Vasilief, A History of the Byzantine Empire

Byzantium and the Crusades

The First Crusade and Byzantium 

Page 11

In the eleventh century western pilgrimages to the Holy Land were particularly numerous. Sometimes pilgrimages were made by very large groups; along with the individual pilgrimages there were real expeditions to the Holy Land. In 1026-27 seven hundred pilgrims, at whose head was a French abbot and among whom were many Norman knights, visited Palestine. In the same year William, count of Angouleme, followed by several abbots of the west of France and by a great number of nobles, made a voyage to Jerusalem. In 1033 there was such a congestion of pilgrims at the Holy Sepulchre as had never been seen before. But the most famous pilgrimage took place in 1064-65, when more than seven thousand persons (usually said to be more than twelve thousand) under the leadership of Gunther, the bishop of Bamberg, in Germany, undertook a pilgrimage. They passed through Constantinople and Asia Minor, and, after many adventures and losses, reached Jerusalem. The sources on this great pilgrimage state that out of seven thousand, not two thousand returned, and these came back measurably attenuated in material resources. Gunther himself, the leader of the pilgrimage, died prematurely, one of the many lives lost in this adventure.

In connection with these precrusading peaceful pilgrimages the question has been raised whether the eleventh century might be regarded, as it has rather often been, as a period of transition from peaceful pilgrimages to the military expeditions of the crusading epoch. Many scholars have tried to prove that, because of new conditions established in Palestine after the Turkish conquest, troops of pilgrims began to travel armed to be able to defend themselves against possible attacks. Now, owing to E. Joranson, the fact has been established that the greatest pilgrimage of the eleventh century was made up exclusively of unarmed men; and in this connection inevitably rises the question whether any pilgrimage in the pre-crusading period really was an expedition under arms. Of course, some of the pilgriming knights were armed, but though some of them wore coats of mail they were still peaceful pilgrims, and they were not crusaders. They played a considerable part in the history of the origin of the crusades, however, by informing western Europeans of the situation in the Holy Land and awakening and maintaining interest in it. All these pilgrimaging expeditions took place before the Turks conquered Palestine. One of the results of the more recent investigation of the pilgrimages of the eleventh century before the Turkish conquest is the discovery that pilgrims in Palestine were sometimes maltreated by the Arabs many years before the Seljuq occupation of that land, so that the statement that as long as the Arabs held Jerusalem, the Christian pilgrims from Europe could pass unmolested must now be considered too positive.

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