A Companion to Latin Greece

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chapter 2

Crusades and Crusaders in Medieval Greece

Nikolaos G. Chrissis

Introduction

Crusading became a defining feature of the history of the Eastern Mediterra-
nean in the High and Late Middle Ages ever since Pope Urban ii’s call to arms
at Clermont, in 1095, set the First Crusade in motion. That is not to say that
religiously inspired warfare and hostility was the only (or even the dominant)
form of interaction between westerners and the inhabitants of that part of the
world. But the crusade was ubiquitous in the thoughts, writings, diplomacy,
warfare, and generally in the presence of Latin Christians in the Levant. In
Syria, Palestine, and Egypt trade flourished, for the most part led by the Ital-
ian city-states, while diplomatic relations with Muslim powers were at least
as frequent as war against them. The shifting alliances in the area cut across
the religious divide; Christians did not hesitate to ally with Muslims against
other Christians and vice versa. But such activity was often reflected through
the prism of the War for the Faith: actions had to be justified in its name or to
be shown that they did not harm the cause. This was not limited to the Holy
Land. The crusade permeated western involvement in all the “frontiers” of
Latin Christendom. That was particularly the case when crusading practices
were transplanted in various other fronts, such as the Baltic and the Iberian
Peninsula, in the 12th and 13th centuries.1
This could not but apply to the Byzantine lands as well. Byzantium’s close
connection to the crusades goes back to the very beginning. Calls for western
reinforcements by Emperor Alexios i Komnenos were among the triggers for
the First Crusade, while Pope Urban ii clearly envisioned help to the Christians
in the East as one of the main aims of the expedition.2 However, despite ini-
tial intentions and sporadic efforts for cooperation, the relations between the

1 An overview of the development of crusading in Jonathan Riley-Smith, The Crusades: A
History, 2nd ed. (London, 2005); a recent extensive synthesis by Christopher Tyerman, God’s
War: A New History of the Crusades (Cambridge, Mass., 2008).
2 Peter Charanis, “Byzantium, the West and the Origin of the First Crusade,” Byzantion 19
(1949), 17–36; Jonathan Riley-Smith, The First Crusade and the Idea of Crusading (London,
2003), pp. 13–22.