Vasilief, A History of the Byzantine Empire

Byzantium and the Crusades

The First Crusade and Byzantium 

Page 14

The Scandinavian kingdoms also participated in the First Crusade, but they joined the main army in smaller bands. In 1097 a Danish noble, Svein, led a band of crusaders to Palestine. In the north nothing was heard of any great religious enthusiasm, and, as far as is known, most of the Scandinavian crusaders were actuated less by Christian zeal than by love of war and adventure, and the prospect of gain and renown.

There were two Christian countries in the Caucasus, Armenia and Georgia; but after the defeat of the Byzantine army at Manzikert in 1071 Armenia had come under the power of the Turks, so that there could be no question of the participation of the Caucasian Armenians in the First Crusade. As to Georgia, the Seljuqs had taken possession of that land in the eleventh century, and only after the taking of Jerusalem by the crusaders in 1099 did the king of Georgia, David the Restorer, drive out the Turks. This occurred in about 1100, or, as a Georgian chronicle asserted, when a Frankish army had set forth on a march and, with divine assistance, taken Jerusalem and Antioch, Georgia restored itself, and David became powerful.

When in 1095, in connection with west European complications and projected reforms, the victorious Pope Urban II summoned a council to meet at Piacenza, an embassy from Alexius Comnenus was present to make an appeal for aid. This fact has been denied by some scholars; but the more recent investigators of this problem have come to the conclusion that an appeal for aid was really made by Alexius at Piacenza. Of course, this was not the final impulse, which caused the First Crusade, as Sybel asserted. As before, if Alexius appealed for aid at Piacenza, he did not dream of crusading armies; he wanted no crusade, but mercenaries against the Turks, who during the last three years had become a great menace in their successful advance in Asia Minor. About the year 1095, Qilij Arslan had been elected sultan in Nicaea. He sent for the wives and children of the men then staying in Nicaea, and bade them live there, and made this city the dwelling-place, as one might say, of the Sultans. In other words Qilij Arslan made Nicaea his capital. In connection with those Turkish successes Alexius might have appealed for aid at Piacenza; but his intention was not a crusade to the Holy Land, but assistance against the Turks. His request was favorably received at Piacenza. But unfortunately there is little information about this episode. A recent historian remarked, From the council of Piacenza to the arrival of the crusaders in the Byzantine empire, the relations between the East and the West are veiled in tantalizing obscurity.

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