Pope Urban's Beginnings

I was curious about Pope Urban's role in the Church before his papacy and the beginnings of the First Crusade, so I found some information at the following site: http://www.catholiceducation.org/articles/history/world/wh0010.html. Before Pope Urban II became Pope, he was held prisoner by Henry IV and served as assistant to Pope Gregory. During the early years of his reign, he improved ecclesiastical discipline and called for the Council of Clermont in November 1095, which began the First Crusade. Due to strong sentiments against Urban made by the Countless Matilda of Tuscany, Pope Urban had to wait six years until he was allowed to sit on the papal throne. Soon after taking the throne, Urban's call to arms for the defense of Christians and the acquisition of the Holy Land led to the People's Crusade followed soon after by the slightly more organized majority of the army for the First Crusade.

Multiculturalism in the Levant

Coming into this course I guess I had pictured the Middle East to be populated solely with people of the Islamic faith during the pre-Crusade era; this image, I have found out, is very far from the truth. Obviously there was a dominant Muslim culture to be found there, with the Seljuk empire present, but there were also peoples of other cultures--some, as it turns out, who practiced Christianity. Most notable were the Armenians and Syriacs, who had been on the fringes of the Roman Empire but were some of the first societies to adopt Christianity as their religion. The Armenians were thriving in Southeast Asia Minor when the first Crusaders began to appear, and indeed there were Armenian inhabitants all the way into Northern Syria. These groups and others, such as the Bedouins, often aided the Crusaders on their ventures. During the first Crusade, for example, the Crusaders were given information and guides by these peoples as they made their way to Jerusalem. Perhaps the first Crusade would not have been so successful without these minor groups coming to the Crusaders' aide... This just goes to show that history is usually complicated, and one can't regard a certain region as having the same culture among all of its inhabitants.

The Tafurs

Some accounts of the First Crusade seem to agree that crusaders would sometimes resort to cannibalism when actual food was lacking. I assumed that it was a general accusation but I just saw a site that asserts that such atrocities were attributed to one particular group: the Tafurs. The nature of this groups is debated but a disturbing proposition is that the Tafurs lay at the core of crusading atrocities. It was rumored that they raped any women they captured, looted everything they could get their hands on, and simply reveled in butchery. Led by a former knight, Le Roi Tafur, the Tafurs dressed in sackcloths and used only the crudest of weapons. Yet Muslim sources refer to them as being "living devils" who fought with almost beast-like fury in combat. Apparently their reputation was so fierce that even the crusader nobles required an armed escort to pass by their tents. The Tafurs were also motivated by greed, with Le Roi Tafur leading the first assault on Jerusalem exclaiming, "Where are the poor folk who want property? Let them come with me!....for today with God's help I shall win enough to load many a mule!" Although the Tafurs' exploits are undoubtedly exaggerated, their legacy is definitely an interesting of the crusades often overlooked. http://www.antiqillum.org/texts/bg/Qadosh/qadosh018.htm (There is also a wiki article on them but it only comes in French)