16

Crusader Jerusalem, 1099-1187

In 1095 the Byzantine Christian emperor, Alexius I Comnenus (1081-1118), appealed to the Roman Catholic Church for help against the advance of the Seljuk Turks. Conceiving the idea of an armed pilgrimage of Christian warriors to the east, one of the most powerful medieval popes, Urban II (1088-1099), discussed it with important ecclesiastical leaders and then made public his decision. In a stirring speech at Clermont in France before a large audience, the pope called upon the Christian knightly class to put aside their petty quarrels, join forces under papal leadership, and march eastward to free the Holy Land from the control of the Muslims. Calling for a holy war to save Christianity in the east he urged: "Come forward to the defence of Christ, O ye who have carried on feuds, come to the war against the infidels. O ye who have been thieves, become soldiers. Fight a just war . . . Set forth, then, upon the way to the holy Sepulcher; wrest that land from the evil race, and keep it for yourself. That land which floweth with milk and honey—Jerusalem." 1 The pope's speech was interrupted with shouts of support; such an undertaking was seen as the will of God—Dieu lo vult! ("God wills it").

At the heart of the crusading ideology was the concept of the sanctity of Jerusalem and the need to keep it free from sacrilegious usurpers. Ironically, Christianity had accepted the Jewish and Muslim view that the Holy City was at the center of the world and the starting point of creation. Jerusalem was seen as the one spot on earth where the devout could be physically closer to God. Over time, the church came to recognize pilgrimage as a way of gaining absolution for sins. 2 It was believed that the rigors of pilgrimage to the Holy Land were not only acceptable penance for past sins but also a way to secure indulgences against future sins. Consequently, the jails of Europe were emptied, and criminals found themselves on the top decks of ships heading for Palestine alongside priests, peasants, titled lords, and fine ladies. 3

Thus, the Crusades were founded on three principles: the sanctity of Jerusalem, the necessity of fighting the enemies of Christ, and the personal efficacy of pilgrimage to the Holy City. The word crusade itself derives from the Latin crux, meaning "cross." Under the banner of the cross, the Crusaders set out to reconquer the sacred sites associated with Christ's life.

Grievances

To eleventh-century European Christians the list of grievances against the infidel Muslims was long indeed. Muslims had already made inroads into Europe four hundred years earlier, overrunning Spain in the eighth century. And though Christians had won back most of the northern territories in the ninth century, Muslim power revived in the late tenth century under al-Mansur the Victorious. He captured Barcelona and sacked Leon, the capital of the leading Christian kingdom. 4 But the Christians fought back after the death of al-Mansur in 1002. The great city of Toledo was retaken in 1085, and in 1089 Pope Urban II proclaimed that those who assisted in rebuilding certain towns would enjoy the same reward as pilgrims to Jerusalem. The Muslims, however, were reinforced by Berber tribesmen from North Africa and important cities were lost again. 5

In Italy, Muslims had sacked Rome itself in 846, and their robber castles existed throughout the land into the eleventh century. The western Mediterranean was dominated by Muslim pirates until the Byzantines reopened sea lanes to traders and pilgrims in the tenth century.

But the most unconscionable acts against Christianity had been perpetrated in the Holy Land itself. Inhabitants of Palestine endured ups and downs at the hands of various Muslim rulers since the seventh century, though in the main tranquillity and tolerance prevailed. Between 1004 and 1014, however, the mad Fatimid Caliph al-Hakim persecuted Christians with a vengeance. He ordered the destruction of churches, including the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, and forced everybody to convert to Islam. In 1021 he disappeared, perhaps murdered by his sister; his chief adviser, Darazi, fled to Lebanon, where he founded a sect named after himself, the Druze. 6 Members of the sect believed that in due course al-Hakim would return, a prospect that made the most tolerant of Christians nervous.

Al-Hakim's havoc in Jerusalem made a deep impression on the west. At the end of the eleventh century, almost eighty years after Hakim's abuses had been moderated, the monks of the Moissac Abbey, in southern France, forged an encyclical (papal decree), purportedly sent out by Pope Sergius IV (1004-1012) to the faithful, calling for an army to be launched against Hakim. The document is important because it exemplifies the kind of crusading rhetoric that had been generated in Europe by the time of the First Crusade. That the Church of the Holy Sepulchre had by that time already been restored was immaterial.

Let all Christians know that news has come from the east to the seat of the apostles that the church of the Holy Sepulchre has been destroyed from roof to foundations at the impious hands of the pagans. This destruction has plunged the entire church and the city of Rome into deep grief and distress. The whole world is in mourning, and the people tremble, breathing deep sighs. Never should our eyes be blessed with sleep, or our heart with joy, if we ever read in the prophets, in the Psalms or in the fathers that the Redeemer's tomb would be destroyed. Therefore, let this Christian intention be known: that we, personally, if it pleases the Lord, desire to set out from these shores with any Romans, Italians or Tuscans who wish to come with us. With the Lord's help we intend to kill all these enemies and to restore the Redeemer's Holy Sepulchre. Nor, my sons, are you to fear the sea's turbulence, nor dread the fury of war, for God has promised that whoever loses the present life for the sake of Christ will gain another life which he will never lose. For this is not a battle for an earthly kingdom, but for the eternal Lord. 7

