominated the First Crusade. Of course, sizable contingents of others, notably Flemings and Lotharingians and Provençals, also joined the expedition that has been considered ‘largely a French enterprise’. But the Investiture Conflict, the excommunication of Philip I, and the anti-clerical stance of William Rufus kept the German, French, and English rulers from heeding the pope's call. Normans filled this vacuum. By one reckoning, six of the nine principal leaders were Norman by blood or allegiance. Among these was the duke of Normandy, Robert Curthose, who mortgaged the duchy to his brother, William Rufus, to raise his expenses. It was the southern Normans, though, who went with the keenest secular purpose. They inherited their ambitions as the legacy of Robert Guiscard, who had died in 1085 on campaign against Byzantium, still dreaming of eastern domination.

Type
Chapter
Information
Anglo-Norman Studies 27
Proceedings of the Battle Conference 2004
, pp. 1 - 15
Publisher: Boydell & Brewer
Print publication year: 2005

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure [email protected] is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×