The Causes of War: 1000 CE to 1400 CE: Volume II: 1000 CE to 1400 CE 9781849466455, 9781474202275, 9781782259541

Table of contents :
Contents
I
Introduction
1. The Conversation on Sunday Afternoon
2. Utopia
3. Facts
4. Casus Belli in Practice
5. Volume Two
II
The Eleventh Century
1. Introduction
2. The Struggle for Power in the First Fifty Years in Europe
3. The Muslim World in the First Half of the Eleventh Century
4. The Papacy in the First Half of the Eleventh Century
5. The Papacy in the Second Half of the Eleventh Century
6. The First Crusade
7. China
8. Conclusion
III
The Twelfth Century
1. Introduction
2. Monarchy, Thrones and Territory
3. The Throne of England
4. Wars between the Papacy and Empire
5. Non-Conformist Communities in Europe
6. Wars between Christianity and Islam
7. China
8. Conclusion
IV
The Thirteenth Century
1. Introduction
2. The Church
3. The Fourth Crusade
4. Non-Conforming Communities
5. Christian and Muslim Conflict
6. Frederick II
7. Following the End of the Hohenstaufen Line
8. England
9. The Mongolian Empire
10. The Three-Way Clash in the Middle East
11. Conclusion
V
The Fourteenth Century
1. Introduction
2. The Contest between Empire and Papacy
3. Central and Eastern Europe
4. England and her Neighbours
5. The Wars of Islam
6. The Last Nomadic Conqueror
7. China
8. Conclusion
VI
Conclusion
1. Migratory Forces
2. Monarchy
3. Politics
4. Religion
Index

Citation preview

THE CAUSES OF WAR: 1000 CE TO 1400 CE This is the second volume of a projected five-volume series charting the causes of war from 3000 BCE to the present day, written by a leading international lawyer, and using as its principal materials the documentary history of international law, largely in the form of treaties and the negotiations which led up to them. These volumes seek to show why ­millions of people, over thousands of years, slew each other. In departing from the ­various theories put forward by historians, anthropologists and psychologists, Gillespie offers a ­different taxonomy of the causes of war, focusing on the broader settings of politics, religion, migrations and empire-building. These four contexts were dominant and often overlapping justifications during the first four thousand years of human civilisation, for which written records exist.

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The Causes of War Volume II: 1000 CE to 1400 CE

Alexander Gillespie

OXFORD AND PORTLAND, OREGON 2016

Hart Publishing An imprint of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc Hart Publishing Ltd Kemp House Chawley Park Cumnor Hill Oxford OX2 9PH UK

Bloomsbury Publishing Plc 50 Bedford Square London WC1B 3DP UK

www.hartpub.co.uk www.bloomsbury.com Published in North America (US and Canada) by Hart Publishing c/o International Specialized Book Services 920 NE 58th Avenue, Suite 300 Portland, OR 97213-3786 USA www.isbs.com HART PUBLISHING, the Hart/Stag logo, BLOOMSBURY and the Diana logo are trademarks of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc First published 2016 © Alexander Gillespie Alexander Gillespie has asserted his right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 to be identified as Author of this work. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information storage or retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publishers. While every care has been taken to ensure the accuracy of this work, no responsibility for loss or damage occasioned to any person acting or refraining from action as a result of any statement in it can be accepted by the authors, editors or publishers. All UK Government legislation and other public sector information used in the work is Crown Copyright ©. All House of Lords and House of Commons information used in the work is Parliamentary Copyright ©. This information is reused under the terms of the Open Government Licence v3.0 (http://www.nationalarchives. gov.uk/doc/open-government-licence/version/3) excepted where otherwise stated. All Eur-lex materials used in the work is © European Union, http://eur-lex.europa.eu/, 1998–2015. British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. ISBN: HBK: 978-1-84946-645-5 ePDF: 978-1-78225-954-1 ePub: 978-1-78225-955-8 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Cataloging in Publication Catalog Control Number : 2014397451 Typeset by Compuscript Ltd, Shannon

This book is dedicated to my son, Conor.

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Contents I. Introduction����������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������1 1. The Conversation on Sunday Afternoon�������������������������������������������������������1 2. Utopia������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������1 3. Facts����������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������3 4. Casus Belli in Practice��������������������������������������������������������������������������������������3 5. Volume Two���������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������4 II. The Eleventh Century�������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������5 1. Introduction���������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������5 2. The Struggle for Power in the First Fifty Years in Europe�����������������������������6 A. The Vikings��������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������6 B. The Rus������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������10 C. Germany�����������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������11 3. The Muslim World in the First Half of the Eleventh Century��������������������13 A. Leadership��������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������13 B. The Fatimids�����������������������������������������������������������������������������������������14 4. The Papacy in the First Half of the Eleventh Century�������������������������������16 A. In Theory���������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������16 B. In Practice���������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������17 5. The Papacy in the Second Half of the Eleventh Century���������������������������19 A. Leo IX��������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������19 B. Alexander II������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������20 (i) The War Against Islam in Sicily��������������������������������������������������21 (ii) The War Against Islam in Spain�������������������������������������������������22 (iii) The Norman Conquest of England��������������������������������������������23 (iv) The Challenge to the Emperor����������������������������������������������������25 C. Gregory VII������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������25 (i) Excommunicating the Emperor��������������������������������������������������28 D. Urban II������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������31 (i) The Continuing Excommunication���������������������������������������������31 6. The First Crusade����������������������������������������������������������������������������������������32 A. The Rise of the Seljuks������������������������������������������������������������������������32 B. The Goal of Jerusalem�������������������������������������������������������������������������33 7. China������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������35 A. The Song����������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������35 (i) Philosophy and Practice���������������������������������������������������������������36 (ii) Tibet, Vietnam and Korea ���������������������������������������������������������37 (iii) The Liao and the Xi Xia�������������������������������������������������������������38 8. Conclusion���������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������40

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III. The Twelfth Century�����������������������������������������������������������������������������������������44 1. Introduction������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������44 2. Monarchy, Thrones and Territory��������������������������������������������������������������45 3. The Throne of England�����������������������������������������������������������������������������45 A. Henry I������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������46 B. Stephen and Matilda���������������������������������������������������������������������������48 C. Henry II����������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������49 D. The Orbit of England: Scotland, Ireland and Wales�������������������������51 4. Wars between the Papacy and Empire�������������������������������������������������������54 A. The Concordats of London and Worms��������������������������������������������54 B. Lothair II and Conrad III�������������������������������������������������������������������55 C. Frederick Barbarossa���������������������������������������������������������������������������57 (i) Communes, Veches and Cortes������������������������������������������������������������ 59 (ii) The Breach with Rome��������������������������������������������������������������62 (iii) The Lombard League����������������������������������������������������������������64 D. Heinrich VI�����������������������������������������������������������������������������������������66 E. The Widening Horizon for Conflict in Europe����������������������������������66 5. Non-Conformist Communities in Europe��������������������������������������������������68 6. Wars between Christianity and Islam���������������������������������������������������������70 A. The Christian Territories in the Holy Land���������������������������������������70 B. The Second Crusade��������������������������������������������������������������������������71 C. The Baltic and Spain��������������������������������������������������������������������������72 D. Damascus��������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������74 E. Saladin������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������75 (i) The End of the Fatimids������������������������������������������������������������75 (ii) The Capture of Christian Jerusalem�����������������������������������������76 F. The Third Crusade�����������������������������������������������������������������������������77 7. China����������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������80 A. The Song and the Jin��������������������������������������������������������������������������80 8. Conclusion��������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������82 IV. The Thirteenth Century������������������������������������������������������������������������������������86 1. Introduction������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������86 2. The Church������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������88 A. Pope Innocent III��������������������������������������������������������������������������������88 3. The Fourth Crusade�����������������������������������������������������������������������������������89 A. The Fracturing Relationship���������������������������������������������������������������89 B. Venice and Byzantium������������������������������������������������������������������������90 C. The Sack of Constantinople���������������������������������������������������������������92 4. Non-Conforming Communities�����������������������������������������������������������������94 A. Pagans, Jews and Witches��������������������������������������������������������������������94 B. The Albigensian Crusade�������������������������������������������������������������������95 5. Christian and Muslim Conflict�������������������������������������������������������������������98 A. The Fragmentation of the Ayyubids���������������������������������������������������98

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B. Spain and North Africa������������������������������������������������������������������������99 C. The Fifth Crusade������������������������������������������������������������������������������100 6. Frederick II�������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������101 A. The Civil War Surrounding the Child Frederick�������������������������������101 B. The Battle of Bouvines and the Rise of Frederick�����������������������������102 C. The Challenge of the Papacy and the Sixth Crusade������������������������104 D. War, Peace and War in Italy���������������������������������������������������������������106 7. Following the End of the Hohenstaufen Line��������������������������������������������110 A. Italy�����������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������110 B. Charles of Anjou��������������������������������������������������������������������������������111 C. Thomas Aquinas��������������������������������������������������������������������������������111 D. The Wider Ambitions of Charles of Anjou���������������������������������������112 (i) The Sicilian Vespers and their Aftermath���������������������������������113 E. Germany���������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������115 F. Rudolf von Habsburg�������������������������������������������������������������������������116 (i) The Break from Italy�����������������������������������������������������������������117 (ii) Switzerland Begins to Surface����������������������������������������������������117 G. Albert of Habsburg and Adolf of Nassau������������������������������������������118 8. England������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������119 A. John�����������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������119 (i) The Loss of Normandy�������������������������������������������������������������120 (ii) Scotland, Ireland, Wales, France and Rome������������������������������121 B. The Magna Carta�������������������������������������������������������������������������������123 (i) The First Barons’ War���������������������������������������������������������������125 C. Henry III��������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������126 (i) The Pressure Grows�������������������������������������������������������������������127 (ii) The Right to Topple a Tyrant���������������������������������������������������127 (iii) Simon de Montfort��������������������������������������������������������������������128 (iv) The Second Barons’ War�����������������������������������������������������������130 D. Edward I���������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������132 (i) Parliament����������������������������������������������������������������������������������133 (ii) Wales������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������134 (iii) Scotland�������������������������������������������������������������������������������������135 (iv) France����������������������������������������������������������������������������������������136 (v) The Auld Alliance����������������������������������������������������������������������137 9. The Mongolian Empire�����������������������������������������������������������������������������138 A. Genghis Khan������������������������������������������������������������������������������������138 (i) Formation����������������������������������������������������������������������������������138 (ii) Difference�����������������������������������������������������������������������������������139 (iii) The Xi Xia, the Jin and the Song����������������������������������������������141 (iv) Korea�����������������������������������������������������������������������������������������142 (v) Islam������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������143 (vi) North India��������������������������������������������������������������������������������144 (vii) Eastern Europe��������������������������������������������������������������������������145

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B. Ogedei����������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������146 (i) Korea���������������������������������������������������������������������������������������146 (ii) The Song���������������������������������������������������������������������������������146 (iii) Tibet�����������������������������������������������������������������������������������������147 (iv) Eastern Europe������������������������������������������������������������������������147 C. Guyuk and Mongke��������������������������������������������������������������������������150 D. Kublai Khan and the Yuan Dynasty������������������������������������������������151 (i) The End of the Song���������������������������������������������������������������151 (ii) The New Approach�����������������������������������������������������������������153 (iii) The Further Conquest of Asia������������������������������������������������153 (iv) Japan����������������������������������������������������������������������������������������154 10. The Three-Way Clash in the Middle East�����������������������������������������������155 A. The End of Christian Jerusalem������������������������������������������������������155 B. The Seventh Crusade and the Rise of the Mamluks�����������������������156 C. Halting the Mongol Juggernaut��������������������������������������������������������157 D. The End of the Latin Christian Areas in the Middle East���������������160 11. Conclusion������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������165 V. The Fourteenth Century�����������������������������������������������������������������������������������170 1. Introduction����������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������170 2. The Contest between Empire and Papacy�����������������������������������������������171 A. Pope Boniface VIII���������������������������������������������������������������������������171 B. The End of Albert����������������������������������������������������������������������������174 C. Heinrich VII�������������������������������������������������������������������������������������174 (i) Dante���������������������������������������������������������������������������������������175 D. Louis the Bavarian����������������������������������������������������������������������������177 (i) Popes, Philosophers and Kings������������������������������������������������178 (ii) Clement VI������������������������������������������������������������������������������180 E. Charles IV����������������������������������������������������������������������������������������181 (i) The Golden Bull����������������������������������������������������������������������181 (ii) The Fragmentation of Empire and Church����������������������������182 (iii) The Western Schism����������������������������������������������������������������183 F. Wenceslaus IV����������������������������������������������������������������������������������184 3. Central and Eastern Europe���������������������������������������������������������������������185 A. Negotiated, Elected and Absolute Monarchy and Rising Superpowers�������������������������������������������������������������������185 (i) The Polish-Lithuanian Union��������������������������������������������������185 (ii) Moscow������������������������������������������������������������������������������������186 4. England and her Neighbours�������������������������������������������������������������������187 A. The Last Years of Edward I and Philip IV��������������������������������������187 (i) The Estates General�����������������������������������������������������������������188 (ii) Scotland and Flanders�������������������������������������������������������������188 (iii) The Treaty of Paris������������������������������������������������������������������189 (iv) Scotland and Flanders Again���������������������������������������������������189 (v) The End of the Templars��������������������������������������������������������190

Contents xi

B. Edward II������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������191 (i) Piers Gaveston��������������������������������������������������������������������������191 (ii) Robert the Bruce����������������������������������������������������������������������192 (iii) The Salic Law��������������������������������������������������������������������������195 (iv) Edward II Assumes Absolute Power����������������������������������������195 (v) The End of Edward II�������������������������������������������������������������196 (vi) Isabella and Mortimer�������������������������������������������������������������197 C. Edward III����������������������������������������������������������������������������������������199 (i) Regaining Control of England������������������������������������������������199 (ii) Scotland�����������������������������������������������������������������������������������200 D. The Hundred Years War������������������������������������������������������������������201 (i) The Battle of Crécy�����������������������������������������������������������������202 (ii) John II of France and the Battle of Poiters������������������������������203 (iii) Chaos in France�����������������������������������������������������������������������204 (iv) The Treaty of Bretigny�����������������������������������������������������������������204 (v) The Peace Breaks���������������������������������������������������������������������205 E. Richard II�����������������������������������������������������������������������������������������207 (i) The Peasants’ Revolt����������������������������������������������������������������207 (ii) The Hundred Years War Flares Again������������������������������������210 (iii) The Toppling of the King�������������������������������������������������������213 5. The Wars of Islam�����������������������������������������������������������������������������������216 A. North Africa��������������������������������������������������������������������������������������216 B. The End of Christian Armenia��������������������������������������������������������216 C. The Beginnings of the Ottoman Empire�����������������������������������������217 D. The Entry into Europe���������������������������������������������������������������������219 E. The Loss of Autonomy of Constantinople��������������������������������������220 F. Overunning the Balkans�������������������������������������������������������������������223 6. The Last Nomadic Conqueror�����������������������������������������������������������������224 7. China��������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������227 A. The End of the Yuan������������������������������������������������������������������������227 B. The Rise of the Ming�����������������������������������������������������������������������227 8. Conclusion������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������230 VI. Conclusion�������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������235 1. Migratory Forces��������������������������������������������������������������������������������������235 2. Monarchy�������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������235 3. Politics�������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������239 4. Religion����������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������243 A. Inter-Christian Warfare��������������������������������������������������������������������243 B. Inter-Religious Warfare��������������������������������������������������������������������247 C. The Mongol Dimension�������������������������������������������������������������������249 D. The Post Mongol World: The Ottoman Empire, Timur and the Ming�������������������������������������������������������������������������251 Index���������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������255

xii

I Introduction 1.  The Conversation on Sunday Afternoon

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HE TOPIC OF this book is the causes of war. It is the second volume on the topic, covering the years between 1000 and 1400. The complimentary volumes I have written around this topic deal with the customs and laws of war, covering the methods by which humans have fought and killed each other for the last 5,000 years.1 This book and its accompanying volumes is different: it is about why people fight, not how. My interests in the causes and practices of warfare began with a discussion I had with my mother over 15 years ago, towards the end of the twentieth century, on whether humanity was better or worse than in the past. Simply put, was humanity making progress or not? Whilst I argued in the affirmative, my mother argued in the negative. As with many such lunchtime discussions on Sunday afternoons, trying to find robust benchmarks was (and is) very difficult, if not impossible. Although the conversation on this particular Sunday afternoon moved on to other topics, this question of ‘progress’ caught my attention. It has remained on my mind for the last decade, during which time I have gone from moments of optimism to pessimism. My supposition is that the causes of warfare have changed for the better—that is, progress has occurred, with the reasons we justify killing, becoming more acceptable than in the past. To prove this point requires a great amount of research to show what the causes were and how they have changed. This means that this volume, which covers the years between 1000 and 1400, is a stepping-stone towards my final answer.

2. Utopia

There are many philosophical discussions around the idea of ‘progress’.2 These are often linked to various forms of Utopian thinking.3 This is especially so as regards 1 

Gillespie, A (2011) A History of the Laws of War, Vol 1: Combatants; Vol 2: Civilians and Vol 3: Arms Control (Oxford, Hart Publishing). 2  Doren, V (1969) The Idea of Progress (NYC, Praeger); Hiderbrand, G (ed) The Idea of Progress: A Collection of Readings (Los Angeles, California University Press); Melzer, A (ed) (1995) History and the Idea of Progress (NYC, Cornell University Press). 3  Manuel, F (1979) Utopian Thought in the Western World (NYC, Harvard University Press); Manuel, F (ed) (1969) Utopias and Utopian Thought (NYC, Condor); Buber, M (1949) Paths in Utopia (London, Routledge);

2  Introduction

the question on which I am focusing, as the flipside of any question about the causes of war is the search for enduring peace. I struggle to think how many gallons of ink have been expended in debates on this question, or on suggestions as to the correct path to Utopia, where the difficulties of the past are bypassed and a bright, violence-free future awaits humanity. There is no monopoly on these plans, and libraries are full of variations on themes that run to thousands of miles of shelving, from theology to ideology, cross-referenced to a bewildering collection of historical epochs and philosophical musings. The idea of a ‘Golden Age’, in which there was no warfare, can be found in the writings of, amongst others, the scholars of ancient China and India.4 Such views were mirrored in Greece and Rome: the Roman poet Ovid wrote of a previous time when ‘men kept faith and did what was right … the peoples passed their lives in security and peace, without need for armies’.5 These dreams later flowered into the eschatology and promises of times to come of religions like Christianity and Islam. They later flowed into the Enlightenment, when Jean Jacques Rousseau argued in the eighteenth century that it was demographic growth, private property, the division of class and state coercion that forced warfare upon an otherwise peaceful species.6 In the twentieth century, the cultural anthropologist Margaret Mead famously wrote in 1940 that ‘[w]arfare is only an invention, not a biological necessity’.7 A similar view was later reflected in the constitution of UNESCO, which was drawn up in the immediate aftermath of the Second World War. Specifically, ‘since wars begin in the minds of men, it is in the minds of men that the defences of peace must be constructed’.8 UNESCO subsequently added to this view with its Seville Statement on Violence, issued to celebrate the International Year of Peace in 1986. This suggested that it was ‘scientifically incorrect to say that we have inherited a tendency to make war from our animal ancestors’, or ‘that war or any other violent behavior is genetically programmed in our human nature’. UNESCO affirmed that ‘biology does not condemn humanity to war’, and anathematised the ‘alleged biological findings that have been used … to justify violence and war’. I like this view, especially the idea that humanity can escape its past and what Sigmund Freud saw as an underlying desire for aggression as part of our instinctual endowment.9 I consider this essential, as I am of the belief that humanity has been

Mumford, L (1962) The Story of Utopias (NYC, Viking); Bernini, M (1950) Journey Through Utopia (London, Routledge). 4  Hsiao, K (1979) A History of Chinese Political Thought (New Jersey, Princeton University Press) 299, 308. Bary, T (ed) (1960) Sources of Chinese Tradition, Vol I (NYC, Columbia University Press) 99, 128–30, 237. 5 Ovid, Metamorphoses trans Raeburn, D (2004) (London, Penguin) 1.89–100. Note also Hesiod, The Works and Days trans Most, L (2003) (Boston MA, Loeb) 1.146. 6  Rousseau, JJ The Discourses trans Gourevitch, V (1997) (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press). 7  Mead, M (1940) ‘Warfare in Only an Invention’ 40 Asia 402–05. For contemporary debates about this question, see Livingston-Smith, D (2007) The Most Dangerous Animal: Human Nature and the Origins of War (London, St Martins); Fry, D (2007) Beyond War: The Human Potential for Peace (Oxford, Oxford University Press). 8  Preamble, UNESCO Constitution. 9  Freud, S (1930) Civilisation and its Discontents (London, Penguin) 86.

Casus Belli in Practice 3

constantly beleaguered by warfare. This is certainly the pattern to be found in the period covered by this book, the second volume of the causes for war, as they appeared between the years from 1000 to 1400.

3. Facts

The methodology of this book is somewhat complicated. The skeleton on which it is built comprises treaties. I place great weight on the bilateral and international instruments of each age, as despite all of the difficulties posed by different languages and different ages, treaties and/or agreements reflect in the clearest way possible how different nations see a shared problem and shared solution. As such, at each point, the law, or at least the settlement by which peace has been reached, has been set out as simply as possible. In places where there were no treaties, the bones are taken from the practice of key players of the period, which often became custom. In each epoch I have attempted to read and quote the original sources. These have often been supplemented by the best monographs I can find on each epoch. Within this methodology it is important to keep in mind, when reading historical texts, that there is a high risk that mistakes have occurred, that the original sources were wrong, mistaken or have been taken out of context. I was conscious of this risk in writing this book, as at various points only fragments of history are available. In places I think these fragments resemble dinosaur bones in the desert: a huge amount of material is often missing, and what remains can be assembled to make a variety of bizarre species bearing no relation to what actually existed. My interpretations are the way in which I see the evidence. I have no doubt others will see it ­differently. I ­particularly urge caution in the areas where numbers of those killed have been included. Nevertheless, despite the uncertainties in this area, I have included such figures to provide the roughest of gauges, by which the impacts of decisions ­concerning warfare can be seen.

4.  Casus Belli in Practice

Casus belli is a Latin expression meaning the justification for acts of war. The noun casus means ‘incident’, ‘rupture’ or ‘case’, while belli means ‘of war’. The need for people to have a just cause can be the difference between an act of heroism and an act of murder. For this reason, hundreds, if not thousands, of philosophers and leaders of states listed justifications for why bloodshed was necessary, and why the following loss or acquisition of property was fair. This point about property is an underlying recognition in all of the chapters that follow. That is, the overwhelming majority of all the wars studied in the period covered by this book have the control and/or ownership of resources as their result. No matter which way the causes for violence are cut, the results are nearly always the same—namely, that the control

4  Introduction

and/or ownership of resources (from physical resources through to the ability to draw tax) can change hands, or be defended. This is the practical result of nearly all of the conflicts, ­involving the great diversity of cultures operating within the four centuries documented in this volume.

5. Volume Two

Volume 2 on the Causes of War is different from Volume 1 in the way that it is set out. That is, in the first volume, I divided the causes of war from 3000 bce to 1000 ce into the categories of empire, migratory peoples, politics and religion. In many ways, this worked for the initial period, as, when I looked back on history, although the ideas were of a currency that could be understood in the twenty-first century, most of the regions, empires, actors and countries were not. As the work on the second volume progressed, it became apparent to me that the regions, empires, actors and countries with which I was dealing were very familiar; there was a much greater density of information, and some of the patterns discernible in Volume 1 started to disappear. This was particularly obvious in connection with migratory peoples. Politics remained the same, albeit with a greater division between absolute sovereigns, a third force of nobles and/or aristocracy as counterweights, and the development of constitutional mechanisms to limit power. The real change here was in the development of peasant revolutions. An additional difference was the occurrence of wars over dynastic issues, in which both marriages and debates about mechanisms for patrimony became much more common, unlike in the first volume of this work. Finally, religion remained a constant cause for war, in terms of both fighting other faiths and of inter-faith warfare. The difference was in Asia, where the Mongols, and the Song and Ming dynasties, managed to relegate religious justifications for warfare. Although these causes have remained dominant in both volumes, the way I have displayed them in this volume has changed. In this volume, the same categories of religion, politics, monarchy and migratory peoples are being examined within the chronological order for the years 1000 and 1400. Although the conclusion of this ­volume reverts back to the original form and focus on the causes I identified in the first volume, the method reached to get to this point (chronologically, rather than purely thematically) is different. Nonetheless, the conclusion, that warfare was a constant and driving consideration in all four centuries of this study, is exactly the same as it was for the first volume. Humanity in these years found killing for reasons of religion, politics and/or monarchy, a very easy thing to do.

II The Eleventh Century 1. Introduction

T

HIS CHAPTER WILL show how the causes of war for the first half of the eleventh century in Europe were dominated by monarchs struggling to rule countries they were born in, or the countries of others. There was little territorial integrity to most areas, which allowed marauding opportunists like the Vikings to carve out new territories, whilst others were only held together by shared customs and language. The leaders in these early decades were involved in struggles that were often tied together via dynastic, marital and diplomatic relationships that already stretched the Continent. In some places, power sharing arrangements emerged whereby or promises were made by a king, to obtain support. Although such promises and ­rudimentary bodies of powerful men existed to try to control the power of the king, these were often weak and unformulated. Nonetheless, the seeds of challenges to absolute monarchy emerge from this century. The most significant change to occur in this century in terms of causes for war occurred in the second half, when the Papacy became increasingly powerful, gaining control of its own processes. From here, they would begin to challenge the authority of monarchs, legitimising them and their conquests, or undermining them, if they failed to do as they were told. Within western Europe, this contest for absolute authority between the Papacy and monarchs would last for centuries to come. The eleventh century was also a time of change in the Islamic world. At its farthest point, the forces of Islam were fighting their way into northern India, whilst at its core, the once great Sunni-based Abbasid Caliphate was losing power, both in general and in theological terms. In general terms, the title ‘caliph’ had passed from the supreme authority who used to nominate the sultans, to any sultan who cared to assume a designation once held to be unique. Already in the eleventh century, there were eight Muslim potentates who called themselves caliphs, although the more dominant ones, such as the Seljuks, learnt to upgrade their own status, while keeping the Abbasid Caliphs in their place in Baghdad and, rather than usurping them, using them for legitimation processes. In terms of theological power, the greatest challenge to the Sunni-based Abbasids was the Shia-based Fatimids. It was the overall fragmentation of the Muslim world which allowed Christian forces to advance in Sicily and Spain. In such instances, combinations of both dynastic and political struggles within Islam allowed outside forces to prevail. This was most obvious

6  The Eleventh Century

with the decline of the Fatimids, as largely driven by the rise of the Seljuks. It was this rise and competition for territory in the inter-Muslim world that led to a somewhat incidental clash with the armies of Byzantium that, in turn, led to the emperor of ­Constantinople appealing to the pope for military assistance. From this appeal the process of crusades to the Holy Land were undertaken. Here, the rhetoric of the reoccupation of once Christian lands that were now cruelly oppressed, coupled with promises of ­spiritual redemption for the soldiers, and the political opportunities that conquest of new lands presented, created a dominant cause of war that would roll on for the next three centuries. In practical terms, by 1099, after the Seljuks had fallen victim to their own fratricidal struggles, Latin Christians held Jerusalem. The final aspect that this chapter will show is how the causes of war in the eleventh century in Asia were related to the emergence of the Song. Politically, this dynasty that ruled China for next three hundred years from the end of the tenth century was unique. Their neo-Confucian philosophy, focusing on practical matters, supporting the poor, buttressed by egalitarian and non-hereditary structures of government which were open to all, was revolutionary. Although the emperor was not power-sharing in the political sense, the focus of their administration suggested that the purpose of government was for the benefit of the people, not the other way around. In terms of causes of war, the Song, in divesting themselves of the traditional goals to hold adjoining non-Chinese areas, such as Tibet and Vietnam, saw such areas devolve into regional battle zones as local warlords attempted to climb to the top. In terms of ­external enemies of the Song, the biggest military challenges were the migratory groups of the pagan Liao and the Buddhist Xi Xia. In both instances, rather than war them incessantly, the Song adopted a policy of peace via treaties that provided their enemies with tribute, confident that in the longer term, their philosophies and superior way of life, would defeat the opposition.

2.  The Struggle for Power in the First Fifty Years in Europe

A.  The Vikings At the turn of the eleventh century, the Norse were the superpower of the age on the northern shores of Europe. From Leif Eriksson’s crossing the Atlantic to plant a small colony on what is today Newfoundland, to advancing through what today are England, France, Scotland and Russia, the ‘Men of the North’ were remarkable. At an individual level, this society produced warriors who were highly skilled in violence, strongly desirous of prestige and driven by a lust for adventure and power. At the diplomatic level, they mixed their military advances with dynastic marriages and political alliances throughout Europe. Their leaders emerged to rule via the endorsement of an assembly of leading men, as there was no tradition of hereditary rule, let alone primogeniture whereby the eldest son would get the entire undivided realm, in this part of the world at this point. Endorsement was based on his record of

The Struggle for Power in the First Fifty Years in Europe 7

success in battle, kinship and inheritance, and/or on his personal fitness for the role by such acts as the killing of a rival.1 Some countries, such as what we know as modern day France, had large sections removed from them by the Norse, such as with Normandy, which became strong and independent. This independence was easy to achieve as France was much more of a confederation of loosely-knitted feudal principalities, than any coherent sovereign nation in which inter-communal violence was common. The most important of the regional leaders were the northern French princes, the Counts of Flanders, Toulouse, Anjou, Blois and Champagne. The Duke of Burgundy, holding a powerful piece of territory in the eastern middle part of France, usually paid scant attention to the king, nor did the leaders of Brittany in north-west France. The lords of the south paid even less attention to the king, and rarely troubled to attend his court. Poitou and Aquitaine formed what was almost an independent principality. In this world, the loose bonds of feudal obligations, marriages and diplomacy would often be trumped to fight neighbours of even family members, as Henry I did, contesting his own father, Robert II, for the throne of France.2 Although France was too big to be consumed, in total, by the Vikings, England was not. The digestion began after the English king, Aethelred II, became caught in an unhealthy relationship of continually buying peace with tribute from his enemies. Peace proved to always be temporary. This process began in the eleventh century in 1002, when Aethelred II handed over 24,000 pounds of silver (Danegeld) as the price to end Danish raids into England. However, the following year, a much larger invasion followed Aethelred’s decision to massacre the Danish settlers who had established themselves on English soil without his permission. In 1003, Exeter, Wilton and Salisbury were destroyed by the vengeful Vikings, as were east Kent, Hampshire and Berkshire in 1004. The killing stopped in 1007, for the price of 30,000 pounds of ­silver. War broke out again in 1009, and only ended in 1012, with many of the Danes returning home, for the price of 48,000 pounds of silver.3 In the year 1013, Sweyn Forkbeard, the King of Denmark, decided that, rather than raiding England again and extracting more tribute, he would take Aethelred’s crown. This was easy to achieve, with Aethelred fleeing to the safety of the home province of his second wife, Emma of Normandy. To help secure loyalty to the new dynasty

1  Bagge

S (2004). ‘The Transformation of Europe: The Role of Scandinavia’ Medieval Encounters 10(3): 131–65; Sawyer, P (1997) Medieval Scandinavia (London, Minnesota University Press) 57–61, 78–84, 89; Sonne, L (2013) ‘Kings, Chieftains and Public Cult in Pre-Christian Scandinavia’ Early Medieval Europe 22(1): 53–68; Carlyle, AJ (1910) A History of Medieval Political Theory in the West, Vol III (London, Blackwood) 20–25, 53–55. 2  Head, T (2007) ‘Peace and Power in France Around the Year 1000’ Essays in Medieval Studies 23 (1): 1–17; Defries D (2013) ‘The Emergence of the Territorial Principality of Flanders’ History Compass 11 (8): 619–631; Fawtier, R (1974) The Capetian Kings of France (London, Macmillan) 60–61, 66–67, 96, 119. 3  Neidorf, L (2012) ‘Aethelred and the Politics of the Battle of Maldon’ Journal of English and German Philology 111: 451–473; Stenton, F (1985) Anglo-Saxon England (Oxford, Clarendon Press) 379–83, 386; Tanner, J (ed) (1958) The Cambridge Medieval History: Decline of Empire and Papacy, Vol VII (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press) 530–34; Grant, R (2011) 1001 Battles (London, Penguin) 128.