To European Christians, however, the persecutions of al-Hakim were not the worst problems to beset Christianity. In the tenth century, Turkestan was ruled by a Persian dynasty who converted their subjects to Islam. Turks poured into western Asia to take positions under Muslim rulers. Among them was a group of princes who called themselves Seljuks, after a common semimythical ancestor. These raiders overtook Armenia and Anatolia and were soon menacing the Byzantine Empire. A tremendous showdown occurred in 1071 between Byzantine and Seljuk forces near a town called Manzikert, now in present-day Turkey. This battle was another watershed in history and the worst disaster to befall the eastern empire to that point. With the Byzantine army no longer a deterrent and the Fatimids in disarray, a Seljuk Turkish Muslim chieftain named Atsiz ibn Abaq invaded Palestine and captured Jerusalem. This conquest nearly halted pilgrim traffic to the Holy City and tipped the scales in favor of a crusade against the infidels who were causing trouble for travelers to Jerusalem.

Another impetus to pilgrimage was the veneration of relics. Pilgrims could see for themselves the precious objects of their faith—the crown of thorns, a hair from the head of John the Baptist, the mantle of the prophet Elijah. Astute pilgrims might even be able to purchase something to display back in their own dreary villages, which, in turn, could inspire others to make their own journeys. One recognized authority on the Crusades relates that when a woman of a certain French town "brought back from her travels the thumb of Saint John the Baptist, her friends were all inspired to journey out to see his body at Samaria and his head at Damascus." 8

The success of the pilgrimages depended on two conditions: first, that life in Jerusalem be orderly enough for defenseless travelers to move about and worship in safety; and second, that the way to Jerusalem be kept open and inexpensive. The former necessitated peace and good government in the Muslim world; the latter, the prosperity and beneficence of Byzantium. By the middle of the eleventh century, however, pilgrims found neither. They were dramatically hampered in their quest to visit the most holy sites. In 1056 Muslims forbade westerners to enter the Church of the Holy Sepulchre and ejected some three hundred of them from Jerusalem. By the 1080s pilgrim traffic from the west was almost at a standstill. 9

In his chronicle written soon after 1077, Lambert, a monk from an abbey in western Europe, described the ordeals suffered by a band of German pilgrims in Syria and Palestine. They had ill-advisedly revealed their wealth and importance to the inhabitants of the territories through which they passed as they made their way to the Holy City. The barbarians who poured out from their towns and fields to see such famous men were driven by a great desire for plunder. So, when the pilgrims were just a short distance from Rama, on Good Friday, around the third hour of the day, marauding Arabs attacked them. Many of the Christians, relying on their religion for assistance and salvation, had trusted in God's protection rather than in weapons when they set out for foreign parts. Among the many casualties was William, archbishop of Trier, whose arm was almost paralyzed by wounds. He was left naked and half-dead. 10

Other warnings, like the one recorded in the biography of Bishop Altmann of Passau, also began to circulate in the west:

On this pilgrimage a memorable event happened which I include as an example, so that those who obstinately oppose the counsels of the wise might take it as a dreadful warning. One of the pilgrims was a noble abbess, physically imposing and spiritually minded. Against all the best advice she resigned the care of the sisters committed to her and undertook this pilgrimage which was fraught with danger. She was captured by pagans and, in the sight of all, raped by a band of licentious men until she died. This event was a scandal to all Christian people. Brought low by incidents like this and other humiliations in the name of Christ, the pilgrims won high regard everywhere, by men and by angels, because they chose to enter the kingdom of God suffering many tribulations. 11

Count Robert I of Flanders managed to make his way to Jerusalem in 1086 with the help of an armed escort. He paused on the way back to spend a season fighting for the Byzantine emperor. But the few humbler pilgrims who succeeded in overcoming the obstacles to their pilgrimage returned home weary and poor with doleful stories to tell. 12

Given the graveness of the situation, it seems only natural that churchmen and laypersons alike should have decided that it was high time to recover the holy places and sacred objects from the infidels. Arming themselves with swords and metal helmets, the faithful went in successive waves for two hundred years to retrieve the Holy City wherein lay the tomb of Christ. Never before or since was the tomb fought over so savagely. From the end of the eleventh century through the end of the thirteenth, the cross of faith was transformed into a sword of destruction, cutting a swath of blood from the cathedral towns of western Europe to the very heart of Jerusalem, which, for much of the crusading era, was the ostensible object of the contests.

Socially as well as doctrinally, from the Roman Catholic point of view, the eleventh century was a perfect time for the Crusades. Centuries before, St. Augustine (354-430) had held that wars might legitimately be waged if called for by the command of God. The society that emerged in Europe after the invasions that brought hundreds of thousands of Germanic warriors under the umbrella of Christianity glorified the military hero. As doctrine mixed with the warrior mentality, war seemed not only permissible but desirable.

But warfare was becoming too much the preoccupation of medieval man, and the Roman church took steps to curb this development. Pope Leo IV in the mid ninth century declared that anyone dying in battle for the church would win a heavenly reward—but not in a war for personal gain. A few years later, Pope Nicholas I held that men under the sentence of the church for their sins (excommunication or interdiction) could bear arms only against the infidel. Unfortunately, most of the fighting at the time was between Christians who viewed each other as the infidel; monarchs fought against monarchs, lords against lords, dukes against neighboring dukes. When in 1038 the archbishop of Bourges ordered every Christian male over the age of fifteen to declare himself the enemy of anyone who broke the peace and, if need be, take up arms against the discordant, the archbishop's command was too fully obeyed. Castles of "recalcitrant nobles" were destroyed, and a village was burned. A more workable attempt to limit warfare was the proclamation of the Truce of God, which prohibited fighting on the Sabbath, major feast days of the church, and later on all Saturdays as well. But there was so much pent-up energy among the knightly class in Europe that the truce was often broken. The Crusades—holy wars for God and church—came at just the right time for relief from the warrior ethos run amok in western Europe and for maximum popular support. 13

The First Crusade

From December 1095 until July 1096 Pope Urban toured France, preaching the Pope's Crusade. He also sent a letter to the people of Flanders, which represents the message he preached throughout Europe:

Bishop Urban, servant of the servants of God, to all the faithful waiting in Flanders, both rulers and subjects: greetings, grace and apostolic blessing. We know you have already heard from the testimony of many that the frenzy of the barbarians has devastated the churches of God in the east, and has even—shame to say—seized into slavery the holy city of Christ, Jerusalem. Grieving in pious contemplation of this disaster, we visited France and strongly urged the princes and people of that land to work for the liberation of the Eastern Church. At the council of Auvergne, we enjoined on them this undertaking for the remission of all their sins, and appointed our dear son Adhemar, bishop of Le Puy, as leader of the journey on our behalf, so that whoever should set out on such a journey should obey his orders as if they were our own. 14

The remission of all of one's sins was a powerful inducement to join the cause. The pope further promised that all temporal property belonging to the participants would be kept safe and intact under the protection of the Holy Roman Church until the warrior returned home. 15 Though the pope decreed that God required pious intentions, the promise of protected worldly belongings, plus the hint that one might be able to gain additional wealth, even if only a little, could not be put completely from the minds of the potential defenders of the faith.

Each member of the expedition was to wear the sign of the cross as a symbol of his dedication to the glorious endeavor being undertaken. Anyone who adopted the sign of the cross was obligated to go all the way to Jerusalem. If he turned back too soon or failed to set out at all, he would suffer excommunication. The armed pilgrimage was not to be a war of mere conquest; it was for God's glory. Responding to the call, thousands sewed onto their clothing small red crosses and prepared for the sacred journey. Thus, the Crusades "represented a fusion of three characteristic impulses of medieval man: sanctity, pugnacity, and greed," or, put more alliteratively, God, glory, and gold, and not necessarily in that order. 16

Before the great armies of western Europe came together and set out officially on the First Crusade, small groups of zealous peasants and artisans converged spontaneously and marched as an undisciplined horde through the Rhine and Danube valleys in the spring of 1096, headed for Jerusalem. In their minds the earthly Jerusalem was confused with the idea of the heavenly Jerusalem. Joshua Prawer writes that these peasants "would ask on approaching each new city if they had finally reached 'Heavenly Jerusalem.'" 17 The leader of the Peasants' Crusade was Peter the Hermit, so-called because of a hermit's cape he wore while riding a donkey. Foreboding in appearance and magnetic in his preaching, Peter threatened violence against Jewish communities in his path, hoping to extort financial support for his crusade. This technique was also used by no less a person than the saintly Godfrey de Bouillon, duke of Lower Lorraine, who led one of the pope's armies and who later became the first ruler of the Kingdom of Jerusalem. 18

Tragically, many of the Crusaders, both Peter's and the pope's, did more than merely threaten the Jews. As the crusading hordes of Christian soldiers swarmed across the European continent, thousands of Jews were massacred, their synagogues torched, and countless homes destroyed in the once-flourishing Jewish communities of the important cities of Worms, Mainz, Cologne, Metz, and Prague. Only in the town of Speyer, whose bishop was able to avert a disaster, were the horrifying scenes of forced baptism, murder, and pillage not carried out. The massacres did not reflect an official policy of the church. Nevertheless, the atrocities were not mindless attacks by an uninformed rabble. 19

For many Crusaders it seemed preposterous to set out on such a long journey to kill God's enemies while the worst enemies, those who were responsible for putting Christ in his grave, were dwelling in the midst of the Christian world. 20 If the church assured salvation to all who took up the cross and destroyed the Muslim enemies of God, would not the same hold true for a war against the greatest of the infidels—the Jews?