8  The Eleventh Century

and add legitimacy to his quest, Sweyn organised the marriage of Aelfgifu of Northampton, a local noblewoman, to his son Cnut. When Sweyn died the following year, Aethelred returned to England from Normandy after a deputation of leading E ­ nglish noblemen requested his return. Aethelred, with his son Edmund Ironside beside him, made a commitment, in the first recorded pact between an English king and the c­ itizens of that country, under which he was allowed to return from exile and retake the throne on condition that, ‘he would govern them more justly than he did before’.4,5 In so doing, the legitimacy of the conflict changed from being just between a competition fighting for a throne, as opposed to one of the contenders doing it, linked to greater promises of justice for the locals as well. As the foundations for constitutional rule were being laid down in England, Ireland was fighting for its survival as an independent land. Here, despite intermarriage with the local rulers, the Norse settlements of the tenth century (of Dublin and Wexford) had not acquired the same gains as their Norse counterparts in other parts of Europe. Accordingly, when the chance arose for Sitric Silkenbeard of Dublin to challenge the high-king of Ireland, Brian Boru, the styled ‘Emperor of the Irish’6 who was the overall ruler of over half a dozen other petty-kings, the Norse leader, took it. In doing so, Silkenbeard linked with local Irish petty-kings who opposed Boru, and called for help from other Scandinavian forces in the region. However, only Vikings from Orkney and the Isle of Man answered the call. The cumulative result was that over 5,000 men met on the battlefield of Clontarf in 1014. When the battle was done, although Brian Boru had been killed, his forces had defeated the enemy and denied the further wave of Norse invaders their goal of total conquest. However, the opposition to Boru, in turn, had created a situation in which the hopes of one man becoming high-king over all of the other contenders in Ireland became increasingly tenuous. Accordingly, after the successor to Boru died in 1022, until the Norman take-over of 1171, and reflecting the divided nature of Ireland at the period, the high-king position had to be held alongside ‘kings with opposition’.7 In the summer of 1015, Cnut—the son of Sweyn Forkbeard, and a man who went on to become perhaps the greatest monarch of the age as ultimately the King of Denmark, Norway and parts of Sweden, and with dynastic links and diplomatic relationships that stretched throughout Europe, landed on the shores of England, not Ireland. Undoubtedly, despite being aware of the situation in Ireland and how easy it would have been to claim total control of that now weak country, opted instead to follow his claims in England. With a force of perhaps 10,000 men drawn from all over

4  This quote is from the Anglo Saxon Chronicle of 1014, and is reprinted in Ambler, S (2015) ‘The Making of Magna Carta’ Historian 125: 6–11; MacKinnon, J (1906) A History of Modern Liberty (London, Longmans) I: 355–62; Crouch, D (2002) The Normans: The History of a Dynasty (London, Hambledon) 33–35. 5 Bolton, T (2007) ‘Aelfgifu of Northampton: Cnut’s the Great’s Other Woman’ Nottingham Medieval Studies 247–69. 6 As noted in the records of Brian’s visit to the religious shrine of Armagh in 1005. It is noted in McGettigan, D (2013) The Battle of Contarf (Pamplona, Four Courts) 64. 7  Ibid, 7–10, 14–16, 24, 32–37, 49–55, 78, 89–95.

The Struggle for Power in the First Fifty Years in Europe 9

­ candinavia, Cnut decided to reclaim what his father had earlier obtained. For the next S 18 months he and his men fought to defeat the forces of Edmund Ironside, the son of Aethelred by his first wife Aelfgifu, who had by now been elected King by the Witan (council) following the death of Aethelred II in April 1016. At the battle of Ashingdon, in October 1016, Cnut defeated Edmund, but in recognition of the latter’s remaining influence, negotiated a peace with his opponent. The peace suggested that England would be divided, with all of England north of the Thames (including London) going to Cnut, while the remaining lands in the south were to go to Edmund. However, Edmund died within weeks of the agreement, after which all of those in Edmund’s realm accepted Cnut as their King, particularly since Cnut had decided to marry (as his second wife) Emma of Normandy, the widow of Aethelred. Thereafter, Cnut ‘completely established peace and friendship between the Danes and the English, and put an end to all the former strife’.8 Cnut brought peace and stability by paying off most of the Norse soldiers and sending them home, executing suspect Anglo-Saxon nobles, promoting others he could trust such as Godwin of Wessex (who married into the Danish nobility), and appointing a number of Scandinavian nobles to areas of potential trouble in England. He also united the Norse and Englishmen under the bonds of national assemblies and shared laws. To the north of England, Cnut led an expedition to Scotland where he received the submission of three Kings in the region, including names recorded as Malcolm and Macbeth. With the northern territories secure, Cnut then proceeded to lead expeditions, now supplemented with Anglo-Saxon forces from England, against the kings of Norway and Sweden, both who tried to resist his power.9 Cnut died in 1035, having created a mighty empire that fragmented upon his death due to dynastic disputes. Cnut’s son by Emma of Normandy, Harthacnut, was King of Denmark, and was in Denmark at the time of his father’s death. However, Harold Harefoot, Cnut’s son by Aelfgifu of Northampton, was in England and was elected to the throne in 1037. In 1040 Harthacnut succeeded his half-brother, arrived in England with a large Danish fleet of 94 vessels (each with up to 80 men on board) that had to be paid off, to return home, once Harthacnut was comfortably on the throne of England.10 The tenure of Harthacnut as King of England was short as he died two years after taking power. Upon hearing of the death, Edward, (later Edward the Confessor) the son of Aethelred and Emma of Normandy saw an opportunity to take control of England. Edward, who had earlier fled to Normandy after Cnut’s victories decided 8 

‘The Laws of Cnut’ reprinted in Baker, D (ed) (1966) The Early Middle Ages (London, Hutchinson) 67. Hobson, J (2014) ‘National-Ethnic Narratives in Eleventh Century Literary Representations of Cnut’ Anglo-Saxon England 43: 267–95; Bolton, T (2009) The Empire of Cnut the Great and the Consolidation of Power in Northern Europe and in the Early Eleventh Century (Boston, Brill) 3–17, 45–57, 69–88; Hudson, B (1992) ‘Cnut and the Scottish Kings’ The English Historical Review 107 (423): 350–60; Tanner, J (ed) (1957) The Cambridge Medieval History: The Victory of the Papacy, Vol VI (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press) 378–80; Stenton, F (1985) Anglo-Saxon England (Oxford, Clarendon Press) 381–93, 403–10. 10  Rodger, N (1995) ‘Cnut’s Geld and the Size of Danish Ships’ The English Historical Review 110(436): 392–403; Stenton, F (1985) Anglo-Saxon England (Oxford, Clarendon Press) 423–30. 9 

10  The Eleventh Century

to return after receiving encouragement from, amongst others, his mother, the most powerful noble of the time, Godwin of Wessex, and the people of London. Edward took power with relative ease, given how much blood had been spilt obtaining the throne in the earlier decades. In terms of regional politics, Edward was lucky to dodge a challenge from Norse claimants who were distracted by their own battles. In terms of domestic politics, his promises to uphold the laws of Cnut and his sons (thus implying that the law was above the king, not vice versa) seemed to have allowed him to settle relatively peacefully in England. At the same time, Godwin pursued military o­ bjectives on behalf of the king. In Wales, Gruffydd ap Llywelyn accepted Edward as his superior and ceded significant amounts of territory to the English king.11 In the north, Macbeth, now the sole, ‘King of the Scots’, albeit with a ­powerful assembly of leading and influential aristocrats behind him, took in exiles fleeing Edward’s armies and ventured to attack Durham in 1054. This was a disaster for the Scots, who were heavily defeated by Edward’s forces. Macbeth was killed three years later at the Battle of Lumphanan by Malcolm Canmore (soon to become Malcolm III) after he was captured and beheaded. It was from this killing that the House of Dunkeld arose to rule Scotland until the end of the thirteenth century, albeit often at war with itself. Although the Macbeth that most future generations would become aware of, as the play written by Shakespeare, had little resemblance to the real Macbeth who was killed at Lumphanan, the theme on obsession and risks, and of taking and pursuing power, was correct.12

B.  The Rus A similar pattern of powerful men seeking to obtain ultimate power within a k­ ingdom, buttressed by diplomatic relations, and then seeking to expand its boundaries, whilst also utilising some form of engagement with powerful local communities was in what became Russia, which at this point was known as Rus. This was the name of the country around Kiev, which reached from the Baltic Sea in the north to the Black Sea in the south. This emerged as a distinct entity after Vladimir the Great accepted ­Orthodox Christianity from the Greeks in the year 988, after rejecting the options of Islam, ­Judaism and Latin Catholicism. This Christian, but Orthodox, choice would sharply distinguish it from the rest of Europe, as this option orientated his emerging realm into the orbit of Constantinople, as opposed to Rome.

11  Maddicott, J (2004) ‘Edward the Confessor’s Return to England in in 1041’ The English Historical Review 119(482): 650–66; Greenberg, J (1989) ‘The Confessors’ Laws and the Radical Face of the Ancient Constitution’ The English Historical Review 104 (412): 611–37; Campbell, M (1978) ‘The Rise of an ­Anglo-Saxon Kingmaker: Earl Godwin of Wessex’ Canadian Journal of History 13(1): 17–33. 12  Bristol, M (2011) ‘Macbeth the Philosopher: Rethinking Context’ New Literary History 42 (4): 641–60; Nelson, H (2007) ‘Macbeth, the Jacobean Scot and the Politics of Union’ Studies in English Literature 47 (2): 379–401; Venning, T (2013), The Kings and Queens of Scotland (Stroud, Amberley Publishing) 48–76.

The Struggle for Power in the First Fifty Years in Europe 11

Politically, Vladimir, who had earlier found sanctuary in Sweden to escape his brother, took wives in succession from noble families and/or royalty in Constantinople (who was also a grand-daughter of Otto the Great), and Scandinavia, to bolster his legitimacy and allies. It was these allies that helped him achieve his throne in Kiev, after toppling his brother. He thanked the people of Novgorod (above modern day Lithuania and buttressing Finland) for supporting him, granting them a substantial degree of autonomy, as manifested in the veche, meaning ‘council’ or ‘talk’, which would form the nucleus of their civic identity. Upon his death, the realm fell into chaos as his offspring went to war against one another, enlisting help and marriage alliances with ruling families in, inter alia, Sweden and Poland. These alliances and their respective contenders for total power over the Rus, saw Kiev and Novgorod split apart and then reunite when one group gained the upper hand.13

C. Germany A final, and slightly different, example of warfare being related to kings and their rise, consolidation and expansion of power in the first fifty years of the eleventh century involves the region today known as Germany, which was made up of the five ancient nations of Saxony, Franconia, Swabia, Lorraine and Bavaria, with Austria later emerging from the Ostarrichi (‘eastern realm’) duchy in the Danube valley. These six regions were an unstable amalgam of more than 200 areas controlled by local rulers or nobles of some power, all of which grew larger or smaller as dynasties evolved and/or died, tied together by complex bonds of homage and feudalism, overlapping with lands, which slipped into, and out of, the grasp of the king of Germany. With each grasp or evasion, conflict would often follow.14 Conflict would also spark when kings obtained power in Germany by force, as opposed to established pattern. This approach was clear in the year 1002 when ­Heinrich II, the last of the Ottonian-Saxon dynasty, bludgeoned his way to power. Heinrich, who was married to a seventh-generation descendant of the Emperor ­Charlemagne, took the throne of Germany by force after a disputed succession, in which he had to see off three other contenders before taking up the royal insignia

13  Kaiser, D (ed) (1994) Reinterpreting Russian History (Oxford, Oxford University Press) 22–24, 63–66; Luttwak, E (2009) The Grand Strategy of the Byzantine Empire (London, Harvard University Press) 219; Brooke, C (1987) Europe in the Central Middle Ages (London, Longman) 47; Moss, W (2005) A History of Russia, Vol I (London, Anthem) 31–33; Vernadsky, G (ed) (1972) A Sourcebook for Russian History, Vol I (London, Yale University Press) 61. 14  Leyser, K (1968) ‘The German Aristocracy from the Ninth to the Early Twelfth Century: A Historical and Cultural Sketch’ Past and Present 41: 25–53; Johnson, L (1996) Central Europe: Enemies, Neighbours, Friends (Oxford, Oxford University Press) 32–33; Carlyle, AJ (1910) A History of Medieval Political Theory in the West (London, Blackwood) Vol III, 170–80 and Vol V, 142–48; Brooke, C (1987) Europe in the Central Middle Ages (London, Longman) 228.

12  The Eleventh Century

from his dead cousin, the Duke of Swabia. This was a radical act, as in Germany the tradition had been particularly clear since 919, when the dukes elected the first king of the Germans, Heinrich the Fowler, during which the king would promise to be the guardian and keeper of the Church and its servants. In reply, representatives of the clergy and the people, as represented by the princes and nobility, would promise good faith towards the king.15 Heinrich II avoided this process, when it was clear he was not the favourite of the dukes, securing his crown by getting individual ecclesiastical and temporal authorities to swear allegiance to him, and then battling those who disagreed, or enticing them to join him by offering greater opportunities. When Heinrich II died without an heir, the German dukes reclaimed their political processes for creating the most powerful man in the land, and founded the Salian dynasty of emperors, when Conrad II of Franconia, was elected King of Germany. Conrad II would go on to collect the crowns of Burgundy, Italy and Roman Emperor, as most of those who would follow him, such as his son Heinrich III, would do also, with the difference being that Heinrich would begin his military campaigns involving the subjection of Bohemia, whilst at the end of his life his last military campaign had as its aim the subjection of Bavaria.16 To the east of Germany sat Hungary and Poland, of which the threat of war was always close. The three German kings of the first half of the eleventh century, Heinrich II, Conrad II and Heinrich III found relations with an independent Hungary, initially, good as their new King Stephen made strong progress in solidifying and pacifying his pagan country and establishing the Arpad dynasty. However, Conrad II had to accept the growing independence of Hungary and cede certain border territories to Hungary in 1030, after finding himself unable to secure them militarily. The overall threat to the German areas disappeared in the next generation, as the Arpad dynasty dissolved into conflicts between the grandchildren and wider family of who should rule.17 Poland, which had been made an independent kingdom by the pope in the year 1000, found conflict with its neighbours as the norm, not the exception.18 Peace was only made with Germany in 1025 when Heinrich II reached a treaty with ­Boleslaw the Mighty, in which Heinrich agreed to support Boleslaw on the Polish throne and hand over Lusatia and Meissen, whilst Heinrich obtained Bohemia and a loyal vassal in exchange. However, the son of Boleslaw, Mieszko II, who was married to the grand-daughter of Otto the Great, was able to turn Poland into an imperial fief, within a larger feudal hierarchy, as the price for peace. Following suit, Casimir I, the son of Mieszko II, made it his mission to expand the territory under his control. He

15 

Fried, J (2015) The Middle Ages (London, Harvard University Press) 101–03. C (1987). Europe in the Central Middle Ages (London, Longview) 202–05; Carlyle, AJ (1910) A History of Medieval Political Theory in the West, Vol V (London, Blackwood) 86; Fawtier, R (1974) The Capetian Kings of France (London, Macmillan) 32–38; Tanner, J (ed) (1957) The Cambridge Medieval History: Contest of Empire and Papacy, Vol V (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press) 170–75. 17  Brooke, C (1987) Europe in the Central Middle Ages (London, Longman) 59. 18  See page 16. 16  Brooke,

The Muslim World in the First Half of the Eleventh Century 13

achieved this in 1041 when the attempted invasion by Heinrich III failed and resulted in the Treaty of Regensburg in 1042, in which all claims over Polish lands, except Silesia, were renounced. Heinrich III may have insisted that Casimir did not crown himself, in return for keeping order and defending this part of his realm of which he believed Poland was part. Although Casimir did not pursue this matter, and when the time was right, he attacked Pomerania (which like much of the region was in a process of colonisation from pagans) after which he attached Gdansk to Poland and then reclaimed Silesia. In 1054, the emperor ruled that Silesia could remain in Poland but had to pay a yearly tribute of 117 kilograms of silver, and 7 kilograms of gold.19

3.  The Muslim World in the First Half of the Eleventh Century

A. Leadership In the first half of the eleventh century, much of the Muslim world had settled and ceased to expand its territories. The exception to this was with the Sunni based Ghaznavids who went on to establish an empire that covered large parts of Iran, much of Transoxiana (a part of Central Asia that includes all or parts of modern-day U ­ zbekistan, Tajikistan, Kazakhstan, Afghanistan) and the north of India. They attacked lax Sunni communitie and Shia communities alike, before turning their attention to the Hindu communitie of north-west India which were repeatedly attacked with a strong hatred, as these were people who did not deserve any form of respect, unlike Jewish or ­Christian communities, who shared a common history with Islam. The climax of these campaigns in northern India was the destruction of the famous temple of Shiva in Gujarat in 1025 and the occupation of the Punjab.20 Elsewhere in the Muslim world, expansion had largely stopped and communities were becoming more focused upon similar problems that also came to transfix western European communities, namely, how to reconcile competing religious and political authorities, and the overall unity of their religious community. Temporal power came to be held by sultans (coming from the abstract noun for ‘strength’, ‘authority’ or ‘rulership’, meaning ‘all powerful’); emirs (commander, general or prince, or someone from an aristocratic or noble line); atabegs (hereditary rulers, typically a governor of a province or a nation, who was subordinate to a sultan) and shahs (the title for

19  Davies, N (2005) God’s Playground Vol I: A History of Poland (Oxford, Oxford University Press) 52–53, 60–63, 68; Sawicki, Z (2014) ‘Survival at the Frontier of Holy War: Political Expansion, Crusading and North Poland’ European Journal of Archaeology 7 (4): 1–30; Hussey, J (ed) (1966) The Cambridge Medieval History: The Byzantine Empire Vol IV (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press) 212–16. 20  Ernst, C (2011) ‘The Limits of Universalism in Islamic Thought: The Case of Indian Religions’ The Muslim World 101 (1): 1–19; Bosworth, C (1964) The Ghaznavis: Their Empire in Afghanistan and Eastern Iran (Edinburgh UP, Edinburgh). 35–55, 78–84; Basham, A (ed) (1958) Sources of Indian Tradition, Vol I (NYC, Columbia University Press) 370–75; Kulke, H (1996) A History of India (London, Routledge) 160–65.

14  The Eleventh Century

an emperor or king with Persian lineage, thus encompassing Muslim leaders in the areas of Iran, Afghanistan and/or northern India). All of these rulers were held to belong to a special class of humanity, who came to claim a dazzling array of unlimited worldly and supernatural powers, all of which were gifted by God. Both Sunni and Shia agreed that these rulers had absolute power over the temporal communities they commanded. Dissent or attempted constitutional types of restraint, or political pathways that involved shared and bridled power, were never to be encouraged, even if the ruler was immoral or wrongful. The repeated fear was that such steps could lead to civil wars, and the risk was greater than the difficulties of living with bad rulers. Passive disobedience at the individual level was the most radical option. The way that regime change was explained when it did occur was that wrongful or tyrannical rulers would be overthrown by acts of God, typically through the actions of an external powerful man, such as a foreign general or tribal chief with many followers, who would lead a revolt and usurp power, and thereby rescue the Islamic community.21 In theory, the counterweight to these temporal rulers was a caliph or an imam. These men were/are meant to be infallible and sinless leaders who would assist the temporal rulers. Usually, these were separate people to those who held temporal power, although on occasion, some leaders claimed and tried to unify the theological and temporal powers into one man. Imams (individuals who can lead on theological matters) and caliphs (individuals who govern caliphates, as in areas governed by Islamic law) were believed to be the direct representatives of God on Earth. They were supported by a range of other religious authorities, ranging from mullahs to ayatollahs (learned authorities). For the Shia, as the imam is meant to mark the end of time, they tended to avoid recognising one, leaving the supreme theological questions to ayatollahs. For the Shia, given that only religious leaders that were chosen from Muhammad’s direct ­descendants, could be infallible, all of the non-lineage-based leaders of the Sunni community were flawed. In practice, by the eleventh century, the caliph in Baghdad representing the Sunni based Abbasid Caliphate was rapidly decreasing in importance with at least eight Muslim potentates calling themselves caliphs, attempting to combine both theological and political power in a single leader.22

B.  The Fatimids A particularly great challenge, in addition to the proliferation of Sunni communities at this point of history, was the rise of the Shia based Fatimid dynasty. Emerging out

21  Black, A (2011) The History of Islamic Political Thought (Edinburgh, Edinburgh University Press) 105–08; Crone, P (2004) God’s Rule: Government and Islam (NYC, Columbia University Press) 153–63, 191–92, 229–31, 235–39, 275–76, 281, 378. 22  Hodgson, M (1974) The Venture of Islam, Vol II (Chicago, Ill, Chicago University Press) 39–40, 279–80, and Vol III, 25–29; Bozeman, A (1994) Politics and Culture in International History (NYC, Transaction) 383.

The Muslim World in the First Half of the Eleventh Century 15

of what is today Tunisia, Ubayd Allah al Mahdi Billah claimed the title of Caliph in 909, after declaring himself to be the Madhi (the redeemer of Islam, to rule the world and rid it of evil in the last few years before the Day of Judgement) and the inheritor of a (previously hidden) lineage based on Ali’s wife Fatima, hence the name ‘Fatimids’. From Tunisia they spread north into Muslim occupied Sicily and east into Egypt. In 969, to celebrate their victories, they established a new capital, Cairo, after toppling the Governor of Egypt as installed by the Abbasid Caliph.23 The initial actions of the Fatimids in the Holy Land were brutal. In the first decade of the eleventh century, the sixth Caliph, Al-Hakim, began to persecute Sunni Muslims, as well as Christians and Jewish people. Of the latter, if they stayed in Jerusalem they had to wear black hats or bells, whilst Christians had to carry heavy wooden crosses suspended from their necks. He also destroyed the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in 1009, which had been built at the place where Christ was believed to have died. He further ordered the destruction of the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem, but local Muslims refused to carry out his orders.24 Although these stories caused great concern in the West, and Pope Sergious IV around the year 1010 urged that the Muslims be overthrown and Jerusalem returned to Christian hands, no action was taken as, at this point in time, it was impossible to create any of the conditions necessary for the type of action that became the First Crusade at the end of the century. As it turned out, European intervention was unnecessary as, f­ollowing the mysterious death of Al-Hakim, successive caliphs, Ali az Zahir and then Al-Mustansir, rebuilt relationships with the non-Muslim communities within their realm, issuing decrees to ‘protect them and care’ for the Jewish and Christian ­communities, ‘and to keep harm and oppression from them’.25 The Fatimids also built relationships with the Byzantine Empire, agreeing treaties in 1027 and 1037. These treaties, following intermittent conflict, allowed for the ­rebuilding of the Holy Sepulchre and the placement of a Patriarch in Jerusalem, and comparable rights, but with a monopoly on preaching to Islamic members, for the Fatimids in Constantinople, of which variations would exist for centuries to come.26

23 

Crone, P (2004) God’s Rule: Government and Islam (NYC, Columbia University Press) 203–04. A (2011) The History of Islamic Political Thought (Edinburgh, Edinburgh University Press) 147, 161–63, 223–26. 25  Decree by Caliph al-Zahir, 1024, ‘Concerning the Karaite and Rabbinate Jews’, reprinted in Stern, G (ed) (1964) Fatimid Decrees (NYC, Baker) 27–28; Finucane, R (2004) Soldiers of the Faith (London, Phoenix) 153–55, 164–65; Gibbon, E (1926 edn) The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, Vol VI (London, Methuen) 251–52, 274–78. 26 Anderson D (2009) ‘Islamic Spaces and Diplomacy in Constantinople’ Medieval Encounters 15: 86–113; Lewis, B (ed) (1987) Islam: From the Prophet to the Capture of Constantinople, Vol I (Oxford, Oxford University Press) 46, 57, 60–64; Luttwak, E (2009) The Grand Strategy of the Byzantine Empire (London, Harvard University Press) 162–63, 190–95, 225–29; Norwich, J (1992) Byzantium: The Apogee (NYC, Knopf) 222–26, 340–45; Hussey, J (ed) (1966) The Cambridge Medieval History: The Byzantine Empire, Vol IV(1) (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press) 185–89, 517–18, 724. 24  Black,

16  The Eleventh Century 4.  The Papacy in the First Half of the Eleventh Century

A.  In Theory In the eleventh century, the papacy was the most powerful organisation within Europe, but it took five decades to evolve to this position. From the pope down, thousands, perhaps hundreds of thousands, of men and women throughout Europe, of different degrees of ordination and under various ecclesiastical regimes, were separated from the rest of the western world by their membership of it. This gave them power, money, privileges and immunities in multiple aspects of civil life. In return for their benefits, they provided support for the monarch. At the national level, when questions of war did not involve the papacy, the link was strong between royal propaganda and the hosting of religious ceremonies performed within a realm, including prayers, processions, masses, litanies, psalms, vigils, fasts and even bell-ringing, all used to support the king and justify the legitimacy of a war. Due to the need to ensure the strong support of the Church on such matters of national importance, all kings took a great interest in which men were appointed to positions of power within the Church, and often, senior religious responsibilities were given to secular figures of authority.27 When the questions at issue did involve the papacy, a very different set of considerations were at play. The foremost tool that the pope possessed was his ability to publically legitimise the right of an individual to hold power. For example, around the year 1000, the pope awarded two crowns, for Poland and Hungary, in which royal authority was legitimised by Rome. In return, both kings ‘donated’ their countries to the pope, along with the promise that they would ‘offer obedience and reverence to [the pope] and [his] successors’.28 Once promised, the kingdom would be returned to the king, who had the right to govern. With such support, the pope could also help direct missions into accompanying pagan areas, thus helping spread both Christianity and the temporal power of the new kings. The pope could also try to interject when conflicts over these areas, such as with Poland, overlapped with imperial goals of the German king and Roman emperor, although in the first five decades, this was rarely the case. Alternately, a pope could intervene in any kingdom’s affairs, ‘by virtue of sin’ (ratione peccati).29 The other weapons of the Church were interdict, anathema and excommunication. These were used to force individuals and/or authorities, all the way up to the 27 

Aberth, J (2001) From the Brink of the Apocalypse (London, Routledge) 75–80. ‘Letter from 1000 of Pope Sylvester to Stephen’, as reprinted in Thatcher, O (ed) (1905) A Sourcebook for Medieval History (NYC, Scribner) 118–20. For Poland, see Davies, N (2005) God’s Playground, Vol I: A History of Poland (Oxford, Oxford University Press) 37. 29  Fried, J (2015) The Middle Ages (London, Harvard University Press) 320–25; Christiansen, E (1997) The Northern Crusades (London, Penguin) 66–71, 100–05, 193, 194–97; Rosenwein, B (ed) (2006) Reading the Middle Ages: Sources from Europe, Byzantium and the Islamic World (Ontario, Broadview) 342; and the 1106 ‘Charter from the Bishop of Hamburg to Colonists’, as reprinted in Thatcher, O (ed) (1905) A Sourcebook for Medieval History (NYC, Scribner) 572; Poole, A (1954) From Domesday Book to Magna Carta (Oxford, Oxford University Press) 271. 28 See

The Papacy in the First Half of Eleventh Century 17

emperor, to act in a desired manner. The essence of the idea of all three of the tools, as found in the Gospels,30 was that of avoidance—whereby the targeted person, or those who associated with him—was excluded from the Christian community. In an age when the Church and its leaders were believed to have a monopoly on the keys to the Kingdom of Heaven, the threat of eternal damnation made these very powerful tools at all levels of society. Interdicts allowed churches to be closed, and as a result, everything from baptisms through to absolution for the dying, and even burials, could be stopped. Anathema, as used in the Old Testament, was linked to religious wars and the destruction of the enemy. In the New Testament, it was used more as a curse and for the forced expulsion of someone from the Christian community. The word ‘anathema’ often became linked to excommunication, but with the addition of expulsion. Excommunication was also a very forceful tool. This could be applied to any person within a kingdom, including the king. To be excommunicated meant that no one was to pray with, speak to, or eat with the targeted person, who was to be shunned and avoided. Those who did not obey would incur the same sentence. In theory, excommunication made any relations between the excommunicated and anyone else, almost impossible.31 Whilst interdicts and excommunications were excellent weapons against established leaders who followed the same faith but challenged the Church for power, the label of ‘heretic’ was the best weapon against those who tried to bring down the Church by denying its theological truth. Heresy, as defined by the English theologian Robert Grosseteste at the beginning of the thirteenth century as ‘an opinion chosen by human sense, contrary to Holy Scripture, openly taught, pertinaciously defended’.32 Drawing on the traditions of the Gospel, the punishment for heresy was death by fire for the condemned33 and/or the burning of their written work.34 In this part of the eleventh century, whilst Rome and Constantinople squabbled over theological matters, neither declared the other heretics. However, Bogomils—people who disputed the authority of Rome, believed that the Earth was created by the bad devil (not the good God) and called for a return to early Christianity, were classified as heretics. Anywhere these people were captured in Europe, they were burnt.35

B.  In Practice Despite these vast powers, for the first half of the eleventh century, the Church in Rome was not strong and/or willing to use force to achieve its objectives. The exception to 30 

‘A man that is a heretic, after the first and second admonition, avoid’, Titus, III: V.10. See Scott, J (ed) (1944) Selections from Three Works of Francisco Suarez, Vol II (Oxford, Clarendon Press) 685. 32  Grosseteste, as noted in Tanner, J (ed) (1957) The Cambridge Medieval History: Victory of the Papacy, Vol VI (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press) 715. 33  John 15:6: ‘[I]f a man not abide in me, he is cast forth as a branch, and is withered: and men gather them, and cast them into the fire, and they are burned’. 34  See Acts 19:19: ‘And many of those who practiced magic brought their books together and began burning them … so the word of the Lord was growing mightily and prevailing’. 35  Janko, L (1929) ‘The Bogomils and Bogomilism’. The Slavonic and East European Review 8 (23): 269–83. 31 

18  The Eleventh Century

this was with Pope Benedict VIII, who formed an alliance with Pisa and Genoa, and defeated Arab invaders off the coast of northern Italy, in a sea battle in 1016, in which he himself took part. He was later at the forefront of the liberation of Sardinia when he seized the opportunity that Norman pilgrims offered in southern Italy, getting them to help defend areas threatened by Muslims and/or leading revolts against overlords from the Byzantine Empire. Although his achievements were modest, Heinrich II was outraged by these actions, as he believed that since he was King of Germany, Italy, and Emperor of Rome, it was for him to deal with such matters, not Pope Benedict, who had overstepped him authority into the temporal realm.36 As it was, the Church in Rome was not a threat to the emperor, sinking into a period of corruption and nepotism. Examples in this period include the papal seat being given to candidates as young as 12 and/or sold to the highest bidder, such as occurred with Popes Benedict IX and Gregory VI. In Rome the situation was doubly complicated, as its Senate, which had a full appreciation of its own historical importance, repeatedly manipulated the election and the work of popes and/or antipopes. In some instances, such as with Pope Benedict IX, the Senate had the incumbent chased from the city.37 The king of Germany Heinrich III sought to end the chaos in Rome by overseeing the deposition of Pope Gregory VI by a specially formed synod, for the crime of simony which involved selling pardons, benefices and other ecclesiastical privileges. Heinrich then went on to impose the next four popes in office. The first pope Heinrich installed in 1046 was Clement II. In turn, Clement invested Heinrich with the rank of patrician, which secured his rights, known as regalia. These were the rights to govern and of investiture to appoint people of power within the realm. The regalia also included the right of investiture of Church officials. According to the records of the time, Heinrich III had the rights of investiture over the Church. Thus: The pope and the clergy and the Romans granted him the right to create popes and bishops …; and it was further agreed that no bishop should be consecrated until he received his investiture from the hand of the king.38

The core of this debate for centuries to come, and the cause of much bloodshed, would always be whether the Emperor could invest the pope and whether kings could invest high-level church officials in their own countries. Whilst the Church would always want to keep this process for itself, and be insulated from temporal power. The temporal ­powers would always want the exact opposite.