Some five thousand Jews lost their lives during the First Crusade. Neither the church nor the secular princes offered any formidable resistance to the Crusaders to protect the Jews. 21 Both were caught off guard; neither could control the mobs who were all too ready to commit genocide as they charged their victims with deicide. Joshua Prawer has viewed the destruction of the Jews during this time as the beginning of a thousand years of Christian anti-Semitism: "This was the 'Doom of 1096,' as it is called in Jewish sources (Gzeroth Tatnu), an event never to be forgotten . . . perpetrated by those . . . who went to liberate the sepulchre of a God of love and peace universal." 22

Peter the Hermit's rabble was followed by other, even less reputable, bands of warriors who could not wait to reach Jerusalem before they began their work of killing "the infidel." The German chronicler Albert of Aachen, writing after 1100, gives us the essence of many massacres as he writes specifically about a petty lord named Emich of Leisingen:

I do not know if it was because of a judgement of God or because of some delusion in their minds, but the pilgrims rose in a spirit of cruelty against the Jews, who were scattered throughout many cities in the Rhineland. They inflicted a most cruel slaughter on them, especially in the kingdom of Lorraine, claiming that this was the beginning of their journey and the killings would be of service against the enemies of Christianity. . . . 8Count Emich was the enemy of all the Jews—may his bones be crushed to pieces in millstones of iron. He was known as a man who had no mercy on the old, or on young women, who took no pity on babies or sucklings or the sick, who pulverized God's people like the dust in threshing, who slew their young men with the sword and cut open their pregnant women. 23

Albert's use of the phrase "judgement of God" is interesting to Latter-day Saints because we share the same feelings of abhorrence about Crusader actions that come to all thoughtful students of the period. Without doubt, greed and thoughtless hatred were powerful motives in bringing about the untold misery of innocent Jews. Though nothing can condone or excuse such cruelty, the events described during the Crusades were foreseen by prophets of old, particularly by one who was himself a citizen of Judah, namely Nephi. 24 We note especially his reference to the crucifixion and resurrection of the Savior and the subsequent destruction of Jerusalem in A.D. 70: "And behold it shall come to pass that after the Messiah hath risen from the dead, and hath manifested himself unto his people, unto as many as will believe on his name, behold, Jerusalem shall be destroyed again . . . Wherefore, the Jews shall be scattered among all nations" (2 Ne. 25:14-15). Elsewhere Nephi tersely summarizes events that would beset the Jewish people after their dispersion: they would be scourged by other nations; they would wander and perish and "become a hiss and a by-word, and be hated among all nations" (1 Ne. 19:13-14).

Even Moses, the great lawgiver, clearly foretold the devastating conditions that would come upon his people should they reject their God: "Thou shalt become an astonishment, a proverb, and a by-word, among all nations. . . . 8And among these nations shalt thou find no ease, neither shall the sole of thy foot have rest: but the Lord shall give thee there a trembling heart, and failing of eyes, and sorrow of mind: and thy life shall hang in doubt before thee; and thou shalt fear day and night, and shalt have none assurance of thy life" (Deut. 28:37, 65-66). The Lord himself said: "I have caused my people who are of the house of Israel to be smitten, and to be afflicted, and to be slain, and to be cast out from among them, and to become hated by them, and to become a hiss and a by-word among them" (3 Ne. 16:9). 25

Surely these prophecies saw partial fulfillment during the period of the Crusades. As the Jewish historian Abram Leon Sachar reminds us, during the two hundred years of the Crusades, "the Jew was stoned and pelted, spat upon and cursed, compelled to slink through the by-ways and side streets, in darkness and in shame. He was . . . a fugitive and a vagabond." 26 To use Nephi's vocabulary, he was indeed a hiss and a by-word.

Just as no amount of discussion can dismiss the prophecies about Jewish hardship and suffering, no amount of doctrinal double-talk or supersessionist theology can excuse the murder of, oppression of, and lack of gratitude for the Jewish branch of Israel's family. Nephi also testified of this truth:

But thus saith the Lord God: O fools, they shall have a Bible; and it shall proceed forth from the Jews, mine ancient covenant people. And what thank they the Jews for the Bible which they receive from them? Yea, what do the Gentiles mean? Do they remember the travails, and the labors, and the pains of the Jews, and their diligence unto me, in bringing forth salvation unto the Gentiles?

O ye Gentiles, have ye remembered the Jews, mine ancient covenant people? Nay; but ye have cursed them, and have hated them, and have not sought to recover them. But behold, I will return all these things upon your own heads; for I the Lord have not forgotten my people. (2 Ne. 29:4-5)

If we condemn the Jews, we do so at our own peril. Only those who are familiar with the history of the Jewish people, who are sensitive to their tragedies and triumphs, their travails and temptations, their rejection of the true Messiah and eventual return to him, their close connection to Jerusalem and the prophetic destiny of both people and place, can appreciate the special spot they hold in the Lord's heart.

With the restoration of the Church of Jesus Christ in 1830, a new message of hope and comfort was directed toward the Jews. It issued forth from those servants charged by the Lord in this last dispensation with laying the foundations for the gathering of Israel. In March 1840, just before he was officially called by the Prophet Joseph Smith to go to the Holy Land and dedicate it for the return of Abraham's posterity, Elder Orson Hyde received a vision of his future labors. The Spirit of the Lord laid before his eyes the great cities of the world, in which many of the children of Abraham were residing, and the Spirit directed the apostle in the following manner: "Speak ye comfortably to Jerusalem, and cry unto her, that her warfare is accomplished—that her iniquity is pardoned, for she hath received of the Lord's hand doubly for all her sins. Let your warning voice be heard among the Gentiles as you pass; and call upon them in my name for aid and assistance." 27

The Jews are the Lord's people. All the prophecies about them in the Lord's written word will come to pass. Some of the horrors foretold by Nephi and others found fulfillment during the Crusades. But we also are assured that just as the Jews were scattered, smitten, and scourged, so will they be gathered in great mercy by their God, whom they did not know. In the meantime, however, they have had to bear terrible indignities at the hands of vile Gentiles who knew neither God nor restraint.

Ironically, the peasant Crusaders received a lethal dose of their own medicine. Very few of them reached Constantinople, and fewer still helped liberate Jerusalem. Most of the peasant Crusaders met their end at the hands of Hungarian warriors who retaliated against them for plundering the countryside. A contemporary historian, Cosmos of Prague, regarded their extinction as God's just wrath and retribution for the horrible massacre of the Jewish people. 28

Jerusalem Falls to the Crusaders

Pope Urban II and Emperor Alexius had agreed that the Crusader armies should assemble at Constantinople and there join with Byzantine forces to reconquer the Holy Land. During the first half of 1096 four major armies of knights, foot soldiers, and hangers-on began to move eastward by various routes until they converged on Constantinople in the fall and winter. The leaders of the armies had no common plan of action. Although Urban II had designated a distinguished bishop to direct the crusading effort, the nobles were unwilling to accept direction. At times the armies looked very little different from mobs.

By the spring of 1097 as many as one hundred thousand Franks marched from France to assemble in the Byzantine capital. From there they moved to Antioch, in Syria, where they beat back the Muslims in June 1098 and found, as we are told, the lance that had pierced the body of Christ. This relic became a rallying point for the Christian soldiers, spurring them on to greater ferociousness in the cause of Christ. 29 One group left the main body of Crusaders to establish control over Edessa in Armenia, which became a Crusader state.

It took the Franks a year to advance from Antioch to Jerusalem as they marched southward, down the coast of Palestine, avoiding military engagements with the Muslims and saving their strength for the Holy City. By the middle of June 1099 the Christian warriors had reached the northern outskirts of the city. They camped on a hill named Nebi Samwil (Arabic, "Prophet Samuel") and wept tears of joy as they contemplated the city they had traveled so far to liberate. Jerusalem at that time was defended by a garrison of Egyptian Fatimid soldiers, who had driven the Seljuk Turks out of the city only a year before. All Greek Christians along with the Patriarch Simon had been expelled from the city by the Muslims. The Jews, who numbered a few hundred, had been allowed to stay and fight alongside the Muslims. 30

After five weeks of combat, twelve hundred mounted knights and twelve thousand foot soldiers finally pushed through the northeastern wall of Jerusalem (at Herod's Gate, approximately opposite today's Rockefeller Museum), the city's perpetual weak point. Titus had attacked from that direction in A.D. 70, as did Yitzhak Rabin almost nineteen hundred years later, when he led a company of Israeli paratroopers to reclaim Jerusalem in the 1967 Six-Day War. Just as Jerusalem fell to the Israelis in 1967, so did the city fall to the Crusaders on 15 July 1099, and the invaders soon planted a large cross at the point of entry, in the area of today's Muslim Quarter. 31 At the same time Godfrey de Bouillon was leading his troops from Flanders and northern France over the northeastern wall, a Provençal force led by Raymond of St. Gilles surmounted the wall adjoining Mount Zion, and Normans from Sicily, headed by Tancred, entered Jerusalem from the northwest in the vicinity of a tower that came to bear his name. 32

Thousands of Crusaders stormed into Jerusalem's streets and unleashed a horrible revenge upon the enemies of Christ. Their philosophy was simple enough: "Kill them and let God sort them out!" Every Muslim in sight was killed; women and children were massacred. The streets were filled with blood, and blood flowed downhill into the Kidron Valley. Jews who were not immediately executed fled to their synagogue, which was set afire and its terrified inhabitants burned alive. Christian clergymen themselves were repulsed by the slaughter. Roman church bishop and historian William of Tyre recorded the scenes of carnage:

It was impossible to look upon the vast numbers of slain without horror; everywhere lay fragments of human bodies, and the very ground was covered with the blood of the slain. It was not alone the spectacle of the headless bodies and mutilated limbs strewn in all directions that roused horror in all who looked upon them. Still more dreadful it was to gaze upon the victors themselves, dripping with blood from head to foot, an ominous sight which brought terror to all who met them. 33

When there was no enemy left to kill and nothing left to loot, Jerusalem fell silent. In a great display of piety, lords, bishops, knights, and peasants walked in solemn procession to the tomb of Christ, and there each in turn knelt to offer prayers to the God who had guided them and given them victory. At last the tomb of the Lord was in western Christian hands, and the holiest city in the world was freed from the wretched infidel.

The pious, courageous, but not very bright Godfrey de Bouillon became the first ruler of the kingdom of Jerusalem; he received the title Defender of the Holy Sepulchre. Godfrey refused to accept a crown and the title of monarch in the city where Christ alone was king. 34 He was also appointed patriarch of Jerusalem and given jurisdiction over the northwest section of Jerusalem (the Patriarch Quarter), though he had originally demanded sole religious authority over the entire city. This quarter had formerly belonged to Greek Orthodox Christians but passed to the Latin (Roman) church because the Greek patriarch, Simon, and his Greek bishops had moved to Cyprus. 35

Godfrey ruled for only one year and was succeeded by his younger brother, Baldwin de Boulogne, a shrewd and cunning warrior. He had no qualms about taking the title of king of Jerusalem and inaugurated a period of expansion which, by the mid twelfth century, saw the borders of the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem begin to rival those of David's ancient monarchy. The boundaries of the medieval kingdom stretched, roughly, from the Mediterranean in the west to the Transjordan in the east, and from Lebanon in the north to Elath (modern Eilat) in the south.

The Culture of Crusader Jerusalem

Crusader rule in Jerusalem was difficult as well as harsh at the beginning. Surviving Muslims and Jews were forbidden to resettle in the city for several years after the conquest. Most of the Franks returned home after the tomb of Jesus was taken, leaving Jerusalem a lonely place. Special inducements were offered to attract more Latin Christians. Rulers resorted to such measures as tax and customs exemptions as well as redistribution of property. In 1115 King Baldwin decided to allow back into the city Greeks, Syrians, and other native Eastern Christians from Transjordan. They began to inhabit the northeastern (formerly Jewish) quarter of Jerusalem, an area which came to be known as the Syrian Quarter until sometime in the early Ottoman period. 36

The Syrian Christians provided the badly needed manpower to revitalize Jerusalem's economy, which was based on crafts manufacturing involving wood, leather, and metal. As these craftsmen began working in concert with Italian merchants, who imported raw materials and took away finished products, Jerusalem became the center of a trading monopoly in the Near East. The city's population grew to about twenty thousand full-time residents. Coincidentally, Orson Hyde tells us that this was the population in Jerusalem when he visited it in 1841. 37

As the years passed, the Franks grew more tolerant of the Eastern Christians, although the latter felt that their European benefactors treated them with a haughtiness reminiscent of the former Muslim governors of Jerusalem. In fact, the Franks were looked upon as ignorant, coarse, domineering, abusive, and fanatically pious by several sects of Christianity. Coptic Christians from Egypt were said to have ended their annual pilgrimage to Jerusalem because of the rudeness and hostility shown them by the Franks. 38

Two groups in Crusader Jerusalem were especially feared and disliked: the Knights Hospitaller and the Knights Templar. They were religious orders of military-minded monks who took vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience and combined this regimen with the skills of knightly warriors. They were indispensable to King Baldwin II and his successors, who always needed men for recurring skirmishes with the Muslims. Though originating with the Benedictine Order, both Hospitallers and Templars functioned as independent organizations in the Holy Land and were held in the highest regard by the pope, who saw them as Christianity's permanent foothold in Palestine. 39

The largest of the orders was the Hospitallers, whose members settled in an area still called the Muristan (Persian, "hospital") Quarter. They did not get along well with the Latin patriarch and were happy to live in the sector of the city that had been appropriated from the patriarch by Pope Paschal II in 1113. An example of the volatile relations between the Hospitallers and the patriarch occurred when members of the order felt slighted over a new liturgical arrangement in worship and stormed the Church of the Holy Sepulchre with drawn swords, chasing the priests until the knights calmed down. 40

The Order of the Knights Templar, founded in Palestine in 1118, settled on the Temple Mount when King Baldwin I vacated his headquarters in the al-Aqsa Mosque in favor of the order. He moved to the Citadel, and the Templars renovated the mosque, calling it Templum Solomonis ("Solomon's Temple"), from which they derived their full name, The Order of the Poor Knights of the Messiah and of the Temple of Solomon. At the time they took over the al-Aqsa Mosque, they renamed the Dome of the Rock the Templum Domini ("Temple of the Lord"). The Templars did not change the structure of the building but did add a metal grill around the Sacred Rock (es-Sakhra). As Hugh Nibley reminds us, the Templars' actions bespeak apostate Christianity's obsession with regaining the Temple, its holiness and its ordinances, as a critical pillar of the faith. They knew something terribly important had been lost when the Temples of old were destroyed, but they were not quite sure how to get it back. 41

Northwest of the Templum Domini, the Templars built an elaborate baptistry, known today as the Dome of Ascension. An administrative center was constructed west of the Templum Solomonis, which today serves partly as a women's mosque and partly as a museum of Islamic art. The Templars also turned the subterranean vaults of the Temple platform into stables, which still retain the designation "Solomon's Stables."

The most important function of both orders through the twelfth century was to protect pilgrims traveling to Jerusalem. Once pilgrims had safely docked at Jaffa, knights of the orders would escort them overland to Jerusalem, a task made difficult by Egyptian, Turkish, and Bedouin bandits on the roads. The crusading orders were not to be trifled with, however, especially by inferior forces. Grateful pilgrims remembered the service rendered on their behalf, and their gratitude became a source of great wealth for the orders. Wealthier pilgrims often bestowed gifts of money or property in their wills. 42

The permanent inhabitants of Jerusalem during the years of the Crusader kingdom were mostly Europeans. The Franks predominated, and French was the official language of the kingdom. Germans established their own branch of the Hospitallers, called the Knights Teutonic, between the Temple Mount and Zion's Gate; Hungarians concentrated around their own hospice not far from today's New Gate; Spaniards had their own street near Damascus Gate; and speakers of Provençal established themselves near Zion's Gate.

The streets of Jerusalem itself had survived from Roman times. The Cardo, the main thoroughfare running from north to south (Damascus Gate to Zion Gate), bisected the main east-west artery ("St. Stephen's Gate" to Jaffa Gate), which divided the city into four quarters, each of which had taken on a different ethnic and architectural character over the centuries. Something of this diversity remained through the Crusader period. 43

Another important element of Crusader Jerusalem was its marketplaces. Toward the southern end of the city were several markets that supplied citizens with necessities and pilgrims with souvenirs or keepsakes. The most important markets were the Vegetable Market, which was also called the Spice Market; the Vaulted Market, which had stalls of dry goods; and the Poultry Market, where one could purchase eggs, cheese, and other milk products. 44 Near these three was a market area of eating establishments frequented by pilgrims visiting Jerusalem—the medieval equivalent of the food court in American shopping malls. As one writer notes, Jerusalem has never been a city known for its cuisine. The dishes at this medieval dining market were apparently so badly prepared that it became known as the Rue de Malquisin—"Street of the Evil Cooking." 45

Building was a principal activity of the Crusaders. 46 Shrines and churches were constructed or restored after centuries of neglect. The new churches were generally erected in places where Byzantine buildings had once stood and which were connected to events in the lives of Christ, his family, and his disciples. The most beautiful of all the Crusader churches in Jerusalem is that of St. Anne, named for the mother of the Virgin Mary. It was built in a delicate, ornate style and still offers some of the best acoustics of any building ever constructed in the Near East.

The Crusades were a time of great spiritual revival for Christianity in general. Deep-felt outpourings of religious devotion are evidenced by impressive hymns that originated in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. These include "Beautiful Savior"; "Jesus, the Very Thought of Thee" (attributed to Bernard of Clairvaux, ca. 1091-1153); and "All Creatures of Our God and King," by St. Francis of Assisi (1181-1226), who founded the Franciscan Order (ca. 1210), which eventually gained ownership of most of the important holy sites in Jerusalem. A man of great piety, St. Francis accompanied a group of Crusaders to Egypt in 1219, hoping to convert the sultan, but he failed.

Muslim Reconquest

Muslim forces did not acquiesce in the loss of their third-holiest city to the detested Franks. The Crusaders had established their independent Christian states of Edessa, Antioch, Tripoli, and Jerusalem because of the disunity of the Muslim peoples, but beginning in the mid twelfth century, Muslim forces crystallized and mounted a huge counteroffensive, aiming to drive the Europeans from Near Eastern soil altogether. Under the attacks of three successive Muslim military leaders—Zengi, Nureddin (Nur ed-Din), and Saladin (Salah ed-Din)—the Crusader states fell one by one, and the Christian church lost its military hold on the Holy Land.

In 1144 the Muslim ruler Zengi conquered the Christian state of Edessa in Armenia. This loss provoked the call for the Second Crusade (1147-1149), which ended in terrible defeat for Christian forces at Damascus. The Crusaders made the mistake of attacking the great Arab capital instead of carrying out their original plan of reclaiming Edessa. The defeat destroyed the Second Crusader army and dispelled the myth of Crusader invincibility forever. Even worse, the Christians ruined their critical buffer zone by attacking the independent Muslim kingdom headquartered in Damascus. Though the Muslims in Damascus repulsed the Crusaders, the city was weakened enough that it was absorbed by the powerful Abbasid caliphate under Zengi in Baghdad. 47

By 1187 the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem had been encircled, and Islam's greatest warrior, the Kurdish-born general Saladin, was planning the decisive military blow that would propel his armies to the gates of the Holy City. The borders of the Latin Kingdom were strongly defended by castles, and the Crusaders' mobile, battle-tested force had repulsed Saladin's early forays into the Holy Land. The strike came on 4 July 1187 on a two-pronged hill in the Galilee named the Horns of Hattin. Saladin, respected by both Muslims and Christians as honest and brave, crossed the Jordan with twenty thousand men and met a Crusader force of equal size. Unfortunately, the Crusaders were exhausted after a long forced march through the hot countryside. The results were devastating. The Christian army was destroyed, and all its leaders killed or captured. Jerusalem's king, Guy de Lusignan, was taken prisoner. 48

Saladin turned south, down the Palestinian coastline, and conquered towns and strongholds with little opposition. Muslim forces reached Jerusalem on 4 September 1187, and by 12 October the Holy City was again in Muslim hands, after eighty-eight years of Christian domination. Before the Muslim siege was over, several of the churches lying on the outskirts of Jerusalem had been destroyed, either by Saladin's troops or by Christians themselves, who followed a scorched-earth policy to keep the infidel from acquiring anything of value. 49

The general outlines of Crusader Jerusalem have been preserved to the present day. Many Crusader buildings continued to be used in later periods. A wealth of documents describing the Holy City under the Crusaders has survived; in fact, Crusader Jerusalem is probably the best known of all the periods of the City's history. 50 Because of all that has been written about the Crusades, it takes little imagination for Christians familiar with their tradition to see victorious crusading armies marching into Jerusalem singing apocalyptic hymns of joy hailing the millennial day. Such hymns as "Onward, Christian Soldiers" dredge up far different images for Muslims and Jews familiar with the history of the city which they too consider holy and eternal.