36  Brown, G (2003) The Norman Conquest of Southern Italy and Sicily ( Jefferson, NC, McFarland) 19–23, 30, 58–60, 182. 37  See Norwich, J (2011) Absolute Monarchs: A History of the Papacy (London, Random) 137–40; Tolbert, J (1994) Athens on Trial: The Antidemocratic Tradition in Western Thought (Princeton NJ, Princeton University Press) 133. 38  ‘The Emperor Deposes and Creates Popes’, as reprinted in Thatcher, O (ed) (1905) A Sourcebook for Medieval History (NYC, Scribner) 121–22. Also, Moore, R (2012) The War on Heresy: Faith and Power in Medieval Europe (London, Profile) 6–7, 14–15, 142, 144

The Papacy in the Second Half of the Eleventh Century 19 5.  The Papacy in the Second Half of the Eleventh Century

A.  Leo IX Leo IX was the third pope installed via the agreement of Heinrich III. He was the first of a sequence of very strong men who completely changed the way that the papacy operated, and with it, some of the causes of war. Leo’s appointment followed a schism of which Heinrich ordered a council to be assembled to resolve the dispute. From this process, Leo, a pious German aristocrat, was offered the papal seat by the emperor in 1049. However, Leo, following in the footsteps of the Cluniac reforms that had emerged at the turn of the century, expounding and spreading the idea of ecclesiastical freedom, insisted that he would assume office only after he had also been acclaimed by the Roman clergy, and not just with the support of the emperor.39 None the less, upon obtaining power in Rome, Leo IX gave a great benefit to the emperor and kings all over Europe, concluding the Truce of God.40 This revolutionary document, although designed to end ‘private war’ between squabbling nobles in Christian kingdoms, by restricting both the days and places they could fight, ended up emphasizing the idea that all considerations for the use of force, rested solely under the authority of the king and the Church.41 Although Emperor Heinrich III was happy with the Truce of God, he was livid to find out that Pope Leo was so convinced that the pope had the right to use force that in 1053, he personally led an army of 3,000 men against the Norman usurpers who had taken control of large parts of southern Italy over the previous decade. Leo was not a good soldier. Although his forces were destroyed at the battle of Civitate, he managed to secure a peace treaty—without the consent of Heinrich III—which recognised the Norman conquests in southern Italy. Heinrich III objected to this, as he believed only he could make such a deal, as the lands in question belonged to the Empire, not to the papacy. Undeterred, the Normans accepted the treaty, and in exchange they recognised the spiritual authority of the pope and swore to be his defender. Now the papacy had forces unconnected to the emperor on which it could rely.42

39 

Fried, J (2015) The Middle Ages (London, Harvard University Press) 133–36. ‘The Truce of God, 1054’, as reprinted in Laffan, R (ed) (1929), Select Historical Documents: 800–1492 (NYC, Holt) 20. 41  Padovano, F (2013) ‘The Dictatorship of the Popes’ Kylos 66(3): 365–77; Keen, M (1965). The Laws of War in the Late Middle Ages (London, Routledge) 20, 66–67, 73, 79, 82–83; Herlihy, D (ed) (1966), The History of Feudalism (NYC, Harper) 198–99; Carlyle, AJ (1910) A History of Medieval Political Theory in the West (London, Blackwood) III: 31. 42  Crouch, D (2002) The Normans: The History of a Dynasty (London, Hambledon) 116; Contamine, P (1984) War in the Middle Ages (Oxford, Blackmore) 268; Stenton, F (1985) Anglo-Saxon England (Oxford, Clarendon Press) 586–88; Brown, G (2003) The Norman Conquest of Southern Italy and Sicily ( Jefferson, NC, McFarland) 35–38, 52–57, 67, 73; Norwich, J (2011) Absolute Monarchs: A History of the Papacy (London, Random) 95; Grant, R (2005) Battle (London, Dorling Kindersley) 70; Tanner, J (ed) (1957) The Cambridge Medieval History: Contest of Empire and Papacy, Vol V (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press) 176, 195–96. 40 

20  The Eleventh Century

The final note of importance for Pope Leo IX is that he also intensified the t­heological debates, which would ultimately lead to conflict, continually asserting the primacy of the Catholic Church of Rome. To the west, he condemned the teachings of Berengar of Tours over his views on transubstantiation in the Eucharist (that the bread and wine used in the sacrament was not, in reality, the body and blood of Christ). To those in Constantinople, Pope Leo strongly argued that he, not them, was God’s prime representative on Earth. Pope Leo buttressed his argument with the (fraudulent) Donation of Constantine, which allegedly gave Rome primacy and jurisdiction over the entire Church, west and east. In 1054, when the religious authorities in Constantinople failed to accept Pope Leo’s ultimate authority, the three clergymen sent from Rome to attempt a reconciliation instead issued (without the authority of Pope Leo) a bull of excommunication over the entire Orthodox religion, after the leader of the delegation, Cardinal Humbert, uttered the words, ‘Let God look and judge’.43 Although an Orthodox deacon beseeched him to withdraw the excommunication, Humbert refused. That night, riots spread throughout Constantinople as news of the excommunication spread. In the following days, a reciprocal measure was quickly undertaken, and the great schism between the eastern and western parts of Christian theology, which would last over one thousand years, was complete.44

B.  Alexander II The next pope, Stephen IX gained the papal seat without the opinion of the new German King, Heinrich IV, being taken into account as Heinrich was only a child at the time. This suited the papacy in pursuit of their goal that the nomination of the pope, as with all episcopal appointments, should be free of lay interference. This process was repeated when Pope Nicolas II took the papal seat the following year in 1059. Pope Nicholas’s election overlapped with the clear articulation of the principles set down at the Lateran Council in the same year, that papal elections should exclude simony and that the cardinal bishops should effectively choose the pope, in conjunction with the cardinal clerks and the people. This meant that the traditional practice of the urban aristocracy of Rome having a strong say on the matter was to be discontinued. In addition, although there was a vague clause about the emperor’s right to approve the papal election, this was not envisaged as an unconditional requirement.

43  For the documents on the theological split, see Geanakoplos, D (ed) (1986) Byzantium: A Sourcebook on Church, Society and Civilisation Seen Through Contemporary Eyes (Chicago Ill, Chicago University Press) 202–13; Ayerst, D (ed) (1977) Records of Christianity, Vol II (Oxford, Blackwell) 270. Norwich, J (2011) Absolute Monarchs: A History of the Papacy (London, Random) 93, 99; Runciman, S (1954) A History of the Crusades, Vol 2 (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press) 48; Brooke, C (1987). Europe in the Central Middle Ages (London, Longman) 50, 341–42; Moore, R (2012) The War on Heresy: Faith and Power in Medieval Europe (London, Profile) 6–7, 14–15, 142. 44  Whalen, B (2007) ‘Rethinking the Schism of 1054: Authority, Heresy and the Latin Rite’ Traditito 62: 1–24.

The Papacy in the Second Half of the Eleventh Century 21

The ­implications of this were that the papacy was trying to break free from the control of the emperor and the precedents of Heinrich III, and control for itself who should be in charge of the Church in Rome.45 To buttress its independence, the papacy then renewed its alliance with the Normans in southern Italy, to guarantee the support of their military might, if required to defend the pope. Specifically, Robert Guiscard pledged to Nicolas II that ‘everywhere and against all adversaries I shall remain, insofar as it is in my power to be so, the ally of the holy Roman Church’.46 With this pledge, a very strong partnership was born. (i)  The War Against Islam in Sicily In 1061, Pope Alexander II realised that the Norman forces at his disposal were not only useful for helping in keeping the Church independent from Germany, they could also be utilised to reclaim land that once belonged to Christians, but was now occupied by Muslims. Accordingly, Alexander, aware that the Muslim world at that point was engaged in an internal struggle between the Abbasids and the Fatimids, promised s­piritual rewards to the Norman and French warriors fighting in Sicily for the ­reclamation of traditionally Christian territory. The plenary indulgence explained: The pope … sent to the count and to all others who were helping him to win Sicily from the pagans and to hold it forever in the faith of Christ both his apostolic blessing and—by the powers vested in him—absolution of their sins, provided that they repent and avoid sinning in the future.47

This support, combined with strong military force on the one hand, and Guiscard’s practising of a tolerant regime (allowing freedom of religion if the Muslims paid a tax and accepted Christian overlords) on the other, if communities surrendered peacefully, meant that by 1091, all of Sicily was under Norman control.48

45 

Fried, J (2015) The Middle Ages (London, Harvard University Press) 141–44. Guiscard’s Oath, reprinted in Laffan, R (ed) (1929) Select Historical Documents: 800–1492 (NYC, Holt) 25. The ‘Decree on Papal Elections of 1059’ is reprinted in Laffan, R (ed) (1929) Select Historical Documents: 800–1492 (NYC, Holt) 23–25; Carlyle, A (1906) A History of Medieval Political Theory in the West, Vol IV (London, Blackwood) 6; Tanner, J (ed) (1957) The Cambridge Medieval History: Contest of Empire and Papacy, Vol V (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press) 10–11, 17–21; Gwatkin, H (ed) (1967) The Cambridge Medieval History: Germany and the Western Empire, Vol III (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press) 240–43; Norwich, J (2011) Absolute Monarchs: A History of the Papacy (London, Random) 93, 104–05. 47 This indulgence is reprinted in Chevedden, P (2010) ‘A Crusade from the First: The Norman Conquest of Islamic Sicily’ Al-Masaq: Journal of the Medieval Mediterranean 22(2): 191, 223. 48  Brooke, C (1987) Europe in the Central Middle Ages (London, Longview) 314–16; Runciman, S (1998) The Sicilian Vespers (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press) 4–5; Tanner, J (ed) (1957) The Cambridge Medieval History: Contest of Empire and Papacy, Vol V (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press) 176–77; Brown, G (2003) The Norman Conquest of Southern Italy and Sicily ( Jefferson, NC, McFarland) 119, 136–37, 153, 174–78; Hodgson, M (1974) The Venture of Islam, Vol II (Chicago, Chicago University Press) 18–19, 56–57, 132–35, 269, 272. 46 Robert

22  The Eleventh Century

(ii)  The War Against Islam in Spain The other area in Europe where the papacy recognised that reconquest was possible was Spain. The early decades of the eleventh century had seen a slow push back against the Muslim tide when Ferdinand I of Castile battled Muslims, Christians and his own family to establish an independent realm. In his fight with the Muslims he explained around the year 1040: We seek only our lands which you conquered from us in times past at the beginning of your history. Now you have dwelled in them for the time allotted to you and we have become victorious over you as a result of your wickedness. So go to your own side of the straits [of Gibraltar] and leave our lands for us, for no good will come to you from dwelling here with us after today. For we shall not hold back from you until God decides between us.49

The problem for Fernando was that the land he bequeathed to his children turned into their battleground against each, before Alfonso VI reunited the patrimony, driving out one sibling and imprisoning the other for 28 years after declaring that he was the ‘Commander, appointed upon all nations in Spain’.50 In truth, Alfonso was in control of a very small corner of Spain, as next to Castile was Aragon, Catalonia and Valencia. The smaller kingdoms of Galicia, Léon and Navarre moved between the ownership of Aragon and Castile. To the west of C ­ astile sat what became Portugal. Moreover, in many of the frontier regions, a number of semi-independent municipalities began to appear: Léon obtained its charter in 1020, Nàjera in 1035 and Aragon in 1064. These operated with minimal interference from either pope or king, formalising their own political relationships to best suit their ­precarious positions. The position of the small non-Muslim communities in northern Spain began to change with the advent of Pope Alexander II. Although the reconquest had been going on for decades, it was a relatively half-hearted affair, in which men could fight for a variety of paymasters, Christian and Muslim alike. Alexander intended to change this by unifying all Christian efforts in the same direction. This was possible when he spotted that the Caliphate of Cordoba, which was independent from the Abbasid caliph in Baghdad and the Fatimid caliph in Cairo, was in a state of civil war between the descendants of the caliph over who should control the Emirate. Recognising the same factor—Muslim disunity—that was going to make reconquest possible in Sicily was also operating in Spain, he seized the opportunity and declared the conflict of Christians against Muslims in Spain a just war. Pope Alexander gave those Christians who were willing to fight for the recovery of what were historically Christian lands the promise of spiritual rewards, via ‘absolution from all their crimes of which they make confession with contrite and humble hearts’, provided they fought ‘for two years

49 Ferdinand

I, as noted in Fletcher, R (1987) ‘Reconquest and Crusade in Spain, 1050–1150’ Transactions of the Royal Historical Society 37: 31, 37. 50 As noted in Pagden, A (1995) Lords of All the World: Ideologies of Empire in Spain, Britain and France (New Haven, Conn, Yale University Press) 41.

The Papacy in the Second Half of the Eleventh Century 23

against the Saracens in defence of the Christian name’.51 With such encouragement, under a now unified Christian opposition and a newly galvanised sense of identity, men like Ferdinand I of Leon-Castile fought to recover for Christians, Zargossa, Toledo and Seville, before taking what became Portugal.52 Due to such momentum, in the year of 1086, Yusuf ibn Tashfin, the Sultan of the Almoravid dynasty of North Africa, accepted an invitation to support the Muslim communities in Spain in their fight against the advancing Christians. The Almoravids were a movement of warrior-ascetics, who burst out of the desert and established an empire reaching from Spain to the Sahel after the political direction and theological underpinnings of the State became tightly interwoven with a philosophy that was built upon a literal interpretation of the Koran. Under this philosophy, they fought both Muslims and non-Muslims who held opposing views. Pagans in North Africa, and Ghana in particular, were a favourite target. Under Almoravid rule, the practice of Judaism was completely prohibited, and Jews had to wear yellow badges as a mark of their second-class status. It was under this regime that the great scholar, the young Moses Maimonides was forced into exile with his family. It may have been that the Almoravids were only following earlier patterns of intolerance in Spain, as of note, a pogrom had occurred in 1066 in Muslim Granada, when as many as 3,000 people may have been massacred, but the causes for this have never been clear.53 (iii)  The Norman Conquest of England The second area of warfare in this period that Alexander had a fundamental ­influence upon was with the Norman conquest of England. Without the involvement of the papacy, the Norman take-over of the Anglo-Saxon/Norse throne appeared very much like the pattern of warfare for the first half of the eleventh century, with kings gaining power, often over their own relations, by opportunity or force, but supported by marriage and diplomatic relationships. The well-known story of the lead-up to the Norman conquest is a good example of this. Here, Edward the Confessor died without having clearly set out who he thought should succeed him. Into this gap stepped Harold ­ Godwinson, the son of Earl Godwin of Wessex. Despite having only a remote hereditary claim, Harold was a man of great charisma. He had wealth, and the ­support of much of the English and Welsh nobility after he married the widow of Gruffydd ap ­Llywelyn. Despite this support, Harold quickly found that two other ­contenders believed they had a better claim to the throne of England. The first was his own brother, Tostig, who, after losing power following a rebellion in his earldom of ­Northumbria, invited the Norwegian king, Harald Hardrada, to join him in a conquest 51  Pope

Alexander II, reprinted in Riley-Smith, L (ed) (1981) The Crusades: Idea and Reality (London, Edward Arnold) 100. 52  Bonch, X (2008) ‘Ideologies of the Spanish Reconquest’ Mediterranean Studies 17: 27–45; O’Callaghan, J (2003) Reconquest and Crusade in Medieval Spain (Philadelphia, Pa, Pennsylvania University Press) 24–26. 53  Hodgson, M (1974) The Venture of Islam, Vol II (Chicago, Ill, Chicago University Press) 27–30; Carr, M (2009) Blood and Faith: The Purging of Muslim Spain (NYC, New Press) 18–19; Fernandez-Armesto, F (2011) 1492: The Year Our World Began (London, Bloomsbury) 62–65.

24  The Eleventh Century

of England. The Norwegian invaders crossed the North Sea in 300 ships, arriving on the east coast of England in September 1066. Having received news of the invasion, King Harold marched north, reaching Stamford Bridge near York by 25 September. Tostig refused the terms offered by King Harold in an attempt to avoid bloodshed. In the battle that followed, some 10,000 Anglo-Saxon warriors defeated a smaller force of 5,000 Norwegians, supplemented with the soldiers of his own brother. Four out of five of the defeated side were killed on the field.54 The second challenger for the throne of Edward was William, the Duke of Normandy. Harold had to face this contender who landed in the south of England, covering the 190 miles, just six days after his victory at Stamford Bridge. William was a scion of the House of Normandy, illegitimate son of Duke Robert I by his mistress. He emerged triumphant from his unpromising beginnings to become a powerful Norman ruler. William married the grand-daughter of Robert II, the King of France, and with the help of the then current king of France, battled off dynastic challenges for his title. William then set his eyes on the throne of England. He argued that the English throne was his via a weak hereditary right and his assertion (that may, or may not, have been true) that Edward the Confessor had earlier promised that the English crown should pass to William on the death of the English king. Further, and reading the trend of the age with great skill, William brought with him papal support for his military goals from Pope Alexander II. Alexander backed William’s expedition because he believed that William was legitimate in combatting someone who had earlier sworn an oath to support William’s candidature to be king of England. Alexander also believed that the English Church was in much need of reform, and by supporting William, he could gain control of the religious institutions in that country. This papal support silenced many of the European critics of William’s actions, thus turning it into the eyes of many as a just war. The conclusion of the matter arrived on the fourteenth of October 1066, when the two armies, comprising around 8,000 Normans and perhaps 7,000 Anglo-Saxons, met on the field of Senlac, north of Hastings where William conquered Harold. The chronicler, William of Poitiers, described the result as, ‘far and wide the ground was covered with the flower of the English nobility and youth, soiled by their own blood. The two brothers of the king were found lying beside him’.55 Four years later, Duke William was officially recognised as the king of England at Winchester in 1070, of which the legate of Pope Alexander II was present and approved.56 54  Crouch, D (2002) The Normans: The History of a Dynasty (London, Hambledon) 84–85, 206; Stenton, F (1985) Anglo-Saxon England (Oxford, Clarendon Press) 588–92; Grant, R (2005) Battle (London, Dorling Kindersley) 71. 55  William of Poitiers, as noted in Cohen, M (ed) (2004) History in Quotations (London, Cassell) 166. Also, Wood, H (2008) The Battle of Hastings (London, Atlantic) 133, 138–43; Dennis, C (2009) ‘The Strange Death of King Harold II: Propaganda and the Problem of Legitimacy in the Aftermath of the Battle of Hastings’ Historian 101: 14–18; Sugar, M (2006) ‘How the Battle of Hastings Was Lost’ Mental Health, Religion and Culture. 9(2): 141–54; Morris, M (2013) ‘1066: The Limits of Our Knowledge’ Historian 117: 12–20. 56  Houts, E (1995) ‘The Norman Conquest Through European Eyes’ The English Historical Review 110 (438): 823–53; John, E (1979) ‘Edward the Confessor and the Norman Succession’. The English Historical

The Papacy in the Second Half of the Eleventh Century 25

(iv)  The Challenge to the Emperor The final war that Pope Alexander II had a strong influence upon was that against the son of Heinrich III, Heinrich IV, who eventually went on to inherit many of the titles of his father after ascending to the throne of Germany in 1056. Although Heinrich III had done great things in recreating a sound platform for the Church, Alexander II had no intention of repaying Heinrich IV for this debt by continuing to allow the king or emperor to have an undue influence in Church appointments. Heinrich IV had the exact opposite view. Whilst he was prepared to forget the oversight when his views were not sought on the appointment of the previous pope due to his age, he was not prepared to look away again when his views were ignored. Accordingly, as pope Alexander’s election was effected without consulting the German court, the German court elected an antipope—Honorius II. The military forces of both pope and a­ ntipope clashed in Rome, before the regents for the young Heinrich IV gave their support to Pope Alexander. Although the antipope was excommunicated and anathematised, he continued to fight on until his death in 1072.57

C.  Gregory VII Pope Alexander II died in 1073. He was replaced by the most powerful and influential pope of the eleventh century, Gregory VII, who reorganized, galvanized and lifted the power of Rome to a level that was unprecedented. Pope Gregory believed that, ‘the Roman church opens and closes the Gates of Heaven to whomsoever it chooses according to its unique privilege’.58 He was also of the view that the papacy had the full authority over the souls of everyone, including monarchs. He believed the spiritual power, ‘the law of God’, to be superior to the civil power, ‘the law of the king’. By analogy, it was suggested that the authority of the Church was to the sun, as that of the king was to the moon.59 The collection of his broad philosophy was set down in 1075 with his Dictatus Papae. Of note: 1. The Roman church was established by God alone. 2. That the Roman pontiff alone is rightly called universal. Review 94 (371): 241–67; Oleson, T (1957) ‘Edward the Confessor’s Promise of the Throne to Duke William of Normandy’ The English Historical Review 72 (283): 221–28; Haskins, C (1909) ‘Normandy Under William the Conqueror’ The American Historical Review 14(3): 453–76; Crouch, D (2002) The Normans: The History of a Dynasty (London, Hambledon) 46–54, 65. 57  Wood, H (2008) The Battle of Hastings (London, Atlantic) 133, 138–43; Crouch, D (2002) The Normans: The History of a Dynasty (London, Hambledon) 116; Contamine, P (1984) War in the Middle Ages (Oxford, Blackmore) 268; Stenton, F (1985) Anglo-Saxon England (Oxford, Clarendon Press) 586–88. 58  Gregory, as noted in Fried, J (2015) The Middle Ages (London, Harvard University Press) 145. 59  Rennie, K. (2007) ‘Uproot and Destroy, Build and Plant: Legatine Authority Under Pope Gregory VII’ Journal of Medieval History 33(2): 166–80; Wilken, R (1999) ‘Gregory VII and the Politics of the Spirit’. First Things 1: 26–35; Gilchrist, J (1968) ‘Gregory VII and the Primacy of the Roman Church’ The Legal History Review 36(1): 123–35.

26  The Eleventh Century 3. 8. 12. 16. 19. 22. 27.

That he alone has the power to depose and reinstate bishops. That he alone may use the imperial insignia. That he has the power to depose emperors. That no general synod may be called without his order. That he can be judged by no one. That the Roman church has never erred and will never err to all eternity. That he has the power to absolve subjects from their oath of fidelity to wicked rulers.60

To secure his tenure, Gregory obtained oaths of allegiance from officials in both the Church and civil society. He tried to compel all rulers of every rank to take an oath of vassalage to him and to receive—and legitimise—their lands from him as fiefs. For example, the Oath of Fidelity from the Prince of Capua promised, ‘I will assist you to hold the papacy and the lands of Saint Peter in peace and honour. I will never attempt to attack, seize or devastate any lands without the express permission of you or your successors’.61 A similar line was pursued with the Normans in southern Italy (who had their political arrangement confirmed in the Treaty of Ceprano), as well as with Hungary, Aragon and Portugal. At the same point, Gregory VII conferred indulgences upon all of the Normans in southern Italy who were to fight the Muslims, of which all of their sins could be removed if they died in battle, or survived and lived as good Christian afterwards. Of the territory in Spain which was still in Muslim hands at the time, he wrote to the princes wishing to reconquer Spain, explaining that he would ‘forbid you by our apostolic authority to go thither’ unless the rights of the Church were recognised and an equitable deal struck.62 Once they agreed, Gregory VII reiterated the promise of remission of sins for those who fought, and absolution for all those who died in battle. He elaborated on the just nature of the reconquest: The kingdom of Spain belonged from ancient times to Saint Peter in full sovereignty and though occupied for a long time by the pagans, it belongs even now—since the law of justice has not been set aside—to no mortal, but solely to the Apostolic See.63

60  The Dictatus Papae (the ‘Pope’s Memo’), reprinted in Cantor, N (ed) The Medieval World 300–1300 (NYC, Macmillan) 188–89; see also Mundy, J (1991) Europe in the High Middle Ages (London, Longview) 222, 357; Carlyle, A (1906) A History of Medieval Political Theory in the West (London, Blackwood) Vol II, 96, 201, 208, 213–15, 222–26; Vol IV, 65–66, 71, 76–79, 175, 300–06; Tanner, J (ed) (1957) The Cambridge Medieval History: Victory of the Papacy, Vol VI (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press) 30. 61 The 1073 ‘Oath of Fidelity from the Prince of Capua’, as reprinted in Thatcher, O (ed) (1905) A Sourcebook for Medieval History (NYC, Scribner) 140–45. 62  The 1073 ‘Letter to the Princes Wishing to Reconquer Spain’, as reprinted in Thatcher, O (ed) (1905) A Sourcebook for Medieval History (NYC, Scribner) 142–43. Note also Pope Gregory’s letters to the rulers of Bohemia, Aragon and Hungary in the same volume, at 143–45. 63  Pope Gregory VII, noted in O’Callaghan, J (2003) Reconquest and Crusade in Medieval Spain (Philiadelphia, Pa, Pennsylvania University Press) 27. Also Runciman, S (1954) A History of the Crusades, Vol I (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press) 81–82, 91–92; MacKay, A (1977) Spain in the Middle Ages (London, Macmillan) 15. For Pope Gregory VII’s support for military efforts to the Holy Land, see the 1074, ‘Call for A Crusade’, as reprinted in Thatcher, O (ed) (1905) A Sourcebook for Medieval History (NYC, Scribner) 512–14.

The Papacy in the Second Half of the Eleventh Century 27

With such support, the reconquest of Spain continued steadily. The son of Ferdinand I, Alfonso VI, continued his father’s work, and in 1085, Toledo, strategically (in the middle of the country) and politically important (the largest Muslim city to be taken by Christians in Spain), fell after a six-month siege and a negotiated surrender. Pope Gregory also received deputations from Russia following the clear instructions of Yaroslav I to his sons, amongst whom his kingdom was divided, not to fight amongst each other, ‘or ye will perish yourselves and bring ruin to the land.’64 His sons did the complete opposite, as a result of which one, Prince Iziaslav, emerged victorious with the help of Polish forces (courtesy of the family of his Polish wife), re-taking Kiev in 1069. This Prince (before he was killed by his brother) promised to be loyal to Pope Gregory, for which the Gregory sent him a crown and asserted, ‘we have conferred upon him [the son of the king] in the name of Saint Peter the government of your kingdom’.65 Pope Gregory also kept a strong grip on both France and England. Regarding the former, he warned King Philip of France that if he did not abandon simony, Pope Gregory would do all in his power to take the French kingdom from him. Of the latter, Gregory clashed directly with William the Conqueror after Gregory warned William, ‘as I have to answer for you at the awful judgement, in the interests of your own salvation, can you avoid immediate obedience to me?’,66 and then demanded that William accept that England was a fief of the papacy. William, aside promises to keep the laws as the kings had before him, created a monarchy of absolutism, without any form of pseudo-democratic powers within it. William had no intention of handing over power to Rome, any more than he intended to give it to the barons.67 Accordingly, he made it very clear to Gregory that although he had obtained his support for the invasion from Pope Alexander, and he was willing to pay an annual tithe to Rome, England was not a papal fief: Your [representative] … has admonished me to profess allegiance to you and your s­ uccessors, and to think better regarding the money which my predecessors were wont to send to the

64  Yaroslav, as recorded in Kaiser, D (ed) (1994) Reinterpreting Russian History (Oxford, Oxford University Press) 24. 65 The 1075 ‘Letter to Demetrius, King of the Russians’, as reprinted in Thatcher, O (ed) (1905) A Sourcebook for Medieval History (NYC, Scribner) 145. 66  See ‘Letter’, reprinted in Baker, D (ed) The Early Middle Ages (London, Hutchinson) 171; Ayerst, D (ed) (1977) Records of Christianity, Vol II (Oxford, Blackwell) 292. For the other countries, see Brown, G (2003) The Norman Conquest of Southern Italy and Sicily ( Jefferson, NC, McFarland) 35–38, 73–75, 52–57, 67, 73; Gibbon, E (1926 edn) The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, Vol VI (London, Methuen) 189–91, 199–201; Norwich, J (2011) Absolute Monarchs: A History of the Papacy (London, Random) 95; Grant, R (2005) Battle (London, Dorling Kindersley) 70. 67  For the laws he promised, see the Charter to London, from William I, as reprinted in Cohen, M (ed) (2004) History in Quotations (London, Cassell) 216. Also, Wood, H (2008) The Battle of Hastings (London, Atlantic) 31; Poole, A (1954) From Domesday Book to Magna Carta (Oxford, Oxford University Press) 2–3.

28  The Eleventh Century Church of Rome. I have consented to one but not the other. I have not consented to pay fealty, nor will I do so, because I never promised it, nor do I find that my predecessors ever did it to your predecessors.68

(i)  Excommunicating the Emperor As impressive as all of Pope Gregory’s influence was with the other European kings, it was with the King of Germany, and later Emperor of the Empire, Heinrich IV, that Gregory really made his mark in history. The two of them had started off on the wrong foot, after Gregory VII obtained his papacy without the approval of Heinrich IV. Gregory was unrepentant. He was absolute in his belief against lay investiture, thereby denying kings the right to place their favourites in positions in the Church at any level without the authority of the pope. He added that in the future, the next pope should be elected by ‘the better and wiser counsel’ of the assembled cardinals. What mattered to Gregory was the acclaim of the Church, not that of the man with the largest armies in Europe.69 Heinrich IV retaliated in 1075 through the appointment of a bishop in Germany, and his attempts to influence the appointment of a bishop in Milan, without the approval of the pope. For these acts, Gregory excommunicated five of Heinrich’s closest advisers for simony. Gregory then warned Heinrich that if he did not excommunicate these people as directed, he would suffer the same fate, and he would be deposed from his kingdom. Heinrich’s answer to Gregory’s threat was given at a national Synod at Worms in 1076, where Gregory was labelled guilty of adultery and perjury, as well also being a usurper of the papal throne by the use of violence. Heinrich added that his crown was granted by God, and it was by God alone that the emperor could be judged—not by the pope. The Synod then purported to depose Pope Gregory and renounce all allegiance to Rome. Specifically: Since your pontificate was begun in perjury and crime, since your innovations have placed the church of God in the gravest peril, since your life and conduct are stained with infamy; we now renounce our obedience, which indeed was never promised to you. You have declared publically that you do not consider us to be bishops; we reply that no one of us shall ever hold you to be the pope.70

68  ‘Letter of William I to Gregory VII’, as in Douglas, D (ed) (1953) English Historical Documents, Vol II (London, Routledge) 647; Figgis, N (1972) The Divine Rights of Kings (NYC, Harper) 18–22; Brooke, Z (1911) ‘Pope Gregory VII’s Demand for Fealty from William the Conqueror’ The English Historical Review 26 (102): 225–38. 69  The 1074 Prohibitions Against Simony, and Marriage of the Clergy, are reprinted in Thatcher, O (ed) (1905) A Sourcebook for Medieval History (NYC, Scribner) 134–35. The 1078 Prohibition on Lay Investiture is in the same volume, at 136. 70  This quote is from the 1076, ‘Letter of the Bishops to Gregory VII’, as reprinted in Thatcher, O (ed) (1905) A Sourcebook for Medieval History (NYC, Scribner) 151. See also the Manifesto of the Synod of Worms to Gregory VIII, 1076, as reprinted in Laffan, R (ed) (1929) Select Historical Documents: 800–1492 (NYC, Holt) 26–28.

The Papacy in the Second Half of the Eleventh Century 29

After these unprecedented condemnations and abandonment, it was then the pope’s turn to respond. Gregory did this by ‘striking the emperor with the sword of excommunication’ for communicating with the excommunicated counsellors, his contempt of papal warnings and his ‘breach of the unity of the church’.71 In doing so, Gregory explained: It is not by my efforts, but by thy grace, that I am set to rule over the Christian world which was specially intrusted to thee by Christ. It is by thy grace and as thy representative that God has given me the power to bind and to loose in heaven and earth. Confident of my integrity and authority, I now declare in the name of omnipotent God, the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, that Heinrich … is deprived of his kingdoms of Germany and Italy.72

Pope Gregory found the mutual act of deposition much easier to weather in Rome than Heinrich did in Germany. In Rome, no one threatened the physical existence of Gregory, but in Germany, many of Heinrich’s supporters abandoned their loyalty to the king and rebellions started to break out. To make matters even harder for Heinrich, Gregory upgraded Boleslaw II, from a duke of Poland (and subservient to the emperor) to the king of Poland (and thus of equal status) on Christmas Day in 1076. Fearing even more such acts, in 1077, Heinrich weakened, and he reconciled with Pope Gregory VII, after, reportedly, he (Heinrich) stood outside the residence of the pope for three days, bare-footed in the snow, in the woollen garb of the penitent, begging the pope for absolution and to lift the order of excommunication. In this pitiful state, Heinrich agreed to show ‘henceforth fitting reverence and obedience to the apostolic office and to you, Pope Gregory’.73 He then agreed to submit to Gregory in all things, banish his excommunicated counsellors and release control over all ecclesiastical appointments. He also promised to rescind all of the edicts with which he had threatened the pontiff. To fully reconcile, Pope Gregory had to go to Germany and hold an assembly on the matter. Despite the dramatic theatre of the events, Heinrich did not do everything he promised and was excommunicated again at the end of 1080. Gregory then did the ultimate act to foment war in Germany, absolving the subjects of Heinrich IV from their oath of allegiance. Specifically: I prohibit Heinrich the king, son of Heinrich the emperor, who has risen up against your Church with unexampled arrogance, from ruling in Germany and Italy. And I release all

71  ‘Disposition of Henry IV’, reprinted in Laffan, R (ed) (1929) Select Historical Documents: 800–1492 (NYC, Holt) 29–33; Letter from Gregory VII, reprinted in Rosenwein, B (ed) (2006) Reading the Middle Ages: Sources from Europe, Byzantium and the Islamic World (Ontario, Broadview) 282–83, and Letter to Gregory VII, in the same volume, at 281; Otto of Freising. The Deeds of Barbarossa trans, Mierow C (2004) (NYC, Columbia University Press) 28–29. 72  The 1076, ‘First Deposition and Excommunication of Henry IV by Gregory VII’, as reprinted in Thatcher, O (ed) (1905) A Sourcebook for Medieval History (NYC, Scribner) 155–56. Also, Pavlac, B (1991) ‘Excommunication and Territorial Politics in High Medieval Trier’. Church History 60 (1): 20–36. 73  The 1076 ‘Agreement at Oppenheim’, as reprinted in Thatcher, O (ed) (1905) A Sourcebook for Medieval History (NYC, Scribner) 157.