Notes

^1. In Idinopulos, Jerusalem Blessed, Jerusalem Cursed, 154. For a more colloquial version of the same speech, see Hallam, Chronicles of the Crusades, 21.

^2. Ben-Arieh and Sapir, Papers, 15.

^3. Idinopulos, Jerusalem Blessed, Jerusalem Cursed, 159.

^4. Runciman, First Crusade, 74.

^5. Hallam, Chronicles of the Crusades, 21.

^6. Runciman, First Crusade, 30.

^7. Hallam, Chronicles of the Crusades, 25.

^8. Runciman, First Crusade, 41.

^9. Runciman, First Crusade, 41.

^10. Hallam, Chronicles of the Crusades, 34-35.

^11. Hallam, Chronicles of the Crusades, 35.

^12. Runciman, First Crusade, 65, 137.

^13. Runciman, First Crusade, 70-72.

^14. Hallam, Chronicles of the Crusades, 25.

^15. Runciman, First Crusade, 90.

^16. Hollister, Medieval Europe, 154.

^17. Prawer, Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem, 11.

^18. Bahat, Illustrated Atlas of Jerusalem, 90.

^19. Hallam, Chronicles of the Crusades, 68.

^20. Hallo et al., Heritage, 103-5.

^21. Hallo et al., Heritage, 103-5.

^22. Prawer, Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem, 12.

^23. Hallam, Chronicles of the Crusades, 68-69.

^24. This is an excellent example of the tremendous difference between an event that is foreseen and one that has been given God's approval. Some things that God knows will happen he deplores.

^25. Why would all these things happen to the Jews? Why would many generations of Jews have to suffer for what one generation of Jews had done in killing their Messiah? And not all "the Jews," to be sure, had opposed Jesus; his friends Peter, James, John, others of the Twelve, Mary, Martha, Lazarus, and many hundreds of other Jews accepted him for what he claimed to be: God's Son and the Savior of the world. When the scriptures, therefore, speak of "the Jews" doing this or "the Jews" doing that, we understand plainly that the intent is certain Jewish leaders and their followers did this or that.

Given the Latter-day Saint doctrine of personal responsibility for individual sins and not for the sins of others (Article of Faith 2), can anyone rightfully assign direct culpability for the death of Jesus to succeeding generations of Jews long after his mortal life? A specific answer to this provocative question is found in 2 Nephi 25:9: "As one generation hath been destroyed among the Jews because of iniquity, even so have they been destroyed from generation to generation according to their iniquities; and never hath any of them been destroyed save it were foretold them by the prophets of the Lord." In other words, only the Jews who opposed Jesus and killed him are responsible for those actions; later generations are responsible only for their own sins. Human cruelty to others throughout the ages should not, indeed cannot, be equated or confused with divine retribution or punishment. If any people oppose or reject God, that opposition will bring God's punishment.

^26. Sachar, History of the Jews, 195.

^27. Smith, History of the Church, 4:376.

^28. Prawer, Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem, 12.

^29. Idinopulos, Jerusalem Blessed, Jerusalem Cursed, 165-66.

^30. Idinopulos, Jerusalem Blessed, Jerusalem Cursed, 166-67.

^31. Bahat, Carta's Historical Atlas of Jerusalem, 50.

^32. Bahat, Illustrated Atlas of Jerusalem, 93.

^33. Benvenisti, Crusaders in the Holy Land, 38.

^34. Idinopulos, Jerusalem Blessed, Jerusalem Cursed, 168.

^35. Bahat, Illustrated Atlas of Jerusalem, 90.

^36. Bahat, Carta's Historical Atlas of Jerusalem, 50.

^37. Hyde, Voice from Jerusalem, 16.

^38. Prawer, Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem, 221.

^39. Idinopulos, Jerusalem Blessed, Jerusalem Cursed, 172.

^40. Idinopulos, Jerusalem Blessed, Jerusalem Cursed, 174; Bahat, Illustrated Atlas of Jerusalem, 97.

^41. Nibley, Mormonism and Early Christianity, 407-9.

^42. Idinopulos, Jerusalem Blessed, Jerusalem Cursed, 172-73.

^43. Yadin, Jerusalem Revealed, 102.

^44. Bahat, Illustrated Atlas of Jerusalem, 98; Yadin, Jerusalem Revealed, 108.

^45. Idinopulos, Jerusalem Blessed, Jerusalem Cursed, 180.

^46. Ben-Arieh and Sapir, Papers, 16.

^47. Idinopulos, Jerusalem Blessed, Jerusalem Cursed, 180-81.

^48. Idinopulos, Jerusalem Blessed, Jerusalem Cursed, 181-82; Bahat, Illustrated Atlas of Jerusalem, 101-2.

^49. Bahat, Illustrated Atlas of Jerusalem, 101.

^50. Bahat, Illustrated Atlas of Jerusalem, 90.