30  The Eleventh Century Christians from the oaths which they have sworn or shall swear to him; I forbid all men to serve him as king … and I bind him with the bonds of anathema.74

The second excommunication coincided with a rebellion in Saxony that had broken out a few years previously. The original cause of the dispute was a local riot, in which the graves of Heinrich’s family were disturbed. This had spread into full-blown rebellion by 1073, with the Saxons portraying it as a war of liberty against the arbitrary and unworthy rule of Heinrich IV which made them all little better than slaves. The Saxons then elected, at a Hoftag (an informal diet of the nobles) a new king—Rudolf of Swabia. The record of the assembly at Forcheim explained: It was approved by common consent and confirmed by the authority of the Roman pontiff, that the royal power [might be ceded] to no one by heredity as had previously been the custom, but that the son of a king, even if he should be pre-eminently worthy, should become by spontaneous election, rather than by lineal succession; and if indeed the son of a king was not worthy or if the people refused to have him, the people should have it in their power to make whomsoever they wished king.75

Although high-level councils of the nobility were familiar within the imperial cities of Germany at this point, this was a revolutionary step, that new kings would proceed to the throne by a clearer electoral process than had existed in the past, with the election requiring a majority vote of the (seven) most powerful men in Germany.76 Pope Gregory came to recognise Rudolf as the legitimate and rightful king of the Germans. The pope, in fanning the flames of a war that would kill thousands, explained: Heinrich has raised his heel against the church … Rudolf was prepared to obey me in every way … Heinrich incurred excommunication … [and] … anathema … On behalf of Almighty God, I deprive him of the kingdoms of the Teutons and of Italy and withdraw from him all power and regal dignity. I forbid any Christian to obey him as king. And all who have sworn, or shall swear, allegiance to him … I absolve from the fulfilment of their oath. I grant, permit and concede that Rudolf, whom the Teutons have elected as their king, shall rule and defend the realm …77 74 Gregory, as noted in Ayerst, D (ed) (1977) Records of Christianity, Vol II (Oxford, Blackwell) 294. For Gregory’s displeasure up to the point of excommunication, see Gregory VII’s ‘Synodal Decrees’ of 1078 and 1080, as reprinted in Laffan, R (ed) (1929) Select Historical Documents: 800–1492 (NYC, Holt) 36–38. Tanner, J (ed) (1957) The Cambridge Medieval History: Contest of Empire and Papacy, Vol V (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press) 62–66, 130; Carlyle, AJ (1910) A History of Medieval Political Theory in the West (London, Blackwood), Vol II, 82–86, 146, 202–05, 236–37, Vol III, 102–03, 115, 118–24 and Vol IV, 71, 76–79, 180–91. 75  This quote is from Bruno of Merseburg. It is reprinted in Robinson, I (1979) ‘Pope Gregory VII, The Princes and the Pactum 1077–1080’ The English Historical Review 94 (373): 721–56. 76  Of the seven who could elect, three were Archbishops (Mainz, Trier and Cologne) and four lay rulers (Bohemia, Rhine, Saxony and Brandenburg). See Otto of Freising, The Deeds of Frederick Barbarossa trans Mierow, C (2004) (NYC, Columbia University Press) 30–31, 45–47; Carlyle, AJ (1910) A History of Medieval Political Theory in the West, Vol III (London, Blackwood) 131–33, 151–57, 160–66; Tanner, J (1957) The Cambridge Medieval History: Contest of Empire and Papacy, Vol V (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press) 129, 133–34, 138. 77  The 1080 ‘Second Deposition of Henry IV and Nomination of Rudolf as King’, as reprinted in Laffan, R (ed) (1929) Select Historical Documents: 800–1492 (NYC, Holt) 38–39; Carlyle, A (1906) A History of Medieval Political Theory in the West, Vol IV (London, Blackwood) 200–09.

The Papacy in the Second Half of the Eleventh Century 31

The problem was that Gregory, despite his infallibility, had picked the wrong side in the civil war, as Rudolf was killed in the Battle of Elster that followed. The land of the supporters of the rebellion was then requisitioned into the personal territories of Heinrich, and his supporters were rewarded with the creation of new titles, such as the creation of the (subservient) king of Bohemia. The victorious Heinrich then turned on Gregory, whom he saw as the cause of much of the fighting, and declared him to be deposed, placing his own favourite (antipope Clement III) on the papal seat. Heinrich did this by reaching an agreement with Constantinople to join together to fight the Gregory protectors (the Normans). Heinrich then pushed his military forces into Rome and Saint Peter’s Church itself, in which he installed Clement on the papal throne in 1084. However, Heinrich could not make his man remain on the seat. On Heinrich’s exit from Rome, the Norman protector of Pope Gregory VII, Robert Guiscard, arrived, and after three days’ sacking of Rome, chased Clement from the city, making it safe for Gregory to return. For this assistance, Pope Gregory reiterated that the kingship of the Norman lands in Sicily belonged to Guiscard and his descendants. The pope then gave the same spiritual absolution to the soldiers fighting against the excommunicated Heinrich IV of Germany as had been given to those fighting against Muslims in Spain.78

D.  Urban II (i)  The Continuing Excommunication Pope Urban II, after taking the papal seat in 1088, re-anathematised antipope Clement III and continued the excommunication upon Heinrich IV. This was so ­powerful that although Heinrich valiantly tried to declare a peace over all of ­Germany, in which all were obliged to ‘keep peace with churches, clergy, monks, merchants, women and Jews’,79 peace did not arrive as the civil war intensified. The anger was such that his son Heinrich V and his brother not only fought against their own father after the popes had absolved them of any obligations towards him, they would also not listen to the pleas of this heart-broken man before his death, because he was excommunicated.80

78  Norwich, J (1996) Byzantium: The Decline and the Fall (London, Penguin) 21, 69; Brown, G (2003) The Norman Conquest of Southern Italy and Sicily ( Jefferson, NC, McFarland) 168–69. 79  The 1103, ‘Peace of the Land of Henry IV’, as reprinted in Thatcher, O (ed) (1905) A Sourcebook for Medieval History (NYC, Scribner) 419. 80  See Gregory VII’s ‘Letter to Hermann of Metz’, as reprinted in Laffan, R (ed) (1929) Select Historical Documents: 800–1492 (NYC, Holt) 41–42; Carlyle, AJ (1910) A History of Medieval Political Theory in the West, Vol III (London, Blackwood) 131–33, 151–57, 160–66; Norwich, J (2011) Absolute Monarchs: A History of the Papacy (London, Random) 32–33, 43, 115–120; Tanner, J (ed) (1957) The Cambridge Medieval History: Contest of Empire and Papacy, Vol V (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press) 51, 72–77, 129, 133–38, 150–51, 154; Brooke, C (1987) Europe in the Central Middle Ages (London, Longview) 208, 226.

32  The Eleventh Century 6.  The First Crusade

A.  The Rise of the Seljuks The background context to the First Crusade was the rise of the Sunni based Seljuks and the collapse of the Shia based Fatimids. Whilst the Fatimids were losing territory outside of their base in Egypt due to civil war over who should lead their empire and increasingly disillusioned Muslim populations, the Seljuks rose to the fore. Armed with a philosophy described by the scholar Al-Juwayni, jihad was ‘the forcible mission assisted by the unsheathed sword against wrongheaded people who arrogantly refuse to accept the plain truth after it became clear’.81 Violence against Muslim heretics became legitimate if these people failed to adopt the rightful path after being told of its existence. The Seljuks then proceeded to establish an empire that lasted until the end of the twelfth century and stretched from the Hindu-Kush to eastern Anatolia and through to the Persian Gulf. The first real driver of the Seljuk empire, Tughril Beg, was behind the conquest of Persia and the capture of the Abbasid capital of Baghdad from the Buyid dynasty in 1055. The Baghdad Caliph Al-Qaim proclaimed Tughril Beg ‘the great King of the East and West, the Reviver of Islam, Deputy of the Imam and Right Hand of God’s caliph, the Commander of the Faithful’.82 This endorsement of political power as granted by God and recognised by the caliph in Baghdad became the pattern for centuries to come.83 It was under the rule of the third Seljuk leader, the nephew of Tughril, Alp Arslan, that the Seljuk armies, on the way to attack the Fatimids in Cairo, crossed paths with 100,000 Byzantine soldiers under the leadership of Emperor Romanos IV Diogenes. Romanos intended to crush the numerically inferior (40,000) Seljuks, who at this point were attacking Byzantine protectorates, but instead the Seljuks defeated the Byzantine forces and took the emperor prisoner at the Battle of Manzikert (in Armenia) in 1071. This victory gave the Seljuks ascendency in Asia Minor, as well as in many of the Byzantine-controlled areas in Syria and Fatimid-controlled Palestine. The Seljuks also took Jerusalem from the Fatimids in the same year, 1071. At the same time the peace treaty which had promised a military alliance, or at least the neutrality of

81  Al-Juwayni, as noted in Crone, P (2004) God’s Rule: Government and Islam (NYC, Columbia University Press) 369. 82  Official description, as noted in Crone, P (2004) God’s Rule: Government and Islam (NYC, Columbia University Press) 8. See also pages 221, 231, 303, 334–35, 385, 391; Marozzi, J (2015) Baghdad: City of Peace, City of Blood (London, Penguin) 116–17, 126. 83  Black, A (2011) The History of Islamic Political Thought (Edinburgh, Edinburgh University Press) 8, 94; Hussey, J (ed) (1966) The Cambridge Medieval History: The Byzantine Empire, Vol IV (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press) 657–60; Robinson, F (2009) The Islamic World (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press) 32–39; Hodgson, M (1974) The Venture of Islam, Vol II (Chicago, Ill, Chicago University Press) 18–19, 132–35.

The First Crusade 33

Constantinople reached with the Seljuks for the release of Romanos was not honoured by Constantinople. This refusal was because Byzantium fell into a pattern of coup and counter-coups, before the general, Alexius I Comnenus, who also had a strong dynastic heritage, came to grasp the power of the emperor in Constantinople in 1081.84

B.  The Goal of Jerusalem Upon becoming pope in 1088, Urban II was immediately briefed about the rise of the Seljuks and their taking of Jerusalem. Some of these stories came directly from Alexius I in 1090, who recounted stories of a vicious Seljuk enemy engaged in the ‘promiscuous slaughter and indescribable killing and derision of the Christians’. Thirteen years later, Emperor Alexius added that this situation could only be reversed with soldiers from the Latin kingdom. Alexius then sent ambassadors to the Synod in 1095, ‘humbly imploring the lord pope and all faithful Christians to send him help to defend the Holy Church against the pagans’.85 Pope Urban II agreed to this request, and then with his speech at Clermont at the end of 1095, he fundamentally added to the direction of the support of the Church for conflict, calling for a war to be fought under the banner of Saint Peter—vexillum sancti petri in the Middle East.86 This call for military force, under the direction of the papacy, was a clear sign that the pope believed this war to be holy. In this connection, Urban II drew out two clear themes around which Christian Europe could direct their energies against a common enemy. First, Jerusalem was an occupied city of special symbolic significance that belonged to Christendom. Accordingly, he called upon Christian soldiers to: [C]apture the land the heathen have seized, the land God gave to the children of Israel, the land the Bible describes as all milk and honey … [ Jerusalem] … this royal city, centre of the world, is now held captive by enemies ignorant of God and is made to serve their heathen ceremonies. It looks and longs for freedom.87

84 Blaum, P (2007) ‘From Steppe to Empire: The Turkmens in Iraq’ The International Journal of Kurdish Studies 21 (1) 37–58; Frankopan, P (2007) ‘Kinship and the Distribution of Power in Komnenian ­Byzantium’ The English Historical Review 122 (495): 1–34; Lewis, B (ed) (1987) Islam: From the Prophet to the Capture of Constantinople, Vol I (Oxford, Oxford University Press) 68–76. 85  Alexius, as quoted from ‘the Chronicle of 1099, of Bernold of Constance’, as reprinted in Cohen, M (ed) (2004) History in Quotations (London, Cassell) 225. Also Letter of Alexius, reprinted in Geanakoplos, D (ed) (1986) Byzantium: A Sourcebook on Church, Society and Civilisation Seen Through Contemporary Eyes (Chicago, Ill, Chicago University Press) 359–60. 86 Chevedden, P (2013). ‘Crusader Creationism Versus Pope Urban II’s Conceptualisation of the ­Crusades’ Historian. 75(1): 1–46; Gabriele, M (2012). ‘The Last Carolingian Exegete: Pope Urban II, The Weight of Tradition and Christian Reconquest’ Church History 81(4): 796–14; Munro, D (1906) ‘The Speech of Pope Urban II at Clermont, 1095’ The American Historical Review 11(2): 231–42. 87 Urban II, as reprinted in Ayerst, D (ed) (1977) Records of Christianity, Vol II (Oxford, Blackwell)­ 110–11. And of the significance of Jerusalem, see Gaposchkin, C (2013) ‘The Place of Jerusalem in W ­ estern ­Crusading Rites’ The Catholic Historical Review 99 (1): 1–27.

34  The Eleventh Century

Secondly, the Muslim occupation of Jerusalem was brutal, involving the enslavement of Christians, the rape of women, the destruction of Christian places of worship and the suppression of their faith. Specifically: [T]he barbarians … have seized the Holy City of Christ … we are stimulating the minds of knights to go on this expedition, since they might be able to restrain the savagery of the Saracens by their arms and restore the Christians to freedom.88

This plea for help provoked a response that the Byzantine emperor probably did not expect as in the past, when Constantinople had asked for assistance from western Europe, it came in the shape of mercenaries; now an avalanche of foreign soldiers needed to cross Byzantine lands, for, as described in the Alexiad, ‘the whole of the West and all the barbarian tribes which swell … had all migrated in a single body and were marching into Asia’.89 The first swell moving towards Jerusalem was led by Peter the Hermit, a charismatic preacher who took up Pope Urban II’s call for a crusade. He directed a disorganised army of knights and peasants in 1096 (the ‘People’s Crusade), through Hungary towards the Holy Land, ahead of the First Crusade. Tens of thousands of people, including many women and children, joined the call. Emperor Alexius, dismayed by the influx of such a large and ill-disciplined force, arranged for the masses to be ferried across the Bosphorus. The People’s Crusade that arrived at Nicomedia (Izmir in modern-day Turkey), quarrelled amongst themselves and were fallen upon by a Seljuk force that destroyed them.90 Following the disaster of the People’s Crusade in 1096, the First Crusade began in 1099. Here, despite an absence of leadership by significant European kings (Heinrich IV, the Emperor, was excommunicated, as was Philip I of France), approximately 4,500 knights, 30,000 largely untrained peasant foot soldiers and an additional 15,000 pilgrims flocked from France, Germany and Italy. They undertook a journey lasting about four months, before setting foot on territory outside of Christian control. To these men, who went on crusade ‘from pure devotion, not for reputation or monetary gain’, Pope Urban II promised: [N]o-one must doubt that if he dies on this expedition for the love of God, and his b ­ rothers, his sins will surely be forgiven and he will gain a share of eternal life through the most ­compassionate mercy of our God.91

88  Pope Urban II to the People of Vallombrosa, as reprinted in Riley-Smith, L (ed) (1981) The Crusades: Idea and Reality (London, Edward Arnold) 38–40, and 42. Also, Rosenwein, B (ed) (2006) Reading the Middle Ages: Sources from Europe, Byzantium and the Islamic World (Ontario, Broadview) 290–93, 296–300; Geanakoplos, D (ed) (1986) Byzantium: A Sourcebook on Church, Society and Civilisation Seen Through Contemporary Eyes (Chicago, Ill, Chicago University Press) 360. 89  Alexiad of Anna Comnena trans Sewter, E (2009, London, Penguin) 248. 90 France, J (1999) Western Warfare in the Age of the Crusades 1000–1300 (London, UCL Press) 11, 205. 91  Pope Urban II, 1099, reprinted in Riley-Smith, L (ed) (1981) The Crusades: Idea and Reality. (London, Edward Arnold) 38–39, 40; Laffan, R (ed) (1929) Select Historical Documents: 800–1492 (NYC, Holt) 54–56; Gabriel, R (2005) Empires at War, Vol III (London, Greenwood) 807.

China 35

Contrary to the expectations of many, the First Crusade turned out to be a resounding success. In large part this was due to the fact that the Seljuk dynasty had dissolved into a series of fratricidal feuds, after the death of the son of Arslan, Malik Shah I, from which three separate dynasties were formed. This was good news for the Crusaders, as they now faced a disunited Seljuk force. Nevertheless, significant numbers of Seljuk soldiers were still fielded. For example, on 1 July 1097, some 60,000 Seljuks met a force less than half of their size of Christian soldiers at Dorylaeum in Anatolia. The Seljuks lost this battle, along with 15,000 of their men. This forced them to withdraw to Konya in central Anatolia. Next, on 3 June 1098 the (until recently Byzantine) city of Antioch, near the modern city of Antakya, Turkey, fell to tens of thousands of Crusaders, resulting in the deaths of at least 10,000 Muslim defenders. Finally, on 15 July 1099, some 13,300 Crusaders breached the walls of Jerusalem, killing the Muslim garrison of 1,000 men and the 40,000 civilians (Muslim, Christian and Jewish people) that they protected. Pope Urban II died peacefully in Rome two weeks after this conquest which he put in motion.92

7.  China

A.  The Song The Song dynasty held power from the years of 960 to 1280. Before the Song, following the collapse of the Tang dynasty in 907, the area was poor, in economic, social and military terms. Famine, bandits and decentralisation of authority became the pattern, with the empire split into some ten different pieces in China. After the Song arose, the dynasty would see eighteen rulers and control an empire of over 100 million people, producing economic, social and philosophical development to a level that Europe would not reach for a further 500 years.93 The confusion following the collapse of the Tang only ended in China when the commander of the Palace Army, Zhao Kuangyin orchestrated a coup in 960, that founded the Song dynasty, at which point the ‘Mandate of Heaven’ passed from one dynasty to another. The mandate, in accordance with traditional Chinese practice meant that legitimacy had passed from the Tang to the Song, as they were more worthy of protecting the people. The new ruler, huangdi, meaning ‘celestial magnificence’, similar to ‘emperor’ in English, was seen as the Son of Heaven, the supreme ruler of the

92  ‘Bohemund and the Genoese at Antioch, 1098’, as reprinted in in Laffan, R (ed) (1929) Select Historical Documents: 800–1492 (NYC, Holt) 58–59; Gibbon, E (1926 edn) The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, Vol VI (London, Methuen) 257–58. 93  Von Glahn, R (2011) ‘The Song Transformation’ Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient 54 (5): 773–80; Hucker, C (1975) China’s Imperial Past (Stanford UP, California) 342–47.

36  The Eleventh Century

realm, the ritual head of the State, the chief of a dynastic clan, and mediator between Heaven and the people he represented.94 (i)  Philosophy and Practice The first point of difference of the Song compared to the Tang was with their revival of a neo-Confucian worldview. In part, this was a reaction to centuries of alien influence on Chinese politics and thought. The Song tried to rectify this by applying ancient Chinese writings to contemporary government, in which the other-worldliness and non-attachment of competing philosophies, such as those of the Buddhists or Taoists were challenged. Neo-Confucianism became a state-ideology for the first time in Chinese history, with an emphasis upon policy based upon virtue, reason and action, to improve the reality as it existed, not soul searching based around metaphysical speculation and meditation, or as the Neo-Confucian thinker Chu Hsi explained at the end of the eleventh century: Let us attend to things that should be attended to. Those that cannot be attended to, let us set aside. By the time we have attended thoroughly to ordinary daily matters, the principles governing spiritual beings will naturally be understood.95

In addition, Song scholars, such as Ou-Yang Hsiu realised that outright suppression of Buddhism, as done under the Tang in the ninth century, was futile. Accordingly, Buddhism and Taoism was tolerated and continued to get the support and protection of many Song emperors, if the religions gave public support to them.96 The second point of difference was that the Song focused upon improving the material conditions of the poor. The increase in agricultural production was a clear goal of the first four Song emperors, whilst others, such as the sixth, Shenzong showed an unparalleled interest in improving the situation for the peasants and the unemployed. Shenzong was influenced by the statesman, Wang Anshi who tried to limit economic speculation, eliminate monopolies, establish price controls, regulate wages and provide pensions for the aged and unemployed. He did this, to build a strong state in which, the poor were protected, ‘from being ground into the dust by the rich’.97 Chéng Hao went

94  Glanville, L (2010) ‘Retaining the Mandate of Heavean: Sovereign Accountability in Ancient China’ Millennium—Journal of International Studies 39 (2): 326–42; Zhao, D (2009) ‘The Mandate of Heaven and Performance Legitimation in Historical China’ American Behavioral Scientist 53 (3): 416–433; Lorge, P (2005) ‘From Warlord to Emperor: Song Taizu’s Change of Heart During the Conquest of Shu’ Tóng Pao 91 (4): 111–25. 95  Chu Hsi, as noted in Gvosden, N (2000) ‘Finding the Roots of Religious Liberty in the Asian ­Tradition’ Journal of Church and State 42 (3): 507, 509. 96  See Ou-Yang Hsiu, as reprinted in de Bary, (ed) (1963) Sources of Chinese Tradition. (Columbia UP, NYC) I: 386–390; Kuhn, D (2009) The Age of Confucian Rule. (Harvard UP, Massachusetts) 18–19, 99–100, 112–14, 119. 97  Nourse, A (1944). A Short History of the Chinese (Stone, NYC). 136. Also, Wang Anshi, as recorded in de Bary, (ed) Sources of Chinese Tradition (Columbia UP, NYC, 1963) I: 409–410. For the debate between Wang Ahshi and his opponents before Emperor Shenzong, see, ‘the Court Debates’, as reprinted in Buckley, P (ed) (1993) Chinese Civilisation: A Sourcebook (Free Press, NYC) 151–55.

China 37

further, calling for radical social reform in terms of, inter alia, adequate educational facilities, storage of food for the populace, a controlled army and a more equitable distribution of land. Chang Tsai went the furthest, arguing, ‘the land of the empire should be laid out in squares and apportioned, with each man receiving one square’.98 Although there was a backlash against many of such proposals, the debate was public, and socially focused legislation proliferated for two centuries, although certain areas such as slavery, remained unchanged, due to the belief that bondage could be beneficial to slaves especially if they were non-Chinese if they had good masters.99 A third example of how the Song was different to the Tang, was that the Song sought to eliminate entrenched bureaucrats, made up of an aristocratic class of an educated, self-selecting, group of officials and hereditary power. The Song adopted a policy whereby government and administration was grounded in the loyalty of a system of classless bureaucracy based upon talent, as proven through an objective and independent examination system, not lineage. This meant that common people, for the first time in Chinese history, had realistic hopes that their sons might achieve status in the elite, non-hereditary, official class. This class became dedicated to preserving the existence of the Song.100 (ii)  Tibet, Vietnam and Korea The fragmentation of the Tang and the formation of the Song also had significant implications for many of the surrounding regions. Uniquely, the Song did seek to reunify and hold much of the territory held by former Chinese dynasties. This approach had great implications for Tibet and Vietnam. The Tibetan empire, earlier held to China with treaties that reflected a relationship like a ‘nephew and uncle’,101 dissolved into multiple regions, each lead by a different warlord, of which China sat largely to the side. Similarly, Vietnam split into northern Vietnam (Dai Vet), the Ly dynasty, and the Champa (to the direct south) and what became the Kymer empire, based around Angkor (to the south-west). All three of these would fight each other, as well as interventions by the Song, for either independence, and/or superior status to their neighbours.102

98 

Chang Tsai, as noted in de Bary, (ed) Sources of Chinese Tradition. (Columbia UP, NYC, 1963) I: 404. Song, J (2011) ‘Redefining Good Government: Shifting Paradigms in Song Dynasty’ Tóung Pao 97 (4): 301–15; Liu, W (2015) ‘The Making of a Fiscal State in Song China’ The Economic History Review 68 (1): 36–44; Hucker, C (1975) China’s Imperial Past (Stanford UP, Ca) 176–79, 272, 286–87, 345. 100 Smith, P (2004) ‘Eurasian Transformations of the Tenth to Thirteenth Centuries: The View from Song China’ Medieval Encounters 10 (1): 279–308; Kuhn, D (2009) The Age of Confucian Rule. (Harvard UP, Massachusetts) 10–11, 120–30; Gascoigne, B (2006) The Dynasties of China (Robinson, London) 116–18, 131. 101  The 821 ‘Chinese-Tibetan Treaty’, as reprinted in Schaeffer, K. (ed) (2012) Sources of Tibetan Tradition. (Columbia UP, NYC) 76. Also, Schaik, S (2013) Tibet: A History. (Yale UP, New Haven) 60–67, 75. 102 See Gelber, H (2008) The Dragon and the Foreign Devils (London, Bloomsbury) 55–58. Specifically see the 1039 ‘Declaration Against the Nung’ and the 1043, ‘Declaration Against the Champa’, and the 1076, ‘Southern Land Declaration’. All are reprinted in Dutton, G (ed) (2012) Sources of Vietnamese Tradition. (Columbia UP, NYC). 33, 82–83; Grant, R (2005) Battle: 5000 Years of Combat (DK, London) 100. 99 

38  The Eleventh Century

Conversely, the Koryo dynasty, which ruled from 918 to 1392 and gave name to the modern exonym ‘Korea’, pulled together three separate kingdoms under one umbrella, also with the same neo-Confucian polity seen with the Song. The new regime was justified because the former, ‘tyrannical and cruel’, rulers who extracted, ‘frequent labor and heavy taxes’ exhausted the people, whilst they (the rulers) lived in opulence and ignored traditional practices. This type of governing was seen as losing the Mandate of Heaven, and thus legitimacy to govern.103 Also, as with the Song in China, although there was much positive social reform, slavery continued unabated.104 (iii)  The Liao and the Xi Xia The biggest military challenges to the Song were the Liao and the Xi Xia. The largely nomadic Liao regime (which united the Khitan tribes) and existed between 916 and 1125 covered one third of the geopolitical reality that was China and Manchuria, post the collapse of the Tang. This regime arose when a Khitan chieftain named Abaoji seized power from a confederacy of tribes, and claimed the title of emperor. The empire he called ‘Great Khitan’ was renamed after the river, Liao, which flowed through their ancestral lands around the turn of the eleventh century. This dynasty came to rule over Mongolia, portions of the far eastern side of Russia, north Korea and northern China. Unlike their competitors of the Xi Xia/Western Xia/Tangut who existed in modern, northwest China who were largely, Buddhist, the Liao, were more pagan and clearly dynastic. As with most nomadic groups, continued expansion and conquest, fuelled their existence. However, these nomadic groups were not simply passing through, nor perhaps as barbaric as subsequent Chinese scholars painted them. The Liao sought to hold what they conquered, furthered urbanism and agriculture in conjunction with nomadic practices, and uniquely, they developed dual political systems for the conquered (which respected local customs), to help govern the multicultural societies under their control.105 Whether they were more advanced than their Chinese neighbours, or not, is a matter of conjecture. What is not so debateable is their record of seeking continual territorial advancement. For example, the warning sent to the Koryo dynasty in Korea at the beginning of the eleventh century stated that: As our country is about to unify land in all four directions, we will exterminate those who have not submitted to us…. Since your country does not care of the peoples’ needs, we solemnly 103  See the ‘Founding of the Later Three Kingdoms’, as reprinted in Lee, P (ed) Sources of Korean T ­ radition. (Columbia UP, NYC, 1997). I: 144–45. Also, the ‘Enthronement Proclamation of Wang Kon’, in the same volume, at 152. 104  See ‘Manjok’s Slave Rebellion’ as reprinted in Lee, P (ed) Sources of Korean Tradition. (Columbia UP, NYC, 1997) I: 200. 105  Lang, H (2013) ‘To Rule in Accordance with Local Customs: The Dual Political System of the Khitan-Liao Dynasty’ Journal of Sino-Western Communications 5 (2): 100–17; Lin, H (2011) ‘Perceptions of Liao Urban Landscapes: Political Practices and Nomadic Empires’ Archaeological Dialogues 18 (2): 223–40; Hooker, J (2007) ‘Dynasty of Nomads’ Archeology 60 (6) 28–35; Holmgren, J (1986) ‘Kinship and Succession Under the Liao Dynasty’ Tóung Pao 72 (1) 44–91.

China 39 execute Heaven’s punishment on its behalf. If you want to seek peace, you must come swiftly and surrender.106

When the Koryo did not do as demanded, the battle of Kwiju in 1019 followed, when an alleged 100,000 Liao soldiers tried to invade by crossing the Yalu River. Although the Koryo were able to repulse the enemy, a policy of negotiation, limited submission of some land, and entrenched fortification of their northern border followed. In addition, the Koryo, despite having good commercial and cultural exchanges with the Song, were unable to establish diplomatic relations with their Chinese friends, as they were cautious of upsetting their neighbours to the north. Although the Koryo were scared to join forces with the Song to fight the Liao, the Song were content to fight the Liao alone, with a succession of emperors, all leading military expeditions in their direction. These expeditions were justified, in part, because the Liao held the culturally and historically important northen parts of China, the so-called Sixteen Prefectures—a relatively small area, along the Great Wall in present day Beijing and Tianjin municipalities.107 Despite their dreams, the third emperor of the Song, Zhenzong, realised that he could not beat the Liao militarily, nor foster prosperity in his land if they were continually at risk of being raided. Zhenzong opted for a pragmatic solution, buying peace with the Treaty of Chanyuan of 1004, to stop the Liao raiding over the border. Peace was found with the Song giving ‘brotherly gifts’ to the Liao, each year, of 200,000 bolts of silk (which would have stretched to a distance of 2,400 kilometres) and 100,000 ounces of silver. The amounts, large and humiliating as they were, were less than 2 per cent of Song revenue. In addition, the border between the two states was to be clearly demarcated and guarded, to only allow authorised traffic. As such, ­Zhenzong, despite having over 900,000 soldiers at his disposal, recognised a policy of ‘co-existence’ as both politically and financially affordable. The fourth emperor of the Song, Renzong inherited this view and renegotiated the treaty with the Liao in 1042, guaranteeing peace for the greater sums of 300,000 bolts of silk and 200,000 ounces of silver.108 Renzong also concluded a peace agreement with the Xi Xia in 1044. The spark which ignited the conflict that preceded the peace agreement was a letter from the leader of the Xi Xia, Weiming Yuanhao in 1038 to the emperor of the Song. Weiming wanted to be recognised as an emperor independent of the Song. Weiming explained that this honour had been hoisted upon him by his vassals, who ‘begged for a united land with one border, a country of ten thousand chariots’. He then promised 106  See ‘So Hui: Proposals for War’, as reprinted in Lee, P (ed) Sources of Korean Tradition. (Columbia UP, NYC, 1997) I: 172. 107  For a collection of six different poems from throughout the Song dynasty, all ‘Longing to Recover the North’, see Buckley, P (ed) (1993) Chinese Civilisation: A Sourcebook. (Free Press, NYC) 169–71; Grant, R (2011) 1001 Battles (Penguin, London) 131. 108  Lau, N ‘Waging War for Peace: The Peace Accord Between the Son and the Liao in AD 1005’. In de Ven, J (ed) (2000) Warfare in Chinese History (Leiden, Brill) 215–30; Kuhn, D (2009) The Age of Confucian Rule (Harvard UP, Massachusetts) 44–46; Waterson, J (2013) Defending Heaven: China’s Mongol Wars. (Frontline, London) 7.

40  The Eleventh Century

Renzong that if he was allowed to (also) use the title of emperor, then he would ‘exert myself to maintain our good relations’.109 The Song initially refused this request to accept the title of emperor on the leader of the Xi Xia, for which six years of bloodshed would follow. When the bloodshed stopped and peace was reached, the deal involved annual tribute of 255,000 units of silk, silver and tea being given each year to the Xi Xia and somewhat uniquely, addressing the Xi Xia leader as ‘ruler’—but not emperor. Although the Song won on this small point of drafting, subsequent emperors’ of the Song found the continuing gifting of tribute to the Xi Xia unpalatable. Accordingly, when border skirmishes flared, full scale invasions (and repeated failures) from the Song into the Xi Xia territories occurred once in each decade for the next fifty years.110

8.  Conclusion

In the eleventh century, the line between warfare and peace was a fine one, as in Europe was the line between the emergence of absolute monarchy and alternative forms of power sharing. Power sharing with popular assemblies was not an option in the Muslim part of the world. Here, if it existed at all, sharing was only possible between religious and temporal leaders, with the religious, acting as a counterweight to the temporal. In China, the situation was different, and unique at that point of history, as although there were no popular assemblies of nobles, the initial focus of the rulers of the Song dynasty was on the material conditions of the poor, and not just the local nobles. In Europe, from the early decades, the pattern was different. Although all kings wanted absolute power, all assemblies wanted shared power. Assemblies and ­gatherings to deal with matters of national importance were notable in areas within Scandinavia, Scotland, Russia, and England. Of the latter, the idea that a king would hold his authority via a type of contract conducted through promises made to be a good and just ruler, can be traced to the beginning of the eleventh century. Somewhat differently, Germany developed a process where warfare could be avoided by having an established process to select the ruler via voting, rather than hereditary rule or bloodshed. Unlike the others which had a more localised feel of nobles coming together for a shared purpose, in Germany, a clearer and long-standing system evolved where the seven most powerful regional rulers in the land would elect their king. Kingship was not a hereditary position in Germany, nor, elsewhere in Europe was primogeniture an established rule. However, such an approach to avoid bloodshed in Germany was fickle, as one of the most successful kings of this period, Heinrich II showed, b ­ ludgeoning his way to power. 109  ‘Letter from Weiming Yuanhao to the Song Emperor Renzong’, 1038. As reprinted in Buckley, P (ed) (1993) Chinese Civilisation: A Sourcebook (Free Press, NYC) 140–41. 110 Sverdrup, B (2012) ‘A Neighbourless Empire: The Forgotten Diplomatic Tradition of Imperial China’ The Hague Journal of Diplomacy 7: 245–67; Lorge, P (2005) War, Politics and Society in Early Modern China (Routledge, London) 44–49.

Conclusion 41

The only thing that was more certain than not, was that a woman, as a non-warrior, could not rule. Accordingly, the end of each male monarch could easily result in war as conflict for the throne developed. Even within a settled realm, where there was more than one possible heir, war was possible. At all points, due to the fragmented state of the emerging kingdoms, support was given in exchange for benefits. The more a local ruler was offered in terms of autonomy and rewards of land and resources, the more likely he was to pledge allegiance. When absolute victory was achieved, there were no peace processes, only conquest. When a stalemate occurred, peace could be found by dividing the land, as initially occurred with the Vikings in England. When the basis for their division disappeared (the death of the opposing English king), unification occurred with shared laws, exiting mercenaries and execution of non-loyal supporters for the future monarch. The other region of the world in which treaties settled military stalemates was in China, where the Song agreed to demarcate regions with both the Liao and the Xia Xia. In both instances, peace could be reached and borders could be set for the price of tribute. Uniquely to China, considerations of status of the leader, and whether they were equal, or subservient, to the (Song) Emperor, could cause warfare, as could the need to possess culturally important areas. War would continually spill over borders, as centralised control was an elusive concept in most countries, or, as empires dissolved such as with the end of the Tang, areas that were once under control such as Tibet or Vietnam, would melt into their own warring ecosystems. Conversely, with Korea, a solid relationship with China was formed in both politics and philosophy, from which the Koryo dynasty, which would hold power for 400 years, would emerge. In Europe, to gain, or regain, control over an area, local lords would be offered advantages to switch sides and/or pledge allegiance. This was especially the case in border regions, which by the very nature of the time, were very nebulous and undefined. Germany experienced continual tension with Poland, Hungary and Bavaria. England had the same border tensions with Wales and Scotland, and post William the Conqueror, Normandy. In each instance, the fight would be over whether a regional ruler was absolute or subservient, via either a personal or a feudal obligation. A ­feudal obligation meant that a local ruler was on ultimate matters of war and justice, subservient to the direction of another king. Rulers who required outside assistance to maintain power often paid the price for that support by agreed ­subservience to another. With more embedded dynasties, outside support could often be achieved by intermarriage, as a diplomatic advantage, between established and powerful families of other regions, whereby the resources of one monarchy might be lent to another. Marriage was also used within a realm, whereby families who were defeated and a remaining threat, or those with potential resources, would be joined together. Marriage was often shown to be a more reliable tool than warfare in realising large ambitions. Dynastic marriages were often undertaken for very similar reasons, either to help to legitimise a claim, or to stake out a new one. At this point in time, marriages of people with standing rarely involved love but rather represented investments or the diplomatic equivalent of mergers, as a result of which power could be maintained.

42  The Eleventh Century

Religion continued to be a dominant cause of warfare in the eleventh century. The exception to this rule was in China, where the neo-Confucian Song moved away from any form of religious preference linked to the State. This was the complete opposite of Europe where there was radical change, primarily related to the rise of power of the papacy. This body, unprincipled and weak at the beginning of the eleventh century, was the powerhouse of Christendom by the end of the century. The key to their power was the establishment of a mechanism for the selection of popes, and appointment of regional church leaders, free from outside interference from temporal authority. Once the papacy controlled its own electoral processes, the Catholic Church positioned itself as the only body with a direct line to God. The tools they came to use to achieve power were interdict, anathema and excommunication. Together, these tools threatened to block the gates of heaven opening for people, if they did not do as they were told. These tools were very effective to those who believed the papacy had the power it boasted of. Those of the shared Christian faith who did not believe this were challenged as heretics. The fight against heresy within western Europe was evident from the beginning of the eleventh century. However, initially, the focus was only upon small groups of theological enemies, as opposed to larger groups, such as Orthodox Church, although by the middle of the eleventh century, the break had been achieved. The papacy then began to gain control over the temporal realms surrounding it by offering rulers the stamp of religious legitimacy for holding power. This meant that local rulers in principalities close to Rome, through to distant rulers in places such as Poland, Hungary and even Russia, would receive their crown, and legitimacy, from the pope. The foremost example from this century was William the Conqueror, who with papal approval, managed to turn an absolute conquest of fellow Christians into a religiously approved expedition. The gifting of Sicily and southern Italy to the Normans, followed a similar process, although with the latter, the promises often involved treaties following failed attempts by papal armies to push obtain power more directly for the papacy. Either way, approval for a temporal ruler to hold power was made in exchange for a variety of promises ranging from agreeing that a country was papal fief, through to allowing the Church to govern all of its own affairs and exercise its full authority in the conquered territories. This ability of the pope to grant kingdoms, as opposed to assemblies of people or rival contestants battling for a throne was a game changer, as in many instances, the ultimate owner of a state, through a process of legitimisation became not a king, but the pope. The biggest debate of all in this area, which led to successive wars, was whether the pope was subservient to the kings and/or the Holy Roman Emperor, or the temporal rulers to the pope. Both demanded a right to be involved in the election of the other. Although initially the emperor enjoyed primacy in the time of Heinrich II, whereby a new pope could not ascend the papal throne without the agreement of the emperor, by the time of Heinrich IV, this position had been reversed, and temporal rulers were left fighting for control over their influence over national appointments, in addition to the wider question of whether their power was granted by God alone, or through God’s intermediary, the pope. By this point, the papacy had complete autonomy in its own elections, and any emperor or king, or even local ruler, who challenged the papacy

Conclusion 43

risked excommunication. This tool relieved all citizens within a region of the obligation of obedience to their ruler, from which alternative leaders would arise, with the blessing of the papacy. Bloodshed would follow. The wars stirred up by Pope Gregory VII in Germany against the Emperor Heinrich IV were exemplars of this. Where there was a variation to the theme was with the religious authorisation of conflict against Muslims. Here, justifications for warfare were tied to considerations that the land they occupied, namely Sicily, Spain or even Jerusalem, was once Christian, and therefore wrongly possessed. In each instance, the pope offered the additional incentive to fight, or a remission of sins for the combatant. The other contextual consideration of the push of western Europe into Muslim occupied lands was that by the end of the eleventh century, the overall Islamic community was fragmented. The early part of the eleventh century had seen Islam stopping to advance in most parts of the world, with the exception of northern India where the Ghaznavids, orthodox Sunni, advanced into northern India, fighting lax Sunni and heretic Shia, but saving most of their anger for the Hindus. Despite the advances on the periphery of the Muslim world, at its core, the Abbasid Caliphate, also Sunni, was seeing large chunks break off as emerging Shia Fatimids advanced from their point of origin in modern day Tunis, expanding outwards creating new cities like Cairo and taking old ones, like Jerusalem. Despite at least one deeply intolerant ruler of nonMuslims at the turn of the 11th century, they appear to have been generally tolerant, and displayed a willingness to work diplomatically with Byzantium, to achieve their political goals by treaties. However, when the judgement day promised by the Fatimids failed to arrive, and succession disputes split the dynasty, Sunni based rebellions started against their rule. The foremost rebellion was the Seljuks, who in rebelling against their former leaders, took possession of much of modern day Iran and Iraq, including placing the Abbasid caliphs of Baghdad, securely in their grip. In this inter-Muslim competition, Pope Alexander II directed both men and promises of salvation to encourage the Normans to subdue the Muslims and reclaim once Christian land. Similarly, the Caliphate of Cordoba in Spain which had splintered from the Abbasid, fractured over dynastic disputes of leadership, for which Pope Gregory VII exploited, with similar promises to the Christians forces of salvation for the reclamation of once Christian lands. These Christian efforts were successful, before the Almoravids, Sunni Muslims of even greater orthodoxy and strong dislike of nonMuslim communities, were invited into Spain from North Africa, to stem the tide. The other area where the fragmentation of Muslim dynasties had a strong influence upon Christian Europe was when the Seljuks, in continuing their wars against the Fatimids, took Jerusalem. It was this Seljuk conquest of Jerusalem which Pope Urban II heard of, from the mouth of the Emperor of Byzantium, Alexius I, who pleaded for help. The papacy then orchestrated the Christians of western Europe to respond, with the promises of salvation, the reclamation of once Christian land, and because of the atrocities being undertaken by the Seljuks in Jerusalem. Whilst the first popular response of enthusiastic pilgrims was a massacre, the second response, known as the First Crusade found success, as the Seljuks had dissolved into a series of fratricidal feuds. Dorylaeum, Antioch, and then Jerusalem fell into Christian hands, after much blood had been spilt.

III The Twelfth Century 1. Introduction

O

NE OF THE most dominant causes of war in the twelfth century was the clear establishment, throughout Europe, of independent forces as a counterweight to monarchs and the Church in the form of representative bodies of nobles. In Germany, constitutional forces began to establish clearer precedents to prevent future wars, by clarifying that ultimate power was to be attained by election, not through hereditary entitlement. Meanwhile, the battles between the emperor and the pope continued, especially throughout Italy and Germany, as each would manipulate forces, both theological and military, to achieve their goals in their ultimate quest for superiority. Whilst the emperor would argue that he obtained his divine right from God alone, the papacy would argue that it was the essential intermediary for this to occur. The final notable cause of war in Europe in this century was the development of dynastic warfare within ruling families, with members battling over who had a superior right to govern. These inter-family wars would then began to ensnare neighbours, who would always see opportunities for themselves in supporting one side or the other. The twelfth century saw many of the earlier achievements of the Christian forces in the Middle East lost, as Muslim forces began to drive them back out of the region. The driving factor was the solidification of the Sunni forces, as first witnessed with the fall of Edessa. This triggered the Second Crusade, which attacked independent Muslim communities, from which an even more solidified Sunni coalition resulted. This solidified coalition went on to destroy further Christian principalities and the Shia based opposition in Egypt. These successes gave rise to the Third Crusade, which, although managing to stem the tide, was only able to recover about half of what had been lost. The causes of war in Asia in the twelfth century emerged when the Jin eclipsed the Xi Xia, and the Song tried to form an alliance with the Jin, in the hope of reacquiring culturally important areas. This relationship was fickle, and although the culturally important areas returned to the Song, when the Jin sensed the time was right, they then tried to tackle the Song, retaking the prized areas, a large chunk of the Song Empire, and an emperor. Peace was only achieved when the Song gave the Jin vast amounts of tribute, and recorded that they were the inferior state.

The Throne of England 45 2. Monarchy, Thrones and Territory

Monarchy in the twelfth century was the source of a great many wars as individuals fought for the throne of others, and family members fought each other for dominance, often with utter ruthlessness. Perhaps the worst case of this was in Scandinavia between 1131 and 1135, when Eric ‘the Unforgettable’ from Denmark is reported to have had murdered all eight of his own children and his own nephews and nieces, to round off a quarrel with his brother, whom he had already killed.1 In other instances, such as with the formation of Spain, the violence was less spectacular, but the pattern was more common as conflict alternated between external enemies on the borders, and internal enemies, in their own family. At the turn of the twelfth century, Alfonso I (‘The Battler’) was in the middle of his 29 battles against both Christians and Muslims, as the King of Aragon, Barcelona and Navarre by battle, and Castile and Léon by marriage. Extension of territory by battle and marriage alliances (although he subsequently went to war against his ex-wife, Urraca of Leon and Castile) was the common pattern for the following generation. In some instances, new territories were carved out of recent acquisitions, such as with what became Portugal, broke from Léon and Galicia in 1128 following the battle of São Mamede, where a mother (Teresa) and her lover, battled her son, who wanted, and achieved, independence. In coming decades, as much as marriage alliances tried to bond together the different regions in emerging Christian Spain, siblings and relations were equally likely to fight each other in between periods of peace mandated by treaty, as they were to unite to fight more external enemies like the Muslims. By the end of the century, the marriage alliances were international in nature, with links between the crown of England and that of Castile, being cemented with the joining of different dynasties.2

3.  The Throne of England

The turmoil and fights surrounding the throne of England in the twelfth century had its roots solidly in the world that William the Conqueror left behind. To the north of William, was the perpetual risk that Scotland would intervene into England. The Scottish King Malcolm III had been married into, first, Norwegian nobility, and

1  Christiansen, E (1997) The Northern Crusades (London, Penguin) 25; Davies, N (2005) God’s Playground: A History of Poland, Vol I (Oxford, Oxford University Press) 60; Tanner, J (ed) The Cambridge Medieval History, Vol VII: The Decline of Empire and Papacy (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press) 601, 609; Tanner, J (ed) (1957) The Cambridge Medieval History: The Victory of the Papacy, Vol VI (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press) 379, 419. 2  MacKay, A (1977) Spain in the Middle Ages (Macmillan, London) 15–17; Diggelman, L (2004) ‘Marriage as Tactical Response: Henry II and the Royal Wedding of 1160’ The English Historical Review 119 (483): 954–64; Finucane, R (2004) Soldiers of the Faith (London, Phoenix) 29–31; Grant, R (2011) 1001 Battles (London, Penguin) 144.

46  The Twelfth Century

later, an English princess of the House of Wessex, who had fled to Scotland after the Norman conquest in 1066. William neutralised the threat by invading Scotland, defeating Malcolm, and settling a peace with the Treaty of Abernethy. Accordingly, Malcolm gave over hostages and agreed to be ‘[William’s] man’,3 in exchange for lands in England.4 Having secured the north, William then went on to secure his holdings on the other side of the English Channel. William made peace with King Philip of France in 1077, after the two kings agreed to cooperate to bring the son of William, Robert Curthose, to heel after he had rebelled against his father (and almost killed King William in battle) and siblings, and caused chaos in the border regions. When William and Robert reconciled, Robert was initially given lands in Normandy to govern. For this land a personal relationship was agreed between King William of England and King Philip of France, where, for the security of Normandy, it was agreed that the English king owed the French king a personal allegiance, not a feudal one. This meant that Normandy was not seen as a fief, held in return for the performance of a military or other service, of the French crown. When this relationship was settled, the borders between the two realms were drawn up, and both kings, promised not to stir rebellion in the provinces of the other.5

A.  Henry I When William the Conqueror died in 1087, his will did not follow any predetermined rules on primogeniture. Rather, William divided his realm between his oldest son, Robert, who took Normandy, and his middle son, William Rufus, who succeeded to the throne of England as King William II. His third son, Henry, was left money. Robert and William Rufus agreed that if either should die, the surviving sibling should inherit the estates of the other. They then went on to battle the barons that rose up against William Rufus, and jointly campaigned against the Scots after Malcolm III, who had caused so much trouble to their father, attempting an invasion of northern England in 1091, during which the Scottish king was killed.6

3  Anglo Saxon Chronicle, year 1072, as reprinted in Dickinson, W (ed) (1952) A Sourcebook of Scottish History, Vol I (Edinburgh, Thomas) 76. 4  Maddicott, J (2007) ‘Responses to the Threat of Invasion, 1085’. The English Historical Review 122 (498): 986–97; Matthews, S (2003) ‘Williams the Conqueror’s Campaign in Cheshire: Ravaging and ­Resistance in the North-West’ Northern History 40: (1): 53–70; Darby, H (1986) ‘The Marches of Wales in 1086’ Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers 11 (3): 259–78. 5  Wood, H (2008) The Battle of Hastings (London, Atlantic) 37–54; Christiansen, E (1997) The ­Northern Crusades (London, Penguin) 26–27; Crouch, D (2002) The Normans: The History of a Dynasty (London, Hambledon) 66, 73, 77, 82–83, 114–17, 142–144; Stenton, F (1985) Anglo-Saxon England (Oxford, Clarendon Press) 304, 611, 616–17. 6  Davies, N (2011) Vanished Kingdoms: The History of Half Forgotten Europe (London, Penguin) 73–77.

The Throne of England 47

Despite this relationship between Rufus and Robert, when Rufus was unexpectedly killed in a hunting accident in England, and Robert was away on Crusade, it was the third brother, Henry (soon to be Henry I), who acted quickly and took the crown of England for himself in the year 1100, with the support of a council of high-ranking nobles and the English Church. On so doing, he issued his Coronation Charter or Charter of Liberties. Henry I began this by recognising that England had been ‘oppressed by unjust exactions’ in the time his brother ruled. Accordingly, Henry made 14 promises, including protecting the Church, having fair taxes, cancelling some debts, judicial ­sentences, protecting widows and establishing ‘a firm peace in all my kingdoms’.7 A few months later, Henry I married Matilda, the daughter of the late Scottish king, Malcolm III, thus unifying the two crowns in a dynastic relationship.8 Robert’s response to the situation when he returned from Crusade was to invade England. However, this was a failure, as Henry had the support of the Church and the nobles. Robert then turned to diplomacy, agreeing the Treaty of Alton with Henry in 1101. Under this agreement, Robert agreed to recognise Henry as king of England in exchange for a yearly stipend and all but one of Henry’s possessions in the Duchy of Normandy. Although the two brothers had reconciled, in 1105 Henry invaded Normandy and defeated and captured his brother in 1106. Robert was imprisoned for the next 28 years, dying in captivity in 1134, whilst the Duchy of Normandy was placed back under the direct control of the King of England. Henry justified this act to the pope as resulting from his brother’s mismanagement of ‘the just inheritance of our father’.9 The mismanagement to which Henry referred was the continual battling of Robert against his vassals in Normandy, who were being stirred up by either the English or the French kings.10 The son of Robert Curthose, William Clito attempted to continue the fight against Henry, directing two failed uprisings in Normandy. The second uprising followed the death of Henry’s intended heir, in the wreck of the White Ship in 1120, thus creating a succession crisis that meant, in theory, Clito was next in line. However, despite support from the king of France, Louis VI, Clito could not find military success against Henry in Normandy. Soon after, Louis and Henry came to a peace treaty in which the French king recognised the English king’s rights in the duchy (for which Henry had to do homage) of Normandy. As such, it was for Henry to determine whom the duke was to be. However, wishing to ensure that he was not isolated in France, Henry married off his daughter Matilda, who had recently become single again after the death of

7  The Coronation Charter of Henry I, reprinted in Baker, D (ed) (1982) The Early Middle Ages (London, Hutchinson) 123. 8 Lack, K (2008) ‘The De Obitu Willelmis: Propaganda for the Anglo-Norman Succession, 1087–1088’ The English Historical Review 123: (505): 1417–56; Green, J (2007) ‘King Henry I and N ­ orthern England’ Transactions of the Royal Historical Society 6 (17): 35–55; Le Patourel, J (1971) ‘The Norman ­Succession, 996–1135’ The English Historical Review 86 (339): 225–50. 9  Morillo, S (1994) Warfare Under the Anglo-Norman Kings (Ipswich, Boydell) 29–31. 10 Poole, A (1954) From Domesday Book to Magna Carta (Oxford, Oxford University Press) 100–02, 110–15, 124–25, 327; Crouch, D (2002) The Normans: The History of a Dynasty (London, Hambledon) 114–17, 130–43, 162–69, 170–78; Fawtier, R (1974) The Capetian Kings of France (London, Macmillan) 16–19.

48  The Twelfth Century

her first husband, Emperor Heinrich V, to a prominent and independent nobleman in France, the Duke of Anjou, in 1128. Tradition has it that this duke, Geoffrey liked to wear a sprig of bright yellow broom blossom (planta genista in Latin) in his helmet which earned him the soubriquet ‘Plantagenet’, by which name the Angevin dynasty became known.11

B.  Stephen and Matilda Aware of the succession crisis that would follow his passing, Henry mandated before his death in 1135, and his barons agreed, that the crown should pass to his daughter, Matilda. This transition was despite precedents for female rule in the twelfth century being very weak, due to a belief that to be a ruler, one also had to be a warrior, or at least, leader of the fighters.12 Following Henry I’s death, most of the barons broke their promise to support Matilda when her cousin (also a grandchild of William the Conqueror), Stephen of Blois, arrived in England from France ahead of Matilda. The barons of England and the pope did not object to Stephen’s action (and justification that on his deathbed, Henry had released the barons from their oath), due to their dislike of Geoffrey of Anjou and their resentment of Matilda, who had a reputation for haughtiness, and the memory of her first husband, Emperor Heinrich V and his entanglements with the papacy. The importance of the recognition of Stephen’s kingship by Pope Innocent II, in exchange for considerable freedoms for the Church in England, can hardly be overestimated, as this virtually acquitted the barons and Stephen of the charge of perjury, their having earlier sworn oaths of allegiance to Matilda. To ease the transition, Stephen promised in his coronation oath, inter alia, to uphold ‘all good laws and ­liberties … fully and in peace’.13 Far from accepting this outcome, Matilda, with the help of her uncle, King David of Scotland, and some barons who wanted to uphold their oath to her to be queen of England, declared Stephen a usurper, from which warfare broke out soon after. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle of 1137 recorded the time as one when ‘every man built himself castles and held them against the king; … Ravagers plundered and burnt all the villages’.14 The Scottish king crossed the border with his soldiers and battled down

11 Suger, The Deeds of Louis the Fat trans, Cusimano, L (Washington, Catholic University of America) 69–75, 111–18, 127–32; Fawtier, R (1974) The Capetian Kings of France (London, Macmillan) 84; Tanner, J (ed) (1957) The Cambridge Medieval History: Contest of Empire and Papacy, Vol V (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press) 519–531, 544, 601–04. 12  See the Oath to Matilda, reprinted in Baker, D (ed) (1982) The Early Middle Ages (London, Hutchinson) 131. Also, Lyon, A (2006) ‘The Place of Women in European Royal Succession in the Middle Ages’ Liverpool Law Review 27: 361–93. 13  The Coronation Charter of Stephen, reprinted in Baker, D (ed) (1982) The Early Middle Ages (London, Hutchinson) 132. 14  The Anglo Saxon Chronicle trans, Swanton, T (1996) (Exeter, Exeter University Press) 137.

The Throne of England 49

the country, after receiving promises from Matilda that he could have Newcastle and Northumberland if he fought to support her. His attempts were negated by the military forces and diplomatic offers of Stephen who in 1138 accepted the Treaty of Durham, whereby the king of Scotland agreed to halt his advances, in exchange for keeping what he had already obtained by force, an earldom in Northumberland and recognition of the independence of Scotland. Despite losing the military support of her uncle, Matilda battled on. At the same point, Stephen had himself crowned as king of ­England at Canterbury. Both monarchs then battled back and forth, before Matilda, who despite some early victories, found herself both politically unpopular (as she would not lower taxes) and militarily outclassed. By 1148, Matilda had been forced out of England, back into Normandy.15

C.  Henry II Victory for Stephen was short-lived, as Henry (soon to be king Henry II of England), the son of Matilda and Geoffrey Plantagenet, Duke of Normandy and Aquitaine, took up the reins of what he saw as his mother’s fight for his inheritance. With the support of a number of barons and the Scottish king, he invaded England in 1149 with a force of 3,000 men. For the following four years, Henry and Stephen battled for supremacy, leaving England bleeding in their wake. According to the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, ‘Men said openly that Christ and His saints slept’. By 1153, the barons and the Church were keen to broker a permanent peace, and Stephen and Henry were persuaded to sign the Treaty of Winchester, under which it was agreed, ‘that the king [Stephen] should be liege lord and king as long as he lived and after his day, Henry should be king: they should be as father and son: and there should always be peace and concord between them’.16 In exchange Henry promised to give Stephen surety by oath, being his liegeman and guarding the king’s life and honour. Stephen died of natural causes the following year and Henry acceded to the throne of England in accordance with the treaty. Upon his coronation, he promised, he would protect the ‘customs, gifts, liberties and freedom from pecuniary extractions’.17 In furtherance of his promises, he established circuit judges, assizes and trial by jury.18

15  Poole, A (1954) From Domesday Book to Magna Carta (Oxford, Oxford University Press) 131–33, 140–45, 341–346; Crouch, D (2002) The Normans: The History of a Dynasty (London, Hambledon) 256–72. 16 The ‘Treaty of Winchester’, as reprinted in Baker, D (ed) (1982) The Early Middle Ages (London, Hutchinson) 138; Jones, D (2012) The Plantagenets: The Kings Who Made England (London, Harper) 22–23, 38–39. 17  The Coronation Charter of Henry II, reprinted in Baker, D (ed) (1982) The Early Middle Ages (London, Hutchinson) 147. 18  See Henry’s Inquest of the Sheriffs of 1170, as reprinted in Adams, G (ed) (1947) Select Documents of English Constitutional History (London, Macmillan) 18. For commentary, Bisson, T (1973) Medieval Representative Institutions (Chicago, Dryden Press) 27; Brooke, Z (1946) ‘Henry II, Duke of Normandy and Aquitaine’. The English Historical Review 61 (239): 81–89.

50  The Twelfth Century

Henry II found himself drawn into a war with France. The cause of this was his marriage to Eleanor of Aquitaine in 1152. Eleanor was one of the most wealthy and powerful women in western Europe, with dynastic roots in south-west France. She was Duchess of Aquitaine in her own right. She had also, earlier, been married to the French king, Louis VII. Although Louis has consented to the annulment of their marriage (after his wife had been linked to some indiscretions whilst accompanying her husband on Crusade), he was angry when she then married the English King Henry, without his consent. Henry, as the feudal vassal of Louis in Normandy, should have asked his permission to marry Eleanor, and thus link Aquitaine to Normandy and, thus, to England. When Henry was called to answer to Louis for this act of disobedience, Henry neglected the summons. For this slight, the royal court of France pronounced all of Henry’s property forfeit as that of a rebel vassal. In the tension that started to build around the two kings, Henry proved more successful than Louis in securing the alliance of other nobles in France. Despite this advantage, Henry also knew that his own realm was not yet fully settled and was vulnerable. Accordingly, it was in the interests of both kings to resolve the conflict before blood was spilt. The peace treaty that followed in 1154 centered on the principle that Aquitaine (like Normandy) was still part of the French realm, for which homage was ultimately due to the French king. As part of this feudal relationship, as in Normandy, if any nobles under the control of the English crown in Aquitaine had cause to complain, the appeal would go to the French crown. These principles were repeated in successive treaties between England and France in 1160, 1162, 1177 and 1189, with the notable addition that matters of dispute were to be sent for arbitration between three designated archbishops.19 In between the treaties with France, Henry II had to battle his own wife, Eleanor, and three of their sons—Henry, Geoffrey and Richard—all who were at the forefront of the Great Revolt of 1173–74. The only one of his children with whom he did not war against was his daughter Matilda, who had been married to Heinrich the Lion, the Duke of Saxony. The spark for the revolt was came from the young Prince Henry, who was followed by his brothers (Richard and Geoffrey), who wished to break away from being dependent on their father, both in matters of decision-making and for money. Prince Henry had also been close to Thomas Becket (his former tutor and latterly Archbishop of Canterbury), and may have held his father Henry responsible for the death of Becket in 1170 after the Archbishop had vehemently objected to Henry’s insistence, in the Constitutions of Clarendon, that religious personnel charged with secular crimes should be tried in the normal courts of the land like any other citizen. Whether Henry explicitly ordered the killing of Becket that was carried out by four knights before the altar in

19  Turner, R (2009) Eleanor of Aquitaine (New Haven, Conn, Yale University Press) 38–40, 58–61, 134–36, 174–78, 190–91; McLynn, F (2007) Richard and John: Kings at War (London, DaCapo) 19–20, 252; Crouch, D (2002) The Normans: The History of a Dynasty (London, Hambledon) 188–89, 246–248; Fawtier, R (1974) The Capetian Kings of France (London, Macmillan) 140; Brooke, C (1987). Europe in the Central Middle Ages (London, Longman) 64–65, 105.

The Throne of England 51

Canterbury Cathedral is a question of debate. Pope Alexander III responded to the killing by canonizing Becket, but forgiving the English king after he did significant penance.20 Henry’s sons were not so quick to forgive their father. This split was directly supported by a number of disgruntled barons, the French king, Louis VII (to whom Henry’s sons pledged allegiance),21 and Henry’s own wife, Eleanor. Eleanor had become preoccupied with the permanence of her patrimony, and feared it would be swallowed up in Henry’s empire. She was particularly concerned to ensure that the Aquitaine titles would pass directly to her (favourite) son Richard, without passing through the intermediary of Henry. Eleanor’s defection to the alliance was considered the most shocking of all, as whilst there were dozens of examples of sons rebelling against their fathers, there were none of queens raising the standard of revolt against their king and husband. In light of such behaviour from Eleanor, when Henry captured his wife, he found little difficulty in imprisoning her for the next 16 years.22 Reconciliations between Henry II and his sons, when they did occur, quickly unraveled as further attempts by the king to repartition his empire in his will to the satisfaction of all of his sons always offended one or more of them, especially Richard. The conflict paused briefly in June 1183, when the oldest of the sons, Henry, died of natural causes, as did the other brother Geoffrey in 1185, thus making the division somewhat simpler. However, Richard refused to accept the new plan (for him to give up Aquitaine to his younger brother John, in exchange for the crown of England) as his father demanded. Henry then invaded Aquitaine to force Richard to bend to his will, but was defeated by the combined forces of Richard and the new French king, Philip II, at Ballans in 1189. The peace treaty that followed saw Richard accept Henry’s original terms, becoming the heir apparent to the Angevin empire, just before the English king died.23

D.  The Orbit of England: Scotland, Ireland and Wales King Henry II achieved complete mastery over Scotland. Here, despite the loyalty of the Scots towards him and his mother, Henry II treated the next Scottish king, Malcolm IV, with disdain, taking back all of the northern parts of England that

20  The ‘Constitutions of Clarendon’, as reprinted in Rosenwein, B (ed) (2006) Reading the Middle Ages: Sources from Europe, Byzantium and the Islamic World (Ontario, Broadview) 371. Note the ‘Letter of Becket’, reprinted in Baker, D (ed) (1982) The Early Middle Ages (London, Hutchinson) 196–97; Jones, D (2012) The Plantagenets: The Kings Who Made England (London, Harper) 31, 78–79, 88–90. 21  To whom the brothers made a solemn pact in Paris, ‘not to forsake the King of France, nor to make peace with their father, save through Louis VII and the French barons’. See Poole, A (1954) From Domesday Book to Magna Carta (Oxford, Oxford University Press) 332–34, 345. 22  Jones, D (2012) The Plantagenets: The Kings Who Made England (London Harper) 51–52, 80–81. 23  McLynn, F (2007) Richard and John: Kings at War (London, DaCapo) 40; Turner, R (1995) ‘The Problem of Survival for the Angevin Empire: Henry II’s and His Sons’ Vision Versus Late Twelfth Century Realities’ The American Historical Review 100 (1): 78–96.

52  The Twelfth Century

­ alcolm’s father had obtained, in return for rights to lands in central England for M the Scottish king. The next Scottish king, William I, was not willing to accept such behaviour, and in an attempt to regain the northern territories invaded England in 1173. This was a disaster, as William was captured and could only gain his freedom by agreeing to the 1174 Treaty of Falaise. The humiliated William agreed that he was now ‘the liege man of the lord king [of England] against every man, for Scotland and for all his other lands; and has done him fealty as to his liege lord’.24 The proof of his loyalty was allowing English soldiers to occupy several important Scottish castles, paying for the privilege of English occupation, and having to obtain permission from the English crown before putting down any local uprising in Scotland. The next English king, Richard I, reversed this situation in 1189, for the price of 10,000 marks of silver. Richard wanted this silver to help with the costs of his planned Crusade. When this money was secure, Richard acknowledged that the 1174 Treaty reflected extortions based upon William I’s capture and abandoned the English occupation of the castles he held in Scotland. Specifically, ‘we have freed him from all compacts which our good father Henry, king of England, extorted from him by new charters’.25 For this deal, by which King William achieved the effective independence of Scotland, he was loyal to Richard. Wales had proven problematic throughout the twelfth century for both Henry I and Henry II. Henry I was willing to allow his vassals on the Welsh Marches expand at the expense of the others, with a chronicle from the late twelfth century recording Henry as saying, ‘you were always pestering me for a portion of Wales. Now I will give you the land of Cadwgan ap Bleddyn [King of Powyrs in mid-Wales] now go and take possession of it’.26 Such interventions always produced violent reactions in Wales, with large-scale attempts to push the English out of the region in 1114 in 1121. On each occasion Henry was unapologetic, explaining the legitimacy of his actions in the following terms, ‘it is we who hold the power, and so are free to commit acts of violence and injustice against these people [the Welsh]; and yet we know full well that it is they who are rightful heirs to the land’.27 Unsurprisingly, when the opportunity arose with the civil war in England that broke out in 1135, the Welsh took part in a large scale revolt in 1137 under the leadership of Owain Gwynedd. Over the next 20 years Owain consolidated his position in north Wales, before Henry II came to power, invading in 1157 and 1165. Although Owain was not destroyed, in both instances, Henry settled more land and rewarded loyal Welsh nobles who were willing to fight the so-called ‘king of Wales’ on behalf of the English king.28

24  The 1174 ‘Treaty of Falaise’, as reprinted in Dickinson, W (ed) (1952) A Sourcebook of Scottish History, Vol I (Edinburgh, Thomas) 77–78. 25  The 1189 ‘Agreement with Richard’, as reprinted in Dickinson, W (ed) (1952) A Sourcebook of Scottish History, Vol I (Edinburgh, Thomas) 79. 26  The ‘Twelfth Century Chronicle’, as reprinted in Cohen, M (ed) (2004) History in Quotations (London, Cassell) 220. 27  As noted in Gerard of Wales, The Journey Through Wales trans Thorpe, T (1978) (Harmondsworth, Penguin) Book I, ch 2. 28 Stenton, F (1985) Anglo-Saxon England (Oxford, Clarendon Press) 575–78; Poole, A (1954) From Domesday Book to Magna Carta (Oxford, Oxford University Press) 292–95.

The Throne of England 53

The third area that Henry II made advances into was Ireland. Ireland in the twelfth century had an ancient and distinctive Gaelic culture that united the country, but a fragmented political system comprising internally self-governing and competing areas. Here, Henry II followed the pattern of making allies with some of the local nobles, such as Dairmait Mac Murchada, who called for the support of the English king after he had been ousted from the throne of Leinster. Henry was happy to lend him political and military support, and in 1169 Henry authorised Richard de Clare (‘Strongbow’), to enter into Ireland and plant the roots of the Hiberno-Normans, who had close links to the English crown. This initial intervention of perhaps 1,200 men met with rapid success, as de Clare took the towns of Wexford, Waterford and Dublin. Due to a fear that he was becoming too independent, Henry followed into Ireland in 1171, landing with some 4,000 men. In so doing, Henry professed to the local Irish that he came to their country, not as their enemy, but as protector and overlord, to control the activities of the high-handed Anglo-Norman adventurers who had arrived before him, and that he would not allow them to set up an independent feudal state. To cement his claim even further, as Pope Alexander had supported William the Conqueror a century earlier, Pope Adrian confirmed that Henry’s intervention and occupation of Ireland was legitimate. Thus: [We] hereby declare our will and pleasure that, with a view to enlarging the boundaries of the Church, restraining the downward course of vice, correcting evil customs and planting virtue, and for the increase of Christian religion, you shall enter that island and execute whatsoever may tend to the honour of God and the welfare of the land; and also that the people of that land shall receive you with honour and revere you as their lord … and saving to the blessed Peter and the Holy Roman Church the annual tribute of one penny from every house …29

The majority of the Irish leaders, including local king Rory O’Connor, accepted Henry as overlord, especially in those areas with a strong Norman influence. Outside of these areas, as the Treaty of Windsor of 1175 explained: The king of England has granted Rory O’Connor, his liegeman, king of Connacht, as long as he shall faithfully serve him, that he shall be king under him, ready for his service, as his man. And he shall hold his land as fully and as peacefully as he held in before the lord king entered Ireland, rendering him tribute. And that all the rest of the land and its inhabitants under him shall be brought to account, so that they pay their full tribute to the king of England.30

29 The ‘Bull Laudabiliter’, as reprinted in Curtis, E (ed) (1943) Irish Historical Documents 1172–1922 (London, Methuen) 17–22. The authorisation and confirmation of Henry’s title to the lordship of I­ reland was reconfirmed by Pope Alexander III in 1172 (in Curtis, at 19–22). Pope Urban III also affirmed English control over Ireland. For commentary, see Poole, A (1954) From Domesday Book to M ­ agna Carta (Oxford, Oxford University Press) 302–04, 309; McLynn, F (2007) Richard and John: Kings at War (London, DaCapo) 83, 86; John of Salisbury Policraticus trans, Nederman, C (2007) (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press) 31, 116; Carlyle, A (1906) A History of Medieval Political Theory in the West, Vol IV (London, Blackwood) 334–40. 30  The 1175 ‘Treaty of Windsor’, as reprinted in Curtis, E (ed) (1943) Irish Historical Documents 1172–1922 (London, Methuen) 22–23. The Charters of Dublin (1192) and Drogheda (1194) are in the same volume, at 23–28.

54  The Twelfth Century

For control over the areas O’Connor did not directly possess but of which he was the theoretical king, each Irish man still had to pay tribute (one cow hide for every 10 ­cattle) to Henry. O’Connor was also obliged to subject all of Ireland to the religious provisions of Rome. In reality, the situation was always tenuous, due to O’Connor’s view that he was not actually subordinate to Henry, and Henry possessing very little real control in the situation. Nonetheless, the English continued with a program of feudalism in Ireland, making a series of grants of land in return for homage, and providing civic liberties to Dublin (akin to the foremost municipal charters in England of the period) in 1192 and then to Drogheda in 1194.31

4. Wars between the Papacy and Empire

A.  The Concordats of London and Worms Heinrich V, the king of both Germany and Italy, and Roman Emperor from the year 1111, was married to Matilda, daughter of the English monarch, Henry I. As they failed to have children, Heinrich V was the fourth and last ruler of the Salian dynasty. Despite his weakening grip on Poland and Bohemia, he was forced to spend a considerable part of his life waging war in Italy and battling a belligerent papacy that attempted to exclude him from matters he considered his prerogative. Although he had earlier fought for the papacy against his own father, when Heinrich V was king, he became much more concerned with the nuances of politics in Germany and the rights of the king, than the rights of the pope. Accordingly, Heinrich V continued the practice of lay investiture, awarding important church positions to people he could trust in Germany. Pope Pascal did not directly condemn this, out of fear of an antipope being set up by Heinrich. However, he did ensure that Germany fell from the cultural and economic growth occurring in the rest of Europe at the time. Trying to find a balance over the independence of the Church and the needs of kings to have men in positions of power they could trust was also a problem in England and France. The solution they reached was that the king gave up his right to invest bishops and abbots with office, but before they were appointed, they had to come and promise homage to the king before consecration. At home, Heinrich V was initially willing to give up his right of investiture and greater control of church matters in Germany directed from Rome, in exchange for a large amount of property that the Church had acquired in recent centuries. However, the bishops in Germany were thrown into uproar at the prospect of losing their temporalities and control of their 31  See the 1185 ‘Grant of Prince John to Lands in Ireland’, the 1192 ‘Civic Liberties of Dublin’ and the 1194 ‘Grant of Urban Liberties to Drogheda’, all reprinted in Curtis, E (ed) (1943) Irish Historical Documents 1172–1922 (London, Methuen) 24–27; Tanner, J (ed) (1958) The Cambridge Medieval History: Decline of Empire and Papacy, Vol VII (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press) 540–43; Jones, D (2012) The Plantagenets: The Kings Who Made England (London, Harper) 79–81.

Wars between the Papacy and Empire 55

churches, and forced Heinrich to change his position. Heinrich made this change of position known to Pascal when he arrived in Rome to be crowned as emperor. When Pascal refused to concede, Heinrich captured him, from which position Pascal promised in the year 1111, ‘[I]f the clergy and the people elect a bishop or an abbot without first gaining your consent, he shall not be consecrated until you have invested him with office’.32 Seven years later after the death of Pascal, Pope Gelasius II, was unanimously elected by the synod without the involvement of Heinrich V. For this act, the emperor t­ hreatened to return to Rome. For this threat and subsequent deployment, ­Heinrich V was excommunicated. Undeterred, Heinrich marched on Rome and placed his own antipope (Gregory VIII) in Saint Peter’s Basilica. Although Gelasius was able to return to Rome when under Norman protection after Heinrich had left, he was again chased out by the local citizens in Rome. When Gelasius died, in exile, he was succeeded by Pope Calixtus II, who, despite excommunicating Heinrich V for his continuing practice of lay investiture, realised that another attempt at a deal was in their mutual interests. That deal, known as the Concordat of Worms, was concluded in 1122. The Concordat was, in essence, a peace treaty between the two powers, which ended 50 years of conflict. It was agreed that the emperor, besides a general guarantee of the security of Church property and freedom of elections in Rome from outside interference, surrendered his right of investiture outside of Germany. In Germany, ‘the elections of bishops and abbots … who pertain to that realm, shall be made in thy [the emperor’s] presence’.33 If there were any disputes over these elections, the emperor would decide. Outside of Germany, the emperor’s presence was not required in such high level appointments in the Church. The emperor also promised to restore all of the possessions of the churches and princes taken in the time of his father and himself in Italy, but those in Germany, remained outside the ownership of Rome.

B.  Lothair II and Conrad III When Heinrich V died in 1125, an Election Notice was sent out by the Archbishop of Mainz, as Archchancellor of Germany, to each of the seven members of the kingdom

32  The ‘Second Privilege Which Pascal II Granted to Henry V’, as reprinted in Thatcher, O (ed) (1905) A Sourcebook for Medieval History (NYC, Scribner) 163. Also, ‘Pascal II’s Renunciation of Regalia, 1111’, as reprinted in in Laffan, R (ed) (1929) Select Historical Documents: 800–1492 (NYC, Holt) 49–51; Carlyle, A (1906) A History of Medieval Political Theory in the West, Vol IV (London, Blackwood) 31–39, 49–60, 66–71, 75, 110–20. 33 ‘The Concordat of Worms, 1122’, as reprinted in in Laffan, R (ed) (1929) Select Historical Documents: 800–1492. (NYC, Holt) 52–54. Norwich, J (2011) Absolute Monarchs: A History of the Papacy (London, Random) 122; Carlyle, A (1906) A History of Medieval Political Theory in the West, Vol IV (London, Blackwood) 124–28, 142–64; Tanner, J (ed) (1957) The Cambridge Medieval History: Contest of Empire and Papacy, Vol V (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press) 102–04, 160–61, 610.

56  The Twelfth Century

who were members of the Diet meant to, ‘take the necessary action in regard to the serious problems that confront us: the general state of the kingdom, the question of a successor, and other matters’.34 The man the electors opted for, despite having no hereditary claims to the throne, was Lothair II, the Duke of Saxony. They decided not to award the kingdom to the nephew of Heinrich V, Duke Frederick of Swabia. Frederick did not accept Lothair’s election, and civil war broke out in what was a period of confusion and disorder in Germany over questions of the legitimate ruler and/or the independence of various houses. Frederick was supported by his younger brother, Conrad III. After years of battle, Conrad agreed to support Lothair as King of the Germans, if Lothair would promise that Conrad would be his heir. Lothair agreed, and as a sign of good faith, named Conrad as King of Italy as 1128. This deal was supported by the pope at the time, Honorius II and later Innocent II, both of whom were keen to defend the rights of the Church under the Concordat of Worms, whilst at the same time obtaining powerful temporal support to buttress support for their position in Rome. The legitimacy of Lothair as Emperor, was thus linked to the emperor swearing to protect the papacy.35 The selection of Pope Innocent II in 1130 was not without incident, from which antipope Anacletus II arose. Roger II, the king of Sicily who had previously had good relations with Honorius, now had to make a choice between the two contenders. When Anacletus promised to legitimize the kingdom of Sicily as his, Roger knew which way to vote.36 The problem for Roger was that Pope Innocent II’s supporter included both the Emperor Lothair, and the next in line, Conrad III. Accordingly, when Lothair II died in 1137, one of the first acts of the new king was to advance his forces into Italy to fight the Normans in Sicily. Although he had some success, he could not complete a conquest by prolonged occupation, and Conrad III returned to Germany to deal with a civil war that had developed after the son-in-law of Lothair who ruled in Saxony, refused to accept Conrad as ruler. Conrad also ensured that his siblings were married into ruling houses in Bohemia and Poland, both of which were also given greater autonomy.37 Not satisfied with the absence of Conrad III, Pope Innocent II took matters into his own hands, by excommunicating Roger II of Sicily in 1139. Roger replied by having some papal troops attacked. Innocent responded by mustering what forces he could and then directly attacking Roger of Sicily. This was as much as a disaster for Pope Innocent II as it had been for Pope Leo nearly 100 years earlier. Pope Innocent II was captured and to obtain his liberty, he had to lift the order of excommunication and 34  The 1125 ‘Election Notice’, as reprinted in Thatcher, O (ed) (1905) A Sourcebook for Medieval History (NYC, Scribner) 166–67. 35  The 1131 ‘Coronation Oath of Lothair II’ as reprinted in Thatcher, O (ed) (1905) A Source Book for Mediaeval History. Selected Documents Illustrating the History of Europe in the Middle Age (NYC, Scribner) 169. 36  ‘The Grant of the Kingdom of Sicily, 1130’, as reprinted in Laffan, R (ed) (1929), Select Historical Documents: 800–1492 (NYC, Holt) 73–74; Fried, J (2015) The Middle Ages (London, Harvard University Press). 165–66. 37 Davies, N (2005) God’s Playground: A History of Poland, Vol I (Oxford, Oxford University Press) 60; Brooke, C (1987) Europe in the Central Middle Ages (London, Longview) 295–97.

Wars between the Papacy and Empire 57

once more recognize Roger II as the legitimate, ‘king of Sicily, of the duchy of Apulia and the principality of Capua’.38 The significance of this recognition was not only that Roger had been recognised by the pope as the legitimate ruler, but also, that Sicily had now been raised to the status of a kingdom, and not just a papal fief, as it had been previously.39 Conrad III was furious upon hearing this news, as he regarded the southern territories of Italy as part of the Roman Empire, and therefore his, so that the pope had no right to alienate any of the territories or crown anyone else. The response of the papacy, which now viewed Roger of Sicily as a useful friend, as opposed to an excommunicated enemy who had held the pope prisoner, was that Conrad III should obey and respect the decisions of the pope. Conrad replied by meddling in ecclesiastical affairs wherever he could, and reaching an alliance with Constantinople, the theological enemy of Rome, whereby ‘we two should have the same interests, the same friends, and the same enemies, on land and sea’.40

C.  Frederick Barbarossa Before Conrad III died in 1152, he designated his nephew, Frederick Barbarossa, as opposed to his own son, his successor. Despite this clear indication from his uncle, the records suggest that Barbarossa was elected, in accordance with the now established practice, King of Germany, ‘not by lineal descent but through election by the princes’.41 He also later became King of Italy, and, by virtue of his marriage to Beatrice of Burgundy, King of Burgundy. He concentrated his power, set up standard principles of justice throughout his realm and sought to end war due to private feuds. Public war was directed against any within his realm, such as Heinrich the Lion (who was married to the daughter of the English king, Henry II, Matilda) who did not serve their king as demanded, as required by an increasingly tight feudal structure. Frederick also crushed the dissent to his status as overlord of his Polish vassals, which was consolidated in the Peace of Krzyskowo of 1157, before taking their tribute and then taking the Polish and Hungarian leaders, in addition to those from Germany, on numerous campaigns with

38  The

quote is from Norwich, J (2011) Absolute Monarchs: A History of the Papacy (London, Random) 135; see also Carlyle, A (1906) A History of Medieval Political Theory in the West, Vol IV (London, Blackwood) 288–91. 39  Fried, J (2015) The Middle Ages (London, Harvard University Press). 195 40  The 1142 ‘Letter of Conrad III to the John Comnenus’, as reprinted in Thatcher, O (ed) (1905) A Source Book for Mediaeval History. Selected Documents Illustrating the History of Europe in the Middle Age (NYC, Scribner) 173, and the 1140 ‘Letter of Bernard to Conrad III’, in the same volume at 172; Davies, N (2011) Vanished Kingdoms: The History of Half Forgotten Europe (London, Penguin) 119–20; Tanner, J (ed) The Cambridge Medieval History: Contest of Empire and Papacy, Vol V (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press) 158–61, 421. 41  Otto of Freising, The Deeds of Frederick Barbarossa trans, Mierow, C (2004) (NYC, Columbia University Press) 115. Note, Weiler, B (2012) ‘Tales of Trickery and Deceit: The Election of Frederick Barbarossa’ Journal of Medieval History 38 (3): 295–317.

58  The Twelfth Century

him, particularly in Italy. Even in Denmark, rival claimants for power would turn to Barbarossa, offering homage and fealty in return for his support.42 Upon his election in Germany, Barbarossa promised to ‘defend the holy Roman church, and carry on the plans for the honor and dignity of the Apostolic See. Your enemies shall be our enemies, and those that you hate, shall suffer our displeasure’.43 However, from the outset, with his coronation as King of Germany, Frederick displayed a forthright attitude indicating that he was not beholden to Rome, by simply notifying the Pope of his election. In no way did he suggest or imply that the Pope had any rights over this appointment.44 The initial offer of support from Frederick to the Pope was welcome news, since at this time the pope having great difficulty dealing with Roger II of Sicily, Constantinople, and Arnold of Brescia. Arnold was a radical priest who preached in Rome and called upon the Church to divest itself of all worldly pomp, renounce its powers and privileges, and revert to the poverty and simplicity of the early Christian Fathers. Arnold’s teaching had struck a chord with the local authority in the Senate of Rome, against which the new Pope, Lucius II, had taken up arms in 1145 and led a military assault on the Capitol, where the Senate was installed, to regain control of Rome. The attack by Lucius II was a disaster for his men and for him personally, since he died from his wounds. The Senate’s displeasure with the papacy continued with the next Pope, Eugene, who was driven into exile, although not before he had excommunicated Arnold and placed the entire city of Rome under an interdict because of its protection of him. With this stand-off, Pope Eugene felt it necessary to deepen his relationship with Barbarossa, which he did by expressing that he ‘heartily approved [Frederick’s] election’.45 To cement the deal between Frederick and the papacy, the 1153 Treaty of Constance was concluded. With this, Pope Eugene promised to ‘honor the king as the most dearly beloved son of Saint Peter and that he will give him the imperial crown whenever he shall come to Italy for it’. Conversely, Barbarossa agreed not to grant any land in Italy to Constantinople, not to make peace with the Normans without papal approval, and to ‘use all of his power to reduce the [citizens of Rome] to subjection of the pope and 42 For his key laws establishing uniform systems in his realm, see the 1156 ‘Decree of Frederick I Concerning the Keeping of the Peace’, as reprinted in Thatcher, O (ed) (1905) A Sourcebook for Medieval History (NYC, Scribner) 42; And, ‘The Diet of Roncaglia, 1158’, reprinted in Laffan, R (ed) (1929) Select Historical Documents: 800–1492 (NYC, Holt) 84. Munz, P (1964) ‘Frederick Barbarossa and the Holy Empire’. Journal of Religious History 3 (1): 20–37; Davies, N (2005) God’s Playground: A History of Poland, Vol I (Oxford, Oxford University Press) 60; Moss, W (2005) A History of Russia, Vol I (London, Anthem) 55–66; Sawyer, P (1997) Medieval Scandinavia (London, Minnesota University Press) 115. 43  The 1152 ‘Letter of Frederick I to Eugene III’, as reprinted in Thatcher, O (ed) (1905) A Source Book for Mediaeval History. Selected Documents Illustrating the History of Europe in the Middle Age (NYC, Scribner) 176–77. 44  Carlyle, AJ (1910) A History of Medieval Political Theory in the West, Vol III (London, Blackwood) 152. Also, Gillingham, J (1971) ‘Frederick Barbarossa: A Secret Revolutionary?’ The English Historical Review 86 (338): 73–78. 45  The 1152 ‘Answer of Eugene III’, as reprinted in Thatcher, O (ed) (1905) A Source Book for M ­ ediaeval History. Selected Documents Illustrating the History of Europe in the Middle Age (NYC, Scribner) 178; Otto of F ­ reising, The Deeds of Barbarossa trans Mierow, C (2004) (NYC, Columbia University Press) 143; Moore, R (2012) The War on Heresy: Faith and Power in Medieval Europe (London, Profile) 160.

Wars between the Papacy and Empire 59

the Roman Church’.46 Accordingly, when the next Pope, Adrian, called for help to control Rome in 1154, Frederick began the first of the six journeys he would make to Italy. (i)  Communes, Veches and Cortes As Frederick Barbarossa marched into Italy, he became aware of a new type of political organisation, the commune, in which power was not held by the Church or the king. These bodies, which were self-governing were described by Barbarossa’s biographer, Otto of Freising, in the following terms: They are so devoted to liberty that, in order to escape the abuse of power, they prefer to be ruled by the authority of consuls rather than of princes. Three classes are recognised amongst them, namely greater nobility, lesser nobility and plebs. To repress class pride the said consuls are elected not from one but from all the classes, and lest the consuls should yield to lust for power, they are changed almost every year … and in this large area hardly a single noble or prominent man can be found who does not submit to the authority of his city.47

These groups that were appearing were different to peasants. Peasants were one rung above slaves, known as serfs. In reality, the difference between slaves and serfs was often minimal, as attested to by the fact that the same word, servus, was often used for both as the category was positioned within a fixed feudal structure in which there was a clear hierarchy of rights. From the year 1000 CE, laws existed throughout Europe that made it clear that, for the serfs, their bondage was hereditary, transmissible from parents to children. They were bound to the soil and sold along with it. They could not marry outside of their class, nor outside the domain or the fief on which they lived, without the permission of their lord, and they had to pay a certain sum for the privilege. Serfs had no legal status. They could not appear in court by themselves, nor testify as witnesses. They were subject to an annual poll tax, and if they died without clear next of kin, they lost their property. If they ran away and tried to escape their predicament, they could be pursued by their lord and returned with force. Even the Church did not encourage practical measures that would improve the position of serfs, warning that it would ‘declare anathema those who excite the serfs to disobedience’.48 The groups that were developing in the urban areas around many parts of Europe, were different to the peasants as they were not tied to the land. These groups were 46  ‘The Treaty of Constance’, as reprinted in Laffan, R (ed) (1929) Select Historical Documents: 800–1492 (NYC, Holt) 75. 47 Otto of Freising, ‘Account of the Lombard Towns’, reprinted in Laffan, R (ed) Select Historical Documents: 800–1492 (NYC, Holt) 77–78. 48  The quote is from the Bishop, Ives de Chartres, as noted in MacKinnon, J (1906) A History of Modern Liberty, Vol I (London, Longmans) 93. The law from the year 1000 is that ‘Forbidding of the Unfree Classes to Attempt to Free Themselves’, as reprinted in Thatcher, O (ed) (1905) A Sourcebook for Medieval History. (NYC, Scribner) 545. Note also the later law from 1224, ‘Recovery of Fugitive Serfs’, also in Thatcher, at 548. MacKinnon, J (1906) A History of Modern Liberty, Vol I (London, Longmans) 26–28; Brooke, C (1987) Europe in the Central Middle Ages (London, Longview) 85–86, 114–15.

60  The Twelfth Century

developing economic independence, and actively sought to protect their status within the walled towns they lived in that thrived in times of limited control by the monarchs. In Germany, they were known as burgers, with the first privileges for legal autonomy (to convene markets, fortify themselves and collect some taxes) being given to Worms in 1074 by Heinrich IV, in gratitude for the loyalty that the city had shown him.49 In England, the new actors were known as burghers, and in France, bourgeois. Their increasing independence was often reflected by the granting of charters to particular areas. For example, Henry I granted London a Charter of Liberties in the year 1100 in which he conceded to the leading citizens the right to elect their own sheriff, relief from some tolls and the ability to collect others. From this precedent, future kings in both England and Germany would grant successive charters to certain urban areas, all moving towards forms of self-government. This was despite some commentators of the period, such as the Benedictine monk Richard of Devizes, describing such semiautonomous urban areas as, ‘a bloated swelling of the people, a terror of the kingdom, a wet blanket on the church’.50 In the territories of the Rus, each of the nine regions had its own degree of independence, with the veches which were evident in the eleventh century, becoming much more linked to the boyars (leading men, a warrior elite representing powerful clans and associated webs of personal alliance, clients and servants). The political structures in each of these regions ranged from relative to complete autocracy for a ruler, with a fair degree of internal chaos and civil violence in between. In terms of control over the rulers, of note the boyars of Novgorod, acting through their own veche, set clear limits, via treaties, on what their elected prince could and could not do, and failure to live up to these demands meant that the prince would be expelled.51 For example, in 1136 the Novgorodians expelled Prince Vsevolod because, ‘he had no care for the peasants; that he wished to rule [in an area that was off-limits], and that he rode away and left the army behind’.52 Similar veche existed for Kiev, Rostov and Suzdal, of which assemblies were drawn together to discuss matters of importance, as well as replacing princes who failed to discharge their duties honourably and successfully. The abundance of such episodes suggest that shared sovereignty between the Princes and their urban subjects was, at least in the first half of the twelfth century, the rule, not the exception.53

49 

Fried, J (2015) The Middle Ages (London, Harvard University Press). 170–75. of Devizes, as noted in Cohen, M (ed) (2004) History in Quotations (London, Cassell) 207; Wickham, C (2014) ‘The Feudal Revolution and Origins of Italian City Communes’. Transactions of the Royal Historical Society 24: 29–55; Brooke, C (1987) Europe in the Central Middle Ages (London, Longview) 151–55. 51  See, eg, the ‘Treaty of Nogorod with the Grand Prince of Tver’, as reprinted in Kaiser, D (ed) (1994) Reinterpreting Russian History (Oxford, Oxford University Press) 84, and also 21, 25, 32–37; and the 1190 ‘Treaty of Novgorod With the German Cities’, as reprinted in Vernadsky, G (ed) (1972) A Sourcebook for Russian History, Vol I (London, Yale University Press) 69. 52  The 1136 ‘Expulsion of Prince Vsevolod’, as reprinted in Vernadsky, G (ed) (1972) A Sourcebook for Russian History, Vol I (London, Yale University Press) 62. 53  Grinberg, L (2013) ‘Political Sovereignty and Eurasian Urban Centers in the Ninth through Twelfth Centuries’ Comparative Studies in Society and History 55 (4): 895–921; Moss, W (2005) A History of Russia (London, Anthem) 22–26, 60–63 50  Richard

Wars between the Papacy and Empire 61

Despite their importance, such areas with republican tendencies were slowly being eclipsed by the rise of new urban areas, such as Suzdalia, Galicia and Moscow (the last of these being mentioned first in 1147). Kiev and its republican structure was destroyed in 1169 by the forces of Suzdalia, from which both its political structures internally and its military power externally would never recover, as regional leaders, such as Vsevold III, Prince of Suzdalia, would claim the title of Grand Prince in 1200. Upon Vsevold’s death, each area became independent again, while his sons then waged war against each other, until Yuri finally triumphed over his siblings.54 Another example of groups that emerged independent of both the king and the Church were in Spain, with the cortes, from which the modern Cortes Generales evolved as the legislative body of Spain. The first cortes emerged in Aragon around 1163, as a body made up of feudal lords, local nobles and powerful owners of property, that attempted, with varying degrees of success, to control the king by keeping a tight rein on the development of new laws, the appointment of key people in the region, the treasury and the military. If the king did not respect these demands, or the laws, liberties and customs of his subjects, the citizens could resist him. The basis of this relationship was reflected in the Aragonese oath of allegiance to their king, ‘We who are as good as you and together are more powerful than you, make you our king and lord, provided that you observe our liberties, and if not, not.’55 Further cortes followed in Léon, Castile, Catalonia, Valencia, Navarre and Portugal. All of these cortes followed the Aragon example. The communes that Barbarossa was about to encounter in Italy were not new in that part of the world, with many having long standing Roman traditions of civitates which had not been forgotten. Outside of Rome, the first known case in the eleventh century of a city electing a consular form of government with fairly widespread consent, as opposed to having a ruler imposed upon them, was Pisa, in 1085. Although enfranchisement only ever ranged between 1 to 25 per cent of the population, such forms of government proliferated quickly throughout northern Italy, as Milan, Venice, Genoa and also a host of smaller communes, from Asti to Siena, followed suit.56 The most famous, and detailed, examples of this trend of communes that were to be run, independent of the papacy or the king of Germany, were Venice and Florence. In Venice, an inner council of ten nobles, an elected Senate of 300 and an elected constitutional monarch, the Doge all shared power. Similarly, Florence had a signore holding power for two months only, an inner council made up of men (in rotation) from a select group of the 21 recognised trade guilds, multiple councils with hundreds of members and, on extraordinary occasions, an assembly of all citizens, who could be 54  Moss, W (2005) A History of Russia (London, Anthem) 20–21, 54–59; Vernadsky, G (ed) A Sourcebook for Russian History, Vol I (London, Yale University Press) 31–32; Carlyle, A (1906) A History of Medieval Political Theory in the West, Vol IV (London, Blackwood) 124–28, 142–64. 55  Aragonese oath of allegiance, as reprinted in MacKay, A (1977) Spain in the Middle Ages (London, Macmillan) 105, see also at 95, 106–07, 114–15, 133, 135–42, 152–55; Carlyle, AJ (1910) A History of Medieval Political Theory in the West (London, Blackwood) Vol V, 99, 125–26 and Vol VI, 92–95, 207; Hay, D (1996) Europe in the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Centuries (London, Longman) 99–103. 56  Fried, J (2015) The Middle Ages (London, Harvard University Press) 172–75.

62  The Twelfth Century

summoned by the ringing of a great bell. However, unless so summoned, over threequarters of the citizens of Florence had no say at all, being denied all representation in the councils, which themselves were, in reality, controlled by a few of the richest merchant families.57 Barbarossa found such political relationships unfathomable. In his words, ‘it is not for the people to give laws to the prince, but to obey his command’.58 The first group to really feel the implications of these words was in Rome in 1155, when over 1,000 people were killed by the soldiers of Barbarossa and a further 600 imprisoned. The pope then absolved the soldiers from the guilt of the bloodshed. Arnold, who had been captured in the fighting, was condemned on charges of heresy and rebellion by a Church council and executed. The papacy then made peace with the people of Rome and, in return for regular payments and control of most of the city administration, the senators recognised the pope’s sovereignty, agreed to swear allegiance to him and restored the papal revenues. To conclude the matter, Barbarossa was crowned emperor by the pope, with the word ‘Holy’ being added as a prefix to ‘Roman Empire’.59 (ii)  The Breach with Rome Pope Adrian was grateful to Barbarossa for the return of control over Rome; but not that grateful. The following year, in 1154 with the help of Constantinople (which Adrian had reconciled with, in contravention of the spirit of the Treaty of Constance), the pope formed a military alliance and led an army against the Norman forces in southern Italy. The pretext was that the child of Roger II, William I of Sicily, did not immediately request papal recognition of his father’s inheritance. However, the forces of the papacy and Constantinople could not defeat the Normans, and Adrian ended up being besieged in the city of Benevento. In exchange for an end to hostilities, Adrian agreed to the 1156 Treaty of Benevento. Under this treaty, Adrian agreed to exercise less control over churches in Sicily. He also promised William, ‘the kingdom of Sicily, the duchy of Apulia and the principality of Capua, … Naples, Salerno and Amalfi … and the other fiefs that were lawfully held by [Norman] predecessors as vassals of the most holy Roman Church’.60 57  For the rules on Venice, see ‘The Senate’, ‘The Doge’, and ‘The Council of Ten’, in Chambers, D (ed) (2001) Venice: A Documentary History, 1450–1630 (London, University of Toronto Press) 41–42, 45–46; Bouwsma, W (1984) Venice and the Defence of Republican Liberty (London, California University Press) 60–63, 111, 230–31; Tolbert, J (1994) Athens on Trial: The Antidemocratic Tradition in Western Thought (Princeton NJ, Princeton University Press) 128–134. 58  Barbarossa, as noted in MacKinnon, J (1906) A History of Modern Liberty, Vol I (London, Longmans) 49. 59 Moore, R (2012) The War on Heresy: Faith and Power in Medieval Europe (London, Profile) 156–59; Norwich, J (2011) Absolute Monarchs: A History of the Papacy (London, Random). 145, 145, 149, 167; Otto of Freising, The Deeds of Frederick Barbarossa trans Mierow, C (2004) (NYC, Columbia University Press) 61. 60 The 1156 ‘Treaty of Benevento’, as reprinted in Laffan, R (ed) (1929) Select Historical Documents: 800–1492 (NYC, Holt) 80; Norwich, J (1996) Byzantium: The Decline and the Fall (London, Penguin) 117, 157–59; Tanner, J (ed) (1957) The Cambridge Medieval History: Contest of Empire and Papacy, Vol V (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press) 187–89, 366–67; Abulafia, D (1988) Frederick II: A Medieval Emperor (Oxford, Oxford University Press) 25, 31.

Wars between the Papacy and Empire 63

Frederick was furious, as he saw the Treaty of Benevento as a clear denial of the rights of the empire over the region. Although Pope Adrian admitted that he had failed to consult Frederick, he denied that this was in bad faith, as the lands in question did not belong to the Holy Roman Empire. Frederick responded by beginning to meddle in Church affairs. The resulting tension came to a head at the Diet of Besancon in 1157, which followed a letter, written by Adrian to Barbarossa, asserting that the empire was a beneficium bestowed by the pope. The term beneficium was one of calculated ambiguity, either meaning ‘benefit’, or implying that the emperor was subordinate to the pope. Frederick replied through both action and words. In action, he received the ambassador of the commune of Rome, who was, despite the earlier execution of Arnold, still one of Pope Adrian’s sharpest critics. In words, Barbarossa, recalling the words from the Book of Proverbs, ‘By me kings reign and princes decree justice’,61 he then declared that he: [H]eld this kingdom and empire through the election of the princes and from God alone, who … placed this world under the rule of two swords; moreover, the apostle Peter says, ‘fear God, honour the king’. Therefore, whoever says that we hold the imperial crown as a benefice from the pope resists the divine institution, contradicts the teachings of Peter, and is a liar.62

Before this looming confrontation could be resolved, Pope Adrian died. Upon his death, two rivals, Alexander III and Victor IV, both claimed the papal seat. ­Barbarossa tried to get the kings of Europe together to help establish who was best suited to ascend the papal throne. Personally, Frederick supported Victor, who was sympathetic to the emperor’s placement of loyal bishops in the Church and tighter control over northern Italy, and who would honour the Treaty of Constance. The Normans favoured Alexander, who promised them he would honour the Treaty of Benevento. Alexander was also favoured by a number of emerging theologians, such as John of Salisbury, who, asked the question: ‘Who appointed the Germans as the judges of nations? Who endowed these rough and short tempered people with such great authority?’63 John then went on to argue for revolutionary doctrines for the lawfulness of tyranicide against dictators, added that ‘the glory of kings is to be transferred if they are found to be unjust, injurious, abusive or deceitful’.64 As it was, the council convened by Barbarossa favoured Victor, but this meant little in practice, as a schism developed that would last for the next 18 years. During this period, both the Normans and the Germans took turns fighting their way to Rome and placing their preferred

61 

Proverbs, viii.15. 1157 ‘Manifesto of the Emperor’, as reprinted in Thatcher, O (ed) (1905) A Source Book for Mediaeval History. Selected Documents Illustrating the History of Europe in the Middle Age (NYC, Scribner) 187–88. Also, the 1157 Diet of Besancon, reprinted in Rosenwein, B (ed) (2006) Reading the Middle Ages: Sources from Europe, Byzantium and the Islamic World (Ontario, Broadview) 374; and Carlyle, A (1906) A History of Medieval Political Theory in the West, Vol IV (London, Blackwood) 314–15. 63  John of Salisbury, as noted in Fried, J (2015) The Middle Ages (London, Harvard University Press) 225. 64  John of Salisbury, Policraticus trans Nederman, C (2007) (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press) 63. For the points on tyrannicide, see at 28–29, 191. 62 The

64  The Twelfth Century

c­ andidate on the papal throne, whilst the other (or the successors—there were two more antipopes following Victor) would flee, hurling excommunications at the opposition contenders and their supporters. (iii)  The Lombard League In this game, Pope Alexander III was the more astute player, as whilst Victor and the successive antipopes focused on appeasing Barbarossa, Alexander aimed for a much wider basis for support, attempting to combine both principle and pragmatism. Politically, Alexander strengthened his relationship with Henry II of England and with the Norman forces in southern Italy, as well as with the fiercely independent and often republican communes in the north of Italy. The republican communes to the north were easy to recruit, as Barbarossa had been attacking Milan and its allies in 1157, two years before Alexander came to power, over his right to appoint magistrates, take taxes and prohibit private war between the Italian regions. Barbarossa’s forces took Milan in 1158, and the city of Cremona was reduced to rubble in 1160. However, in the same year of 1160, Barbarossa’s forces were defeated at the battle of Carcano by an opposing army of nearly 5,000 Italian knights. Inspired, Milan rebuilt its walls, and by 1167 it had also established the Lombard League as a common defence agreement linking together 30 cities in northern Italy. Although the League had support in its battles against Barbarossa from Constantinople, Venice and Sicily, it did not place itself under the authority of any external power, swearing allegiance only to the ‘common advantage and interests of the said towns’.65 Nonetheless, the Lombard League was so grateful for the work of Pope Alexander in its wars with the emperor, that it named the newly founded city of Alessandria after him in 1168, outside which Barbarossa was defeated in 1175.66 The warfare between the two sides ended in the following year when Barbarossa returned to the region with 3,500 cavalry to impose his authority but was defeated by an equal number of men with whom he clashed in the far north of Italy at Legnano. This loss to Barbarossa resulted in the 1177 Treaty of Venice, in which the cities of the Lombard League retained the right of substantial self-government, in the form of freedom to elect their own councils, enact their own legislation and keep their alliances. However, they had to take the oath of fealty to the emperor and receive investiture from him, and imperial judges had the right to judge appeals from the area of the League.67

65  Oath of the Lombard League, 1167, reprinted in Laffan, R (ed) (1929) Select Historical Documents: 800–1492 (NYC, Holt) 93; Tanner, J (ed) (1957) The Cambridge Medieval History: Contest of Empire and Papacy, Vol V (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press) 369–73; France, J (1999) ‘The Battle of Carcano: The Event and Its Importance’ War in History 6 (3): 245–61. 66  Otto of Freising. The Deeds of Frederick Barbarossa trans, Mierow, C (2004) (NYC, Columbia U ­ niversity Press) 52–56, 135, 155, 218–21, 261–65; Norwich, J (2011) Absolute Monarchs: A History of the Papacy (London, Random) 144–47. 67  See Arts 9, 10, 13–21, 23, 25 and 27 of the 1177 Treaty of Venice.

Wars between the Papacy and Empire 65

The Treaty of Venice was confirmed by the Peace of Constance in 1183, in which Barbarossa, in exchange for oaths of allegiance and the right to hear some appeals, granted to the cities of the Lombard League ‘the regalia and other rights within and without the cities; as you have been accustomed to hold them’.68 Violation of the peace, by anyone, was to be met by military isolation and excommunication. Barbarossa accepted ‘the lord pope Alexander as catholic and universal pope, so he will exhibit to him due reverence’,69 from which adherence to the 1179 Third Lateran Council (as a result of which elections to the papal throne required a two-thirds majority of cardinals instead of the previous consensus) was expected. In return, the pope promised peace, lifted the excommunication of Barbarossa and committed himself to supporting him, ‘as a benignant father will aid his devoted and most beloved son’.70 The surviving antipope favoured by Barbarossa was removed from all power and sent to a distant abbey. The primacy of the pope was recognised on investiture matters, although it was agreed that the emperor could be ‘heard’. Finally, the deal was cemented with an alliance between the Holy Roman Empire and Sicily. This was consecrated in 1184 with the marriage of Barbarossa’s son Heinrich VI to Constance, the daughter of the King of Sicily, Roger II. This linking of the kingdoms of Sicily and Germany was the masterstroke of Barbarossa’s later years.71 Despite this peace, the relationship between the papacy and the Hohenstaufen dynasty remained tense. Successive popes refused Barbarossa’s attempts to make the ruling of the empire hereditary (as opposed to the established electoral process) and thus lock the Hohenstaufen dynasty into absolute power. When Barbarossa tried to circumvent this by having his son declared emperor at the same time as him, both Pope Lucius III and Pope Urban III insisted that there could not be two emperors at the same time. Urban III was particularly strong on this point as he was an avowed opponent of Barbarossa, as his family had suffered directly in Barbarossa’s wars against the Lombard League. The papacy also did what it could to prevent the envelopment of Italy by the Norman forces to the south of Rome and the German forces to the north, through the union of marriage, despite the fact that that was a key part of the Peace of Constance. The papacy also neutralized the threat of Frederick manipulating the

68  The 1183 Peace of Constance is reprinted in Thatcher, O (ed) (1905) A Source Book for Mediaeval History. Selected Documents Illustrating the History of Europe in the Middle Age (NYC, Scribner) 107. For commentary, see Raccagni, G (2013) ‘The Magna Carta of the Lombard Cities: The Peace of Constance, the Empire and the Papacy’ Journal of Medieval History 39 (1): 61–79. 69  The 1177 ‘Peace of Venice’ is reprinted in Henderson, E (ed) (1910) Select Historical Documents of the Middle Ages (London, George Bell and Sons) 420–34, Art 1. 70  Art 6. For the papal promise of peace, see Art 24. 71  The 1179, ‘Papal Election Decree of Alexander III’, as reprinted in Thatcher, O (ed) (1905) A Source Book for Mediaeval History. Selected Documents Illustrating the History of Europe in the Middle Age (NYC, Scribner) 207; Elliot, G (2009) ‘Victorious Trampling and the Politics of Frederick Barbarossa’. Zeitschrift fur Kunstgeschichte 2: 145–64; Stadtwald, K (1992) ‘Pope Alexander III’ Humiliation of Emperor Frederick ­Barbarossa’ The Sixteenth Century Journal 23 (4): 755–68; Tanner, J (ed) (1957) The Cambridge Medieval History: Contest of Empire and Papacy, Vol V (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press) 113, 165, 351, 388–90, 433–50.

66  The Twelfth Century

Senate of Rome by concluding the 1189 Treaty of Strasbourg, whereby the Senate agreed its allegiance to the pope and restored papal revenues, for which the pope promised to make substantial payments to the Senate and, at certain times, leave administration of the city in its hands. However, none of these acts, alone, was likely to lead war, although when Pope Urban rejected Barbarossa’s suggested nomination for archbishop in Trier, it was likely that conflict would follow.

D.  Heinrich VI Before theological or physical projectiles could fly between the pope and the emperor, first Urban died and then, soon after, in 1190, so did the great Barbarossa. Barbarossa was followed by his son, Heinrich VI, who was king of Germany and Italy, and by virtue of marriage to Constance in 1184, also the king of Sicily. As his relationships within Germany, and to its east with Poland, were largely passive, he was able to direct most of his energy on southern Italy. This was necessary as the new Pope, Clement III was also aware that many of the Sicilians did not want to be ruled by Heinrich. As proof of this, they crowned a rival king of their own, Count Tancred of Lecce, an illegitimate son of King Roger’s eldest son. This crowning was supported by Pope Clement III, who assented to the coronation after Tancred was elected king by an assembly of magnates in 1190. However, careful not to directly antagonise Heinrich VI, the pope decided not to actually invest Tancred with the Sicilian monarchy. Unsurprisingly, war broke out between Heinrich VI and Tancred as a result of this ambiguous situation.72

E.  The Widening Horizon for Conflict in Europe The last decade of the twelfth century ended with the capture of King Richard of England who was returning to Europe, having failed to achieve the liberation of ­Jerusalem. Richard was captured while crossing through Austria by the duke of that area, Leopold V. Leopold V had been present when Acre had been stormed in the Third Crusade, but was denied any recognition of glory or booty by Richard I. Accordingly, when he found Richard in his territory, he felt no shame in capturing him and handing the king of England over to the son of Barbarossa in 1192, the newly crowned Holy Roman Emperor, Heinrich VI. Heinrich wanted to hold Richard for his signing of the Treaty of Messina, which gave some legitimacy to the Tancred as the king of Sicily.73

72 Brooke,

C (1987) Europe in the Central Middle Ages (London, Longview) 133–40; Skinner, Q (1980) The Foundations of Modern Political Thought, Vol I (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press) 5–6; Johnson, L (1996) Central Europe: Enemies, Neighbours, Friends (Oxford, Oxford University Press) 40–42. 73  See page 78.

Wars between the Papacy and Empire 67

Despite the theory that all Crusaders, especially the leaders, were meant to be guaranteed absolute protection from such actions, the new Pope, Celestine III, condemned and excommunicated only Leopold V for his actions, but declined to follow up similar threats with the Emperor Heinrich VI, despite the appeals from many across Europe. Accordingly, Richard had to buy his freedom (at a cost of more than double the annual income of the English crown) and renounce his interests in Sicily and support for Tancred.74 With this potential support from Richard for Tancred out of the way, Heinrich VI was able to advance into Sicily in 1196 relatively unopposed. As fate would have it, Tancred died in 1195, and along with him most of the opposition to the emperor in southern Italy. To secure his control, and to avoid a repeat performance, Heinrich had Tancred’s young son blinded and castrated, and many leading Sicilian nobles executed.75 With Richard, the situation was more nuanced. Part of the reason why Richard’s ransom was so high was because the French king Philip II, who had been on C ­ rusade with Richard a few years earlier, was now actively campaigning against him and had tried to buy Richard whilst he was in custody, as Philip now considered Richard his enemy. The root of this enmity probably lay in the fact that Philip, as the first Capetian king to proclaim himself King of France rather than King of the Franks, had a deep-seated desire to push the English out of mainland Europe. There are many possible reasons why Philip set himself this goal. These include the overall failure of the Third Crusade (which brought Richard glory and Philip disdain); Richard’s decision not to marry Philip’s sister (instead he took a bride, Berengaria, from Navarre); and Philip’s taking some of Richard’s lands in France and stirring up discontent in other parts of Aquitaine and Normandy whilst Richard was imprisoned. Whatever the reasons ­chosen, both kings actively sought military alliances outside of the region. Richard gave and elicited support for his nephew Otto IV (who was the son of his sister­ Matilda) as he rose to take the crown of Germany in a disputed election, as opposed to King Philip of France, who reached an agreement with Philip of Swabia, the other disputed King of Germany, who agreed, ‘we will aid [the king of France] against ­Richard, king of England, and his nephew, Otto IV’.76 The full-scale war that all expected to occur upon Richard’s return to France did not have time to eventuate beyond regional scrapping, and was punctuated by a peace

74  Reston, J (2001) Warriors of God: Richard the Lionheart and Saladin in the Third Crusade (NYC, Anchor) 288–90, 316–17, 333–36, 345–46, 363–65; Barratt, N (2001) ‘The English Revenue of Richard I’ The English Historical Review 116 (467): 635–56; McLynn, F (2007) Richard and John: Kings at War (London, DaCapo) 267–70; Lees, B (1906) ‘The Letters of Eleanor of Aquitaine to Pope Celestine III’ The English Historical Review 21 (81): 78–93. 75  Poole, A (1954) From Domesday Book to Magna Carta (Oxford, Oxford University Press 327–29; Davies, N (2005) God’s Playground: A History of Poland, Vol I (Oxford, Oxford University Press) 64–65. 76  The 1198 ‘Treaty Between Philip, King of Germany and Philip II, King of France’, as reprinted in Thatcher, O (ed) (1905) Source Book for Mediaeval History. Selected Documents Illustrating the History of Europe in the Middle Age (NYC, Scribner) 227.

68  The Twelfth Century

treaty in 1196 and a truce in 1199, in which most (but not all) of the recent conquests by Philip of Richard’s lands in France were reversed, whilst both sides got their own houses in order in preparation for their greater conflict. As these machinations rolled on, Richard was killed in 1199 trying to bring some of his barons to order (whom Philip had stirred up) at the Castle of Chalus-Mercadier, within the English lands in France.77

5. Non-Conformist Communities in Europe

Before concluding this section on warfare within Europe, it is necessary to draw out two further areas where violence either occurred, or was very close. This was with regard to communities that did not fit within the expected patterns of a Christian Europe, namely heretics and Jewish communities. In the eleventh century, the overlap between conflict and Jewish communities was something that primarily happened in Spain as areas were retaken. However, when the First Crusade occurred, pogroms followed in the Rhineland and in the Danube Valley. There was also considerable number of Jewish people killed during the actual conquest of Jerusalem.78 Determined to stop such violence in the future, Pope Calixtus II in 1120, attempted to provide protection for the Jewish communities in western Europe with the decree, Sicut Judaeis. Despite such calls, by the middle of the century, influential men of the Church, such as the French abbot, Bernard of Clairvaux, argued that Jews, due to ‘the enormity of their crimes’, should be ‘scattered’.79 Whilst some leaders such as Frederick Barbarossa acted in the exactly opposite direction, passing specific laws to protect Jewish people and their cultural practices, others went in the other direction that Clairvaux suggested.80 The Jewish position became much more difficult following the Third Lateran Council of 1179, which condemned the practice of usury. As the giving of loans and the taking interest on them was primarily a Jewish occupation, the Jews suddenly felt a new weight upon them across Christendom. Philip II drove the Jews out of France (and kept them out for 16 years), after cancelling the debts due to them, save for one-fifth payable to himself, and confiscating their property in 1182. Outbreaks of violence

77 

McLynn, F (2007) Richard and John: Kings at War (London, DaCapo) 90–92, 267, 273; Poole, A (1954) From Domesday Book to Magna Carta (Oxford, Oxford University Press) 323, 374; Turner, R (2009) Eleanor of Aquitaine (New Haven, Conn, Yale University Press) 92–95, 252; Tanner, J (ed) (1957) The Cambridge Medieval History: The Victory of the Papacy, Vol VI (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press) 287, 305–06; the 1198 Alliance Between Germany and France is reprinted in Thatcher, O (ed) (1905) Source Book for Mediaeval History. Selected Documents Illustrating the History of Europe in the Middle Age (NYC, Scribner) 324. 78  Bronstein, J (2007) ‘The Crusades and the Jews’ History Compass 5 (4): 1268–78; Lasker, D (1999) ‘The Impact of the Crusades on the Jewish-Christian Debate’ Jewish History 13 (2): 23–36. 79 Bernard, as noted in Otto of Freising, The Deeds of Frederick Barbarossa trans Mierow, C (2004) (NYC, Columbia University Press) 74, 78. For Frederick, see the 1157 ‘Privilege of for the Jews’, as reprinted in Thatcher, O (ed) (1905) A Sourcebook for Medieval History (NYC, Scribner) 573. 80  Dolan, J (1960) ‘Emperor Frederick and Jewish Tolerance’ Jewish Social Studies 22 (3): 165–74.

Non-Conformist Communities in Europe 69

were noted in England, of which Ephraim of Bon recorded one massacre in York in 1190, which coincided with a number of disgruntled nobles leaving on crusade but concerned about debts they owed to Jewish moneylenders. Ephraim recorded that ‘they were slaughtered and burned for the Unity of the Creator’.81 Against this rising intolerance, in 1199 Pope Innocent III established the rule: We order than no Christian shall compel [the Jewish people] by violence against their will … and no Christian, except in execution of a sentence of the public authority, shall presume to injure their persons or violently to seize their property or to change the good customs which they have hitherto enjoyed in the country where they live. Further, none shall disturb the celebration of their festivals by striking them with sticks or stones …82

A different approach was taken with heretics. With this group, violence was permissible. Although heresy in western Europe was a recognised problem in the eleventh century, in the twelfth, the concern was much greater, especially after the middle of the century. The growth in concern can be traced to Pope Innocent II who drew attention to groups that were beginning to challenge the Catholic theology, by specifically condemning the crime of heresy. Individual kings, such as Henry II of England took such matters into his own hands and had at least 30 people in Oxford, all convicted of heresy, branded, flogged and sent out into the snow, where they all died. Soon after, Pope Lucius III, aware that such problems needed to be handled in a more unified manner, passed the papal bull Ad abolendam (‘To abolish diverse malign heresies’) at the Third Lateran Council of 1179. The decree stated: [T]o abolish the malignity of diverse heresies, which of late time are sprung up in most parts of the world, it is but fitting that the power committed to the Church should be awakened, that by the concurring assistance of the imperial strength, both the insolence and impertinence of the heretics, in their false designs, may be crushed, and the truth of catholic simplicity shining forth in the holy Church, may demonstrate her pure and free from the execrableness of their false doctrines.83

The decree then listed specific heretical groups who were ‘to lie under a perpetual anathema’. The groups were: Paterines (an eleventh-century group from northern Italy who sought reform of the clergy); Arnoldists (those who continued to follow the teachings of Arnold of Brescia);84 Peter Waldo and his followers (the Waldensians— who believed in a simplified Gospel, rejected purgatory and the worship of saints, and disliked the sacerdotal system, due in large part to the wealth and worldliness of the higher clergy); and the Cathars/Albigensians.85 81 

Ephraim of Bon, as noted in Cohen, M (ed) History in Quotations. (Cassell, London, 2004) 183. ‘Innocent III’s Constitution on the Jews’, as reprinted in Laffan, R (ed) (1929) Select Historical Documents: 800–1492 (NYC, Holt) 100–01. 83  See Canon 27 of the Third Lateran Council, 1179, as in Ayerst, D (ed) (1977) Records of Christianity, Vol II (Oxford, Blackwell) 182–84. Also the ‘Chronicle of Trier’, reprinted in Rosenwein, B (ed) (2006) Reading the Middle Ages: Sources from Europe, Byzantium and the Islamic World (Ontario, Broadview) 411, 435–41. 84  See page 58. 85  Moore, R (2012) The War on Heresy: Faith and Power in Medieval Europe (London, Profile) 7, 184–86; Murphy, C (2011) God’s Jury: The Inquisition and the Making of the Modern World (London, Penguin) 31; Dickens, A (1965) Reformation and Society (London, Thames) 13–17. 82 

70  The Twelfth Century

Two decades after the Third Lateran Council, Pope Innocent III was more convinced than ever that ‘ministers of diabolical error … are ensnaring the souls of the simple and ruining them. With their superstitions and false inventions that are perverting the meaning of the Holy church’.86 To confront this threat, the pope was prepared to do whatever was necessary, commanding all legates in his authority to use the spiritual sword and civil laws against all heretics, to ‘confiscate their goods and drive them out of your territory’.87 He went on, in 1199, in his bull Vergentis in senium— and Thomas Aquinas, the thirteenth-century philosopher and theologian, would later concur—that heresy was the same as high treason, deserving of the penalty of death.88 Pope Innocent elaborated: If the earth should rise up against you, and the stars of the heavens should reveal your iniquity and manifest your sins to the whole world, so that not only humans but the very elements themselves should join together for your destruction and ruin and wipe you from the face of the earth, sparing neither sex nor age, even that punishment laid upon you would still not be sufficient and worthy.89

6. Wars between Christianity and Islam

A.  The Christian Territories in the Holy Land The dawn of the twelfth century in the Middle East saw Christian forces continuing to advance, seeking further territory, after the fall of Jerusalem. In 1101, Arsouf and Caesarea fell to the Crusaders. Haifa and Acre (on the northern coastal plain of modern-day Israel) were taken in 1104, although in the same year the Crusader forces of Edessa (now the modern-day Turkish city of Urfa) recorded their first defeat in the region, losing some 5,000 men at the Battle of Harran, from which Edessa would never recover. The following year, a Muslim Damascene scholar named Ali ibn Tahir al-Sulami argued that Muslims needed to relearn the practice of jihad. This was necessary because a wicked race of unbelievers was waging their own version of holy war against Islam. He urged all Muslims to, ‘strive hard at the imposition of this jihad and the obligation to defend your religion and your brotherhood … do not fight one another or your will fail and will not succeed…’90

86 Letter of 1198, ‘Innocent III to Archbishop of Auch’, as reprinted in Thatcher, O (ed) (1905) A ­Sourcebook for Medieval History (NYC, Scribner) 209. 87  Letter of 1198, ‘Innocent III to All Legates’, as reprinted in Thatcher, O (ed) (1905) A Sourcebook for Medieval History (NYC, Scribner) 210. 88  See Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologia, sections 2–2.10:8, and 2–2.11:3, as reprinted in Baumgarth, W (ed) (1988) Saint Thomas Aquinas: On Law, Morality and Politics (Indianapolis, Hackett) 255–56. 89  Innocent III, as noted in Moore, R (2012) The War on Heresy: Faith and Power in Medieval Europe (London, Profile) 228. 90  al-Sulami, as noted in Christie, N (2013) ‘Parallel Preachings: Urban II and al-Sulami’ Al-Masaq: Journal of the Medieval Mediterranean 15 (2): 139, 140.

Wars between Christianity and Islam 71

Despite these early calls for Muslim unity, Crusader progress continued, with Beirut and Sidon coming under their control. The local Seljuk forces replied by again attacking Edessa with force in 1113, before largely destroying a Crusader army outside of Antioch in 1119. The Christians then attempted to destroy one of the parts of the divided Seljuk Empire, by attacking the local sultanate. Accordingly, Tyre was occupied in 1124 and Damascus was attacked in 1125. At the same time, Sicilian forces attacked the coasts of what are today Tunisia and Libya, exploiting local inter-Muslim rivalries, forcing battles, offering protection and taking tribute. At their peak, the Crusader kingdoms comprised the areas around Edessa and Tripoli, the Principality of Antioch, and the Kingdom of Jerusalem. Only Antioch was linked to the Byzantine Empire with the other three areas being largely independent, albeit with strong links to Venice and/or the countries from which their nobles originated.91

B.  The Second Crusade In 1127 Imad ad-Din Zengi came to power as a local governor of Mosul and Aleppo, under the authority of the Seljuk Sultan of Baghdad. He then broke free from his overlords and founded another Sunni dynasty, the Zengids. Zengi was the first Muslim ruler facing the Crusaders to start to unify the Muslims under his personal political and military command. This was only ever really possible with other Sunni based areas. The dominant Shia based groups, such as the Nizari Ismailis, most famously known as the ‘Assassins’ were impossible to bring under control at this point. This group, an offshoot of the Fatimids that evolved at the turn of the twelfth century dealt with their Sunni, Christian and even opposing Shia enemies by killing their leaders. Their first victim was the great scholar and Vizier of the Seljuk Empire, Nizam al-Mulk. Dozens of other Sunni leaders went the same way. The Sunnis tried to fight back but found the Nizari castles impregnable. The result was an understanding by which the two communities learnt to tolerate each other. However, this was always very fragile, and when it broke the results were spectacular, as shown by the assassination of the caliph in Baghdad in 1135. Whenever such acts occurred, any Shia community that was sympathetic to the leading protagonists, such as the Nizari, would find collective reprisals, in terms of executions and loss of property, falling upon their communities.92

91  Hodgson, M (1974) The Venture of Islam, Vol II (Chicago, Ill, Chicago University Press) 52–54; Spinka, M (1939) ‘The Latin Church of the Early Crusades’ Church History 8 (2): 113–31; Gabriel, R (2005) Empires at War, Vol III (London, Greenwood) 811–12; Grant, R (2011) 1001 Battles (London, Penguin) 138, 142; Gibbon, E (1926 edn) The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, Vol VI (London, Methuen) 318–20. 92 Bartlett, W (2007) The Assassins (London, Sutton) 121, also at ix, xvii, 55–60, 78–79, 90–91, 95, 114–17, 120–21, 125–28, 154, 161; Lewis, B (ed) (1987) Islam: From the Prophet to the Capture of ­Constantinople, Vol I (Oxford, Oxford University Press) 68–76; Black, A (2011) The History of Islamic Political Thought (Edinburgh, Edinburgh University Press) 113, 132, 137; Marozzi, J (2015) Baghdad: City of Peace, City of Blood (London, Penguin) 120.

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Despite the ongoing threat of the Nizari Ismailis, Zengi achieved a unity in the region by defeating rival Sunni Muslim commanders and their forces in the region and/or assimilating them into his armies. He then directed their religious attention and obligation of jihad towards the Christians in the region, not towards each other. However, some areas remained independent atabegs, such as Damascus (also a Seljuk area), which could not be defeated by Zengi.93 The results of this collective Muslim effort became apparent when Zengi’s forces besieged the Crusader State of Edessa and then captured it, in the days before Christmas in 1144. Whilst the authorities of Jerusalem had tried to help Edessa, those of Byzantine related Antioch had decided to leave it to its fate. This loss of one of the four Crusader areas sent shock waves through Europe. Pope Eugenius III, who had only recently come to power in early 1145, responded quickly with a papal bull that was proclaimed throughout Europe: By the grace of God, and the zeal of your fathers, who strove to defend [ Jerusalem and the associated Christian parts of the Middle East] over the years and to spread the Christian name … these places have been held by the Christians until now and other cities have courageously been taken from the infidels. But now, because of our sins … there has occurred what we cannot make known without great sadness and lamentation. The city of Edessa … has been taken by the enemies of the cross of Christ … the relics of the saints have been trampled under the infidels’ feet and dispersed. We recognise how great the danger is that threatens the Church of God and all Christianity because of this … God forbid … the bravery of the fathers will have proved to be diminished in the sons. … [W]hosoever devoutly begins and completes so holy a journey or dies on it will obtain absolution from all his sins of which he has made confession with a contrite and humble heart; and he will receive the fruit of everlasting recompense from the rewarder of all good people.94

C.  The Baltic and Spain Although the focus upon regaining the loss of Edessa was foremost in the mind of Eugenius, at the same point, before the new Crusaders could reach the area, two other events of magnitude occurred. First, in 1147, German and Danish crusaders initiated what became known as the Wendish or Baltic Crusade. This Crusade built upon a trend of thinking going back to 1108 when an appeal in Magdeburg diocese was made to fight against those who had reneged on their promises to convert to Christianity and, exhorted citizens to ‘acquire and settle a beautiful land. [God] … will give you the will

93 Hodgson, M (1974) The Venture of Islam, Vol II (Chicago, Ill, Chicago University Press) 265–67; Grant, R (2011) 1001 Battles (London, Penguin) 145; France, J (1999) Western Warfare in the Age of the Crusades (London, UCL Press) 197. 94  Pope Eugenius III, reprinted in Riley-Smith, L (ed) (1981) The Crusades: Idea and Reality (London, Edward Arnold) 57.

Wars between Christianity and Islam 73

and power to subjugate these nearby inhuman gentiles’.95 Nearly four decades on, the Second Crusade seized the chance to continue this type of thinking, now building it into Crusading efforts going on elsewhere. The key difference here was that in the past crusades had been justified against Muslims in Spain and the areas around Jerusalem to, inter alia, recapture lands which were once Christian. Conversely, the crusades in Baltic were against pagans on land which was never Christian. The objective according to the hugely influential Bernard of Clairvaux was to fight the heathen, ‘until such a time as, by God’s help, they shall either be converted or deleted’.96 In support of this, Bernard, with the agreement of the pope, authorised and encouraged 40,000 German and Danish soldiers to march east towards the Baltic strongholds of Dobin, Demmin and Szczecin, saying: The soldiers of Christ are secure when they fight the battles of their Lord. They fall into no sin when they kill the enemy, nor are they in danger when they die. Death given or received for Christ bears no touch of crime but much of glory.97

In terms of the actual Second Crusade aimed at the recapture of Edessa, around 20,000 German soldiers under the leadership of the King of Germany, Conrad III, and 15,000 French soldiers, under the leadership of the King of France, Louis VII, answered the call. They were supplemented by thousands of English supporters. The French and the English knights, travelling to the Holy Land, achieved what was probably the most important outcome of this Crusade—the capture of Lisbon—in 1147. Prior to this point, although the papacy kept promising the remission of sins to Christian soldiers who fought the Muslims in Spain, progress was patchy. Thus, whilst Christians forces had taken Saragossa and a number of associated towns in 1118, any progress made was reversed after Alfonso I (‘the Battler’) died on the battlefield of Fraga in 1134. The Second Crusade also renewed military efforts in Spain, as Genoa lead attacks on Muslim ports in Spain, and the thousands of Crusaders besieging Lisbon showed. The city surrendered in return for an undertaking that it would not be sacked. This promise was not honoured. After the Crusaders entered Lisbon, massacre and pillage followed of which a chronicler of the period explained was ‘God’s … vengeance … with good conscience’.98

95 Magdeburg, as noted in Mundy, J (1991) Europe in the High Middle Ages (London, Longman) 42; Klavins, K (2006) ‘The Ideology of Christianity and Pagan Practice: The Case of the Baltic Region’. ­Journal of Baltic Studies 37 (3): 260–276. 96  Bernard of Clairvaux, as noted in Christiansen, E (1997) The Northern Crusades (London, Penguin) 53–54; Also Riley-Smith, L (ed) (1981) The Crusades: Idea and Reality (London, Edward Arnold) 76–77. For further commentary, see Bombi, B (2013) ‘The Debate on the Baltic Crusades and the Making of Europe’ History Compass 11 (9): 751–64. 97  Bernard of Clairvaux, as reprinted in Ayerst, D (ed) (1977) Records of Christianity, Vol II (Oxford, Blackwell) 122. Also, Roche, E (2015) ‘The Second Crusade: Damascus, Lisbon and the Wendish Campaigns’ History Compass 13 (1): 599–609. 98  The quote is from Bishop Peter, ‘the Conquest of Lisbon’. This is in Rosenwein, B (ed) (2006) Reading the Middle Ages: Sources from Europe, Byzantium and the Islamic World (Ontario, Broadview) 300, 302–03; Williams, B (1997) ‘The Making of a Crusade: The Genoese Anti-Muslim Attacks in Spain, 1146–1148’. Journal of Medieval History 23 (1): 29–53; Grant, R (2005) Battle: 5000 Years of Combat (London, Dorling Kindersley) 89.

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This reverse for the Muslims in Spain triggered a loss of confidence in the governing Almoravids in all of the areas they governed. The Berber Almohads with their title deriving from the phrase ‘the affirmers of God’s unity’, arose, captured Marrakesh and then advanced into Muslim Spain. They then established their own caliphate after overthrowing the governing Almoravid dynasty. They were overthrown for deviating from proper Islamic doctrine through their literal, as opposed to allegorical, interpretation of the Koran. Like the Almoravids before them, they were absolutely committed to jihad against Christians and heretical Muslims alike. Even the famous scholar Ibn Rushd was brought to account by the Almohads for his ideas, which went on to form some of the foundations of western philosophy.99

D. Damascus The soldiers partaking in the Second Crusade were marching towards an area of very complicated politics, as the region was not a bi-polar world of Christians fighting Muslims. Rather, there was a multiplicity of areas in which alliances shifted quickly, irrespective of religious foundations. This was particularly evident with the Muslim city of Damascus which had military alliances with the Christian Kingdoms of both Jerusalem and Antioch. Unur, the Emir of Damascus, had sought these alliances as he had greater enemies to worry about in the form of other Sunni Muslims, and Zengi in particular, of which one of Zengi’s last acts had been a military attempt to take Damascus. Despite these alliances, the new soldiers of the Second Crusade joined together with some of the existing Christian forces, numbering perhaps a total 40,000 men, and adopted an approach based upon opportunism rather than strategy. Rather than seeking to recover Edessa, they preferred to attack the rich city of Damascus instead. Their rationale was that they feared a united Muslim front by Damascus joining Nur ad-Din (the son of Zengi, who had come to power in 1146, after the death of his father). Accordingly, they acted pre-emptively and attacked the city in 1148, even though they were, in reality, allies. When the Muslims of Damascus saw the Crusaders outside their walls, they responded by calling for Nur ad-Din to help them, for which assistance they were willing to agree an alliance. Becoming aware that they had triggered the very event they wanted to prevent, within four days of starting the siege the Crusaders quickly retreated, leaving Damascus alone to slowly be absorbed into the Zengid regime.100 The Christian forces, realising their mistake, now understood that their greater goal had to be to prevent the massing of even larger Muslim forces. To achieve this, they

99 MacKay,

A (1977) Spain in the Middle Ages (London, Macmillan) 28–29; Robinson, F (2009) The Islamic World (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press) 51; Crone, P (2004) God’s Rule: Government and Islam (NYC, Columbia University Press) 381, 386–87. 100  Grant, R (2011) 1001 Battles (London, Penguin) 146.

Wars between Christianity and Islam 75

attempted to support and help the Shia Fatimid Caliphate in Egypt, which by this time was also fighting the Sunni Nur ad-Din. Despite the Kingdoms of Jerusalem and Sicily initially coming to the military aid of the Fatimids, by the end of the 1160s their assistance had turned into the attempted conquest of parts of Egypt in the wake of the civil war that was engulfing the country. In addition, negotiations between the Crusader forces and the Shia Nizari Ismailis failed, despite their having the same enemy, due to an inability to build trust between the two sides. Soon after, Nur ad-Din’s dynamic new general, Saladin, rose to prominence.

E. Saladin Salah ad-Din Yusuf ibn Ayyub, better known as Saladin and the founder of the Ayyubid dynasty, was, in his own words, [t]he unifier of the word of belief, the subduer of the adorers of idols … killer of the ­unbelievers and polytheists, conqueror of the rebels and the insubordinate … [He was] … the sword of the world and religion, the power of Islam.101

(i)  The End of the Fatimids Saladin destroyed the Shia Fatimid regime in Egypt in 1171. He did so after coming to power in Egypt following its civil war. His rise to power in Egypt, despite being Sunni, was due to the fact that the Fatimids lacked any cohesion or direction, and employed people in positions of power irrespective of their religious alignment. Saladin had already won high praise for his effective work against the Crusaders. Once in power in Egypt, he celebrated with the imprisonment of the Fatimid leaders and the widespread destruction of their libraries. Alexandria was taken from the last of the Fatimids in 1174. Prayers were then recited in the name of the Sunni Abbasid caliph of Baghdad over all the lands of Islam, from Central Asia to Africa. Saladin also decided to pursue the Nizari Ismailis, but changed his mind after he was almost assassinated by one of them. The end result was a near total Sunni-dominated Muslim world, with only the Shia Nazari continuing to exist in isolated pockets.102 Saladin then seized control of Syria, taking advantage of the death of Nur ad-Din and the young age of his son and successor. This was a contested take-over, in which the defenders of the Zengid dynasty had to be defeated outside the walls of ­Damascus in 1176. To buttress his legitimacy, Saladin married Nur ad-Din’s widow. He then

101 The recognition of Saladin, as noted in Black, A (2011) The History of Islamic Political Thought (Edinburgh, Edinburgh University Press) 113. 102  Saladin’s immediate successors also had the influential Sufi philosopher Yahya Suhrawardi executed, and his work, like that of other Sufis, was consigned to the flames. Bartlett, W (2007) The Assassins (London, Sutton) 150–54.

76  The Twelfth Century

reunited Egypt and Syria under his personal control, and took the title of sultan. Any remaining independent Muslim fiefdoms, such as Aleppo, were mopped up by 1183, as were Majorca in 1181 and Thesalonkia and Durazzo in 1185. At the same time, as his rule progressed, Saladin went out of his way to increase the religious support for his rule, whilst also protecting law-abiding Christian communities within his realm, so long as they paid the required poll tax ( jizra).103 (ii)  The Capture of Christian Jerusalem Saladin then completed the masterpiece of his plan, by achieving a military alliance with Byzantium in 1185, which lasted until 1192. This alliance between Saladin and Constantinople reversed the policies of cooperation between Constantinople with the Crusaders that had been operative for nearly a century. This decision followed the routing of a Byzantine army in 1176 at Myriocephalum, and a belief that the best way to secure the areas of interest to Constantinople in the region, namely Syria and Antioch, would be through making a direct deal with Saladin, rather than the Christians from western Europe, who they felt could not be trusted any longer. Despite widespread criticism of this approach, this was the deal that was made.104 Whether Saladin would have entered into full conflict with Christendom without the overt provocation of the Prince of Antioch, Reginald de Chatillon, is a matter for debate. Saladin had already fought, and lost against, the Kingdom of Jerusalem in 1177 at the Battle of Montgisard, in which several thousand Christian soldiers heavily defeated a much larger Muslim army. Seeing the effectiveness of this force, Saladin brokered a truce between the two sides, so that he could shore up his holdings in Syria. It was during this truce between Jerusalem and Saladin that Reginald de Chatillon made attacks on Muslim caravans and pilgrimages in 1182, and again in 1186. As a result of these attacks, despite Saladin and Jerusalem renewing their truce for another four years in 1185, Saladin demanded that the King of Jerusalem control the Prince of Antioch. However, Reginald de Chatillon, as an independent prince, was beyond the control of the King of Jerusalem, who at this point was deeply involved in his own dynastic struggles.105 Nonetheless, when Saladin demanded free passage through the territories of ­Jerusalem to reach Reginald in Antioch, his request was denied. For this refusal,

103  For the Ayyubid protection of Christian communities, see Stern, S (ed) (1965) Documents from Islamic Chanceries (Harvard, Mass, Harvard University Press) 9–39. Frenkel, Y (1999) ‘Political and Social Aspects of Islamic Religious Endowments by Saladin’ Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies 62 (1): 1–20; Reston, J (2001) Warriors of God: Richard the Lionheart and Saladin in the Third Crusade (NYC, Anchor) 183; Abulafia, D (1988) Frederick II: A Medieval Emperor (Oxford, Oxford University Press) 29, 42, 59. 104  Angelov, D (2006) ‘Domestic Opposition to Byzantium’s Alliance with Saladin’ Byzantine and ­Modern Greek Studies 30 (1): 49–68; Brand, C (1962) ‘The Byzantines and Saladin, 1185–1192’ Spectrum 37 (2): 167–81. 105  Jotischky, A (2015) ‘Politics and the Crown in the Kingdom of Jerusalem’ History Compass 13 (11): 569–89; Mallett, A (2008) ‘A Trip Down the Red Sea with Reynald of Chatillon’ Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society 18 (2) 141–53.

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Saladin announced that the truce with Jerusalem was over, and he issued a call for a jihad in 1187, against all of the Christian kingdoms in the Holy Land. The result of this call to arms was the Christian defeat at Hattin in Galilee in 1187, at which some 20,000 Christian soldiers were vanquished (some 17,000 being killed) by about 30,000 Muslims. In essence, this defeat accounted for most of the Christian manpower in the region. Reginald de Chatillon was amongst the prisoners, and Saladin executed him personally. Nablus, Jaffa, Sidon, Beirut and Ascalon all then fell in quick succession. After a two-week siege, Jerusalem surrendered in early October 1187, under the terms of which, for the price of a ransom, safe conduct was agreed and honoured by Saladin for all those who wanted to leave.106

F.  The Third Crusade The shock of the news of the loss of Jerusalem killed Pope Urban III. His successor, Pope Gregory VIII, despite being over 80 years old at the time of his election, wasted no time calling on Christendom, at the end of 1187, to take up arms for its recovery. The papal bull Audita tremendi summoned all Christians to repent. Pope Gregory presented the loss of Jerusalem as a test imposed by God. He was particularly fearful that ‘what is left of that land will be lost and the power of the infidels rages’, and called upon all Christian men to go and fight. To support this plea he offered a ‘full indulgence’ for the sins of men, ‘and eternal life’ for those who were willing to take up arms to free Christian communities from the oppressive tyranny of Saladin.107 Partial indulgences were also offered to those who could not take the cross but could offer material support for the cause. In the meantime, the forces of Saladin advanced against the other Christian settlements, with Acre being attacked in 1189, with the loss of at least 6,000 defenders before it fell to the Muslim forces.108 The European kingdoms responded quickly gathering men and money, with countries dedicating up to 10 per cent of their tax revenues to the fight against Saladin.109 Three Christian kings, Richard I of England, Philip Augustus of France and William II of Sicily, answered the call for the full indulgence, with Richard going so far as to say that he would sell London itself, if he could find a buyer to raise even

106  Reston, J (2001) Warriors of God: Richard the Lionheart and Saladin in the Third Crusade (NYC, Anchor) 6–7, 20–27, 46, 98–99, 246; Finucane, R (2004) Soldiers of the Faith (London, Phoenix) 197–200; Richard, J (1952) ‘An Account of the Battle of Hattin’. Speculum 27 (2): 168–177; Turner, J (1997) The Holy War Idea in Western and Islamic Traditions (Indian, Pennsylvania State University Press) 137–57. 107 Pope Gregory VIII, reprinted in Riley-Smith, L (ed) (1981) The Crusades: Idea and Reality (London, Edward Arnold) 63–66; Otto of Freising, The Deeds of Frederick Barbarossa trans Mierow, C (2004) (NYC, Columbia University Press) 71–72. 108  Grant, R (2011) 1001 Battles (London, Penguin) 154. 109  See, eg, the ‘Ordinance of the Saladin Tithe’, as reprinted in Adams, G (ed) (1947) Select Documents of English Constitutional History (London, Macmillan) 27.

78  The Twelfth Century

more money to go on crusade. Frederick Barbarossa, who had earlier served in the Second Crusade, agreed to go and lead the Third Crusade after reconciling with the papacy. The size of the force that originally set out on the Third Crusade from multiple points in Europe may have been as large as 120,000 men, although it was probably much smaller. This number of armed men was deemed necessary, as the entire Christian Holy Land, except the city of Tyre, had now been lost to Saladin and his Sunni Ayyubid dynasty. Undeterred by the challenge before him, Barbarossa wrote to his adversary, Saladin, setting out the grounds for the conflict: Now that you have profaned the Holy Land, over which we, by the authority of the Eternal King, bear rule, we will proceed with due rigor against such presumptuous and criminal audacity … Restore the land which you have seized … [W]e give you a period of twelve months, after which you shall experience the fortune of war.

Saladin replied: If you count the Christians, my Arabs are many times more numerous. If the sea lies between us and the Christians, there is no sea to separate Arabs who cannot be numbered. Between us and those who will aid us, there is no impediment. With us are the Bedouins, the Turkomans, even our peasants, who will fight bravely against nations who should come to invade our country and would despoil them of their riches and exterminate them. We will destroy you with the power of God. And when the Lord, by His power, shall have given us victory over you, nothing will remain for us to do but freely take your lands, by His power, and with His good pleasure.110

Frederick didn’t reach the Holy Land. He fought against Byzantine forces who initially denied him the right of transit over the territory, in furtherance of their alliance with Saladin. Although he defeated the Byzantine army and Constantinople agreed to let him proceed, before resuming his journey he drowned in the River Saleph in Cilicia. Frederick’s army then dispersed, with only 5,000 of his German soldiers ever reaching their goal. Similar difficulties accompanied the journeys of the kings of England and France, where, most notably, they landed on Sicily on their way to the Holy Land. In so doing, Richard entered into the Treaty of Messina with the Sicilian king Tancred, with the English monarch recognising the status of Tancred, in exchange for his support for the Crusade. Although this sounded reasonable, it was this recognition that would ultimately lead to the capture of the English king upon his return. Before this occurred, and despite rising competition between the English and French kings, (with Philip returning to France in early 1191), the armies of France and England eventually reached their destination and recaptured Acre, in mid-1191.111

110  The Exchange of Letters Between Barbarossa and Saladin, reprinted in Reston, J (2001) Warriors of God: Richard the Lionheart and Saladin in the Third Crusade (NYC, Anchor Books) 128–29. 111 Rubenstein, J (2012) ‘Saladin and the Problem of the Counter-Crusade in the Middle Ages’ Historically Speaking 13 (5): 2–9; Grant, R (2005) Battle: 5000 Years of Combat (London, Dorling Kindersley) 101.

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The next strategic target was the city of Jaffa (modern day Tel Aviv), which was on the way to Jerusalem. To get to this point, some 20,000 Crusaders had to defeat around 45,000 Muslims, killing perhaps 7,000 of them at the Battle of Arsuf in 1191. Such victories eventually took Richard I to within bowshot of Jerusalem, before he realised that his forces could not complete the task. Prior to this, Richard had tried to negotiate with Saladin, writing to him towards the end of 1191: The Muslims and Franks are bleeding to death, the country is utterly ruined, and goods and lives have been sacrificed on both sides. The time has come to stop this … [but] Jerusalem is for us an object of worship that we could not give up even if there were only one of us left.112

Saladin answered: Jerusalem is ours as much as yours. Indeed, it is even more sacred to us that it is to you, for it is the place from which our Prophet accomplished his nocturnal journey and the place where our community will gather on the Day of Judgement. Do not imagine that we can renounce it or vacillate on this point.113

Through a process of negotiation and conflict Richard slowly lowered his demands, going so far as to suggest that both sides should hold on to what they then possessed, division of Jerusalem into two parts, with the Muslims retaining the key parts of cultural importance to them, and even a possible marriage alliance (between Richard’s sister and Saladin’s brother). Saladin refused all these suggestions. Eventually, when Richard had lost all interest in remaining in the Holy Land once it became clear that his brother might have been on the point of usurping his throne in England, he made another offer. This was for the ownership of and right of pilgrimage to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre within Jerusalem, and retention of existing territories. Saladin agreed that this was possible. However, negotiations concerning the division of further disputed territories (particularly Ascalon) were difficult and more fighting broke out. After this, Richard renounced his right to hold a fortified Ascalon. This concession allowed the Treaty of Ramla to be concluded in 1192, through which Jerusalem was to remain in Muslim hands, whilst Jaffa, Acre, Tyre and a handful of other coastal cities were to remain in Latin hands. Free movement and free commerce were agreed on both sides. Christian pilgrims were to be allowed to visit the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem, and the Latin, not the Orthodox, influence was to be primary in Jerusalem, for which the alliance between Saladin and Byzantium ended. Although this treaty brought peace between the two sides and Richard had managed to guarantee the ongoing existence of some Christian communities in the area and Christian rights within Jerusalem, the price Richard paid had been huge. When he left for Europe, only one-twelfth of those

112  Richard I, as quoted by Baha ad-Din in the early part of the 13th century. The full quotation is reprinted in Cohen, M (ed) (2004) History in Quotations (London, Cassell) 231. 113  Saladin, as quoted in Reston, J (2001) Warriors of God: Richard the Lionheart and Saladin in the Third Crusade (NYC, Anchor) 216–20, 256–57. Also France, J (1999) Western Warfare in the Age of the Crusades 1000–1300 (London, UCL Press) 205; Grant, R (2011) 1001 Battles (London, Penguin) 155.

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who had arrived with him returned with him. Tens, if not hundreds, of thousands had been killed in the course of this Crusade.114

7.  China

A.  The Song and the Jin In faraway China, the primary conflicts of the twelfth century involved those between the Song and the Jin. The Jin were the successors to the Liao dynasty. The Song were, initially, at the forefront of supporting the Jin, concluding the Alliance Conducted by Sea in 1123, after the first Liao army had been destroyed by the Jin a year earlier. By this agreement, the Song and the Jin agreed to both invade the Liao territories at the same time, split the spoils, cede the desired Sixteen Prefectures to the Song, and not make unilateral peace against their shared enemy. The Song also promised the Jin that if they were successful, they would pay them an annual tribute that they paid to the Liao of 300,000 bolts of silk and 200,000 ounces of silver, per year.115 The following military campaign was a blistering success as the main part of the Liao collapsed in the space of two years, of which by 1125, only the rump KaraKhitan Khanate in the west (which Genghis Khan would later battle) remained and their ruler had to acknowledge the suzerainty of the Jin. True to the agreement, the Jin handed over the Sixteen Prefectures to the Song, including Beijing, which had been looted and burnt. The Jin, sensing that the Song were not as strong militarily as they were, since the Song had made little military progress against the Liao despite it meaning to have been a joint campaign, decided to invade the Song. The attack was justified because the Song were allegedly harbouring valuable Liao refugees that the Jin wanted. The campaign against the northern part of the Song was as equally ferocious, with the Sixteen Provinces falling quickly (again) to the Jin. The Jin then crossed the Yellow River, and proceeded to besiege the Song capital of Kaifeng in early 1126.116 The war between the Jin and the Song ended when the ninth emperor of the Song, Qinzong, made a truce. The concessions of the Song were acceptance of the loss of the Sixteen Provinces, in addition to three more provinces, continuation of the existing annual tribute; and an additional one-off payment as a war indemnity

114  Reston, J (2001) Warriors of God: Richard the Lionheart and Saladin in the Third Crusade (NYC, Anchor) 288–90, 316–17, 333–36, 345–46, 363–65; Finucane, R (2004) Soldiers of the Faith (London, Phoenix) 26–27; Markowski, M (1997) ‘Richard Lionheart: Bad King, Bad Crusader?’ Journal of Medieval History 23 (4): 351–65. 115  Kuhn, D (2009) The Age of Confucian Rule (Massachusetts, Harvard UP) 49–53, 62–67. 116  Gelber, H (2008) The Dragon and the Foreign Devils (London, Bloomsbury) 56–59; Hucker, C (1975) China’s Imperial Past (California, Stanford UP) 274–77; Waterson, J (2013) Defending Heaven: China’s Mongol Wars (London, Frontline) 12–13.

China 81

of 300,000 ounces of gold, 12 million ounces of silver, 10,000 cattle and horses and 1 million bolts of silk. For these rewards the Jin returned back over the Yellow River. The Jin returned eight months later, with double their demands on all of the above items, and an additional 1,500 young palace ladies. Qinzong promised to pay these, and the Jin entered the city to take them. The Jin then took everything they wanted in the city, including Emperor Qinzong and 3,000 of his people, none of whom ever returned to the Song. The losses were monumental in social, economic and cultural terms.117 The northern territories of the Song, along with many of the nobles, were now all gone. The younger half-brother of Qinzong, Gaozong had evaded capture as he was not in Kaifeng when it was taken. This meant that Gaozong became the tenth emperor of the Song in 1127, who went on to establish a new Song capital in Nanjing. Although the Jin tried to pursue him, the Song, still with at least 100,000 soldiers at their disposal, managed to hold the line and prevent further incursions in the region south of the Yellow River. After five more years of warfare, peace talks began, and these were concluded in the Treaty of Shaoxing of 1141. In this, the Song agreed, ‘our insignificant state’ pays ‘tribute’ to ‘your [the Jin] superior state’, of which Emperor Gaozong was, ‘your servant’.118 With this concession, the Song renounced all claims to its former territories (and former subjects) north of the Huai River, including their former capital, Kaifeng. In addition, the Song agreed to pay an annual tribute of 250,000 ounces of silver and 250,000 packs of silk.119 Although this deal was an indignity to many, it allowed the Song to survive in the south. In the breathing space created directly after the treaty, the Song managed to rebuild their military forces to such an extent that they survived two further attempted invasions, both said to be in excess of 500,000 men streaming over the border, in the middle of the eleventh century. These victories allowed the Song to recover their dignity with the new peace treaty with the Jin of 1161. The new treaty not only reduced the amount of annual payment required (to 150,000 ounces of silver and 150,000 bolts of silk) most significantly, it no longer used the humiliating term of ‘servant’ for the emperor of the Song, and employed the metaphor of ‘uncle’ and ‘nephew’ for the status between the two regimes.120

117  Levine, A (2013) ‘Welcome to the Occupation: Collective Memory, Displaced Nostalgia and Dislocated Knowledge in Southern Son Ambassadors’ Travel Records of Jin-Dynasty Kaifeng’ Tóung Pao 99 (4): 379–444; Lorge, P (2005) War, Politics and Society in Early Modern China (Routledge, London) 50–52, 62–66; 118 These quotes are from Kuhn, D (2009) The Age of Confucian Rule (Massachusetts, Harvard UP) 77–78. 119  Wang, Y (2013) ‘Explaining the Tribute System: Power, Confucianism and War in Medieval East Asia’ Journal of East Asian Studies 13 (2): 207–34; Liu, S (2010) ‘Epitome of National Disgrace: A Painting Illuminating Son-Jin Diplomatic Relations’ Metropolitan Museum Journal 45: 55–82. 120 Sverdrup, B (2012) ‘A Neighbourless Empire: The Forgotten Diplomatic Tradition of Imperial China’ The Hague Journal of Diplomacy 7: 245–67; Grant, R (2011) 1001 Battles (London, Penguin) 142, 148.

82  The Twelfth Century 8.  Conclusion

Warfare within Europe in the twelfth century was notable for three reasons. First, an independent third force emerged in Europe that was unique to the age, the form of the cortes, veches, communes and bourgeoisie. This force was not dependent on the power of the king or religious leaders. It was always urban, and typically linked to commerce and a quest for independence. Although many of these bodies experienced conflicts with rising autocratic rulers who did not wish to share their power, the principal struggle was with the Lombard League in northern Italy towards the end of the twelfth century, the League finding itself caught between the two greater powers of the day, namely the pope and the Holy Roman emperor. The peace that resulted after the pope gave the League a large degree of autonomy, but it were still, in theory, subservient to the emperor and, for all effective purposes, still within the feudal hierarchy. Second, in many kingdoms, the question of by whom, and how, a throne should be acquired gave rise to warfare. In Germany, the constitutional process for choosing a king was clearer by the time Lothair II was elected. However, disgruntled dukes of powerful provinces were always a risk, and sometimes they did dispute the election results, leading to civil war, into which large parts of Germany and associated parts of Eastern Europe would get dragged. This point should be underlined, as by the twelfth century, it was clear that through webs of dynastic and legal relationships, a war in one country could quickly involve multiple other countries due to their defensive alliances. In the case of Germany, although Frederick Barbarossa tried to convince both the papacy and powerful magnates in Germany to make the throne hereditary to avoid such disputed outcomes, he was not successful. In one instance, when war did break out between the elected king and a disgruntled duke, peace was only achieved by agreeing that the disgruntled duke could be the next emperor, but had to promise loyalty until that point. Although dynastic relationships via marriage were part of the process of war in Europe, in England, the relationships were much more personal, with inter-family war being taken to a whole new level. Primogeniture in England was still not an established practice until the middle of the century, before which siblings would battle for power, of which Henry I, was a strong example. The succession crisis following the death of Henry I saw the house of Plantagenet reaching for power, after Henry’s daughter, Matilda, in a rare instance of a female ruler, fought (with the help of her dynastic relations in Scotland, who joined the fray for both reasons of loyalty and land) her cousin Stephen for the English throne. Stephen, with the support of the pope and many of the nobles of England following promises in exchange for their support, could not be defeated. Following the military stalemate, peace was achieved with Matilda’s son Henry II and Stephen, with the formulae that one, could follow the other on the throne once Stephen had died. In the interim, Henry promised loyalty. Once on the English throne, Henry II proceeded to expand into Wales, via a series of alliances whereby loyal local leaders were rewarded with the assets of the defeated, and then into Ireland, with the addition that the papacy approved and supported his

Conclusion 83

conquest. In Scotland, Henry completely defeated his former allies, and made them fully subservient to the English crown, although they later regained their autonomy in the reign of Henry’s son, Richard the Lionheart. Before this point, Henry II in some of the most pointless wars of the century, had to battle his sons and his own wife over his rule of the kingdom and the eventual division of the realm that he had built up. With France, the overlapping interests were even more difficult after Henry decided to marry Eleanor of Aquitaine, the former wife of French King, Louis VII. As Henry was a vassal to Louis for his lands in France, he should have asked permission, as the marriage had large implications in terms of landholdings on the Continent. The war that followed, was settled by the reiteration of the promise of homage of the English king to the French king for English held land in France, but the marriage remained in place. The third notable feature of the causes of war in the twelfth century involved religion. Within Europe, peace between the temporal authorities and the Church over the ongoing debate over how much autonomy the Church was to have in western Europe was found, in theory, in the Concordats of both London and Worms. These were types of peace treaties in the early decades of the twelfth century, in which the right of the king to invest higher members of the Church was agreed to be largely a matter of Church business, but the appointed church officials also had to perform homage to the king. However, as the century moved on, this point was repeatedly tested, as temporal rulers tried to control who was appointed with religious authority in their lands. This was a particular problem in some countries, where a single individual could hold both religious and temporal authority and there was no clear separation of power in their hands. The other area of note where the Church began to refine its thinking on the use of violence, was with non-conformist communities in Europe, of which heretics and Jewish peoples’ began to feel the weight of increasingly intolerant approaches. The tendency of the papacy to, twice, go to war to win back southern Italy and Sicily on the justification that the lands were originally papal fiefs were repeated failures. In the peace treaties that followed, the pope would recognise, and legitimate, the ruler of southern Italy as an autonomous king. This would always infuriate the emperor, who believed that southern Italy was his to do with as he pleased, not the pope. When the emperor would descend into Italy to try to resolve the issue, excommunication would follow from the pope, from which the emperor’s subjects would be encouraged to riseup. The emperor would then typically respond by trying to place an antipope into Rome. As with the earlier century, the debate would continue over whether an emperor and/or king received their right to rule from God alone, or through the papacy. In the case of Barbarossa, after much bloodshed, peace was achieved only at the end of the Lombard Wars, when excommunications were lifted, the emperor promised loyalty to the pope, northern Italy was given a large degree of autonomy, and it was agreed that the ruling houses of both southern Italy and Germany would inter-marry, thus allowing southern Italy to clearly be joined to the Empire via marriage (although the theory was that they would be kept separate).

84  The Twelfth Century

The other area where religion was at the forefront of conflict in the twelfth century was in the wars against Islam. By 1120, the Christian progress was such that there were four Christian principalities in the Middle East. These were Edessa, Tripoli, the principality of Antioch, and the kingdom of Jerusalem. These principalities existed for the initial decades, by working between the opposing Muslim communities that were largely divided between the Shia based Fatimids out of Egypt and the offshoot Nazari, and a number of competing Sunni groups under the Seljuk umbrella. Of the later, Zengi came to power, and captured Edessa. This resulted in the Second Crusade, from which tens of thousands of Christian soldiers advanced to the Middle East. Some of these men went via Spain helping with the reconquest of Lisbon, which in turn, triggered the intervention of the more orthodox Almohads from North Africa which slowed the advances in Spain. The rhetoric of Holy War or Jihad and promises of theological rewards was similar in all of these theatres, as was the claims of retaking land that was culturally important and wrongfully taken by the opposition. Fearing a growing Muslim coalition against Christian interests, the forces of the Second Crusade attacked the former ally, the Muslim ruled independent Damasacus. This attack forced Damascus to make a coalition with the very coalition they hoped to prevent. Trying desperately to prevent the disintegration of the counter-weight of the Fatimids by giving them military support. However, this was fruitless as the F ­ atimid’s collapsed, being consumed by the Sunni general Saladin, who due to his military prowess, had been under their employment. Saladin then proceeded to take control of a dynastic dispute, and found his own Ayyubid dynasty, encompassing most of Syria and Egypt. Whether Saladin would have turned on the Christian Middle East is unknown. However, with the provocations of the Prince of Antioch, Reginald of Chatillon, he felt he had to respond. Jerusalem felt obliged not to be complicit in the downfall of Antioch, and was drawn into the conflict from which its forces, and then city, were lost. Acre, Nablus, Jaffa, Sidon, Beirut and Ascalon all then fell in quick succession. These losses triggered the Third Crusade, for which a number of European kings, of which Richard the Lionheart was most prominent, went to the Middle East. However, despite their best efforts, only Jaffa, Acre, Tyre and a handful of coastal settlements were regained. The key in terms of losses in Spain for the Muslims or losses in the Middle East for the Christians (as well as the failure of the Second and Third Crusades) was similar, whereby divided communities that could not present a unified front were at risk, from which the opposition exploited the weaknesses. Although the warfare ended up being painted as Muslim v Christian, on the ground, alliances were often more determined by considerations that were greater than religious orientation, with the Christian Crusader communities managing to have alliances with both the Egyptian based Fatimids and independent Sunni based communities. However, Saladin, through the self-destroying goals of many Christian forces, multiplied by a policy of divide and conquer of the Christian communities, including making treaties of alliance with Byzantium, managed to isolate, and topple, most of the opposing enemies. Yet even the great Saladin could, at the end of the Third Crusade, conclude a treaty with Richard the Lionheart

Conclusion 85

to stop the war. The core of this agreement was accepting the status quo of what territory both sides held, a free movement and free commerce for both, and allowing Christian pilgrims to visit their culturally important sites in Jerusalem. The other part of the planet in the twelfth century that continued to battle over culturally important areas was in China, where warfare over the ownership of the Sixteen Prefectures was an ongoing concern for the Song. However, the Song did not have the strength to recover these alone. When the Jin arose (as the successor to the Liao dynasty) the Song cooperated militarily with them to recover the Sixteen Prefectures. However, the relationship between the Song and the Jin was fickle, and although the Sixteen Prefectures were returned to the Song, when the Jin sensed the time was right, they turned on their erstwhile allies. The attack on the Song was pure opportunism, based around perceived strengths of military power and rhetoric of the Song harbouring the enemies of the Jin. When peace was found, large amounts of tribute would be exchanged (from the Song), in addition to recognition of culturally significant terminology of one state, being superior to another. Such recognition did not satisfy an intrinsically predatory Jin. Further war resulted in the loss of a large chunk of the northern section of the Song Empire, including an emperor. The Jin advance stopped when the remaining southern section of the Song Empire gave them more gold, silver, silk, horses and women, and recorded that they (the Song) were the inferior State. Intermittent warfare would follow throughout the second half of the twelfth century, during which, although the Song managed to get the offensive language of the Jin being of equal status to the Song removed from the treaties that governed them, the tribute to the Jin was increased for the price of the change of language.

IV The Thirteenth Century 1. Introduction

T

HIS CHAPTER IS the longest in this book. I do not know if this century was actually more violent than the others, but the causes by which people justified violence, multiplied. In some areas, the traditional patterns of causes of warfare continued unabated. In other areas, some of the causes that emerged out of the twelfth century culminated in the thirteenth, and finally, new and monumental actors, such as the Mongols, arrived, swamped a vast number of civilisations, and then largely disappeared from history. Within Europe, the thirteenth century saw wars of religion intensifying, as fights against heresy accelerated and attacks were made on those Christian communities that disagreed with the approach of the papacy. The foremost example of this was the Fourth Crusade, where religious opportunities overlapped with dynastic struggles within Constantinople and disgruntled enemies waited beneath the walls of their city. Wars not about religion but about the power of the pope continued to be waged throughout Europe, as successive popes battled emperors (via trying to force them to be subservient to papal directives). The foremost example of this was with ­Frederick II, who ended up losing his dynasty, and leaving a heavily fragmented Germany in the wake of the demise. It was only when Rudolf Habsburg arose from a line which would become one of the most famous dynasties in history, that a sovereign coherency to ­Germany began to reappear. Southern Italy, was then cleaved off any linkages to Germany, and auctioned off by the papacy to compliant foreign rulers. In time, they found that they could not establish control over this part of the world, and peace could only be achieved with territorial division, succession plans and numerous interventions by Rome. Wars in England in the thirteenth century were predominantly internal as the absolute power of the king was constrained by the Magna Carta and the development of constitutional structures through which the nobles gained some control over the realm. In the ensuing chaos, both Wales and Scotland sought to break free from all English influence. Although the English monarchy had battled its way back to the top by the end of the century, the idea of shared power within a constitutional framework became entrenched. Whilst the constitutional pattern became settled in England, the relationship with France, always complicated by overlapping feudal obligations as regards English-held land in France, created continual friction. Despite frequent flare-ups, especially by

Introduction 87

­ isgruntled local nobles, who tried to play both crowns one against the other, peace d was brought by clarifying the rules and inter-marriage between the two monarchies. ­Nonetheless, this inter-marriage laid the seeds for a conflict that would dominate Anglo-French relations for the next 150 years. One of the most remarkable achievements of the thirteenth century, in terms of avoiding conflict, was Jerusalem moving back into Christian hands. It was remarkable as it was done peacefully, via treaty and not bloodshed. The context that allowed this to happen was the disintegration of the Sunni based empire that Saladin has created, after his death. In particular, although the Fifth Crusade failed miserably, within 11 years Frederick II had entered Jerusalem and was proclaimed as its overlord, following a treaty with the sultan of Egypt. However, the community he established became embroiled in regional inter-Muslim wars, in which alliances formed against the author of the treaty (the sultan of Egypt) would eventually lead to the downfall of the regime in Egypt and the rise of the Mamluks in its place. As Jerusalem was changing hands, the Mongolian Empire was expanding rapidly in all directions. These, primarily migratory, peoples formed a coherent group until just after the middle of the thirteenth century. During this point wars were caused by the killing of ambassadors, the giving of sanctuary (or allowing transit) to enemies, or the failure to give tribute when demanded. Although being unique for their religious tolerance, the Mongols expected complete submission of areas that surrendered. For some areas, such as eastern Europe, the defeats were transitory, for other areas, such as what became much of Russia, the invaders came to settle and occupy large parts for centuries to come. In the case of China, the Song cooperated with the Mongols, but when they tried to force the return of the culturally important areas which the Mongols came to hold, warfare followed. This intensified when the Song refused to pay the Mongols the same tribute they used to give to their former enemies, which the Mongols had defeated. The survival of the Song was only due to the breathing space created with the transition time, and civil war for the Mongols, involved in the finding of a new great Khan. When this was settled, following further warfare with the Song, peace was found for the price of silver and gold. When Kublai Khan came to power, the Song were destroyed and a new dynasty, the Yuan, that unified China in the first time for hundreds of years, came into being. ­Control was also solidified over Tibet, Myamar, Korea and Vietnam, in which those who were not directly controlled, accepted a vassal status and provided tribute. The only country which avoided a subjected position was Japan which defeated two attempted invasions. The only point in the thirteenth century when the Mongols were actually stopped and pushed back was with the Sunni based Mamluks. Their victories stopped the ­Mongolian juggernaut and saved Islam. With the Mongols halted, the Mamluks struck outwards, pushing the Mongol forces back and systematically destroying both nonallied Muslim and/or Christian communities in the process. They did this by dividing the opposition by offering some truces, and others war. Mongol–Christian alliances, as the only viable counterweight against the Mamluks, were at first rejected and then, when

88  The Thirteenth Century

they were accepted, were too late to stem the tide, with the last significant C ­ hristian outpost in the Holy Land, Acre, being lost in 1291. The remaining Christian countries in the region, Armenia and Georgia, were subsumed within the Mamluk Empire over the following decades. Sunni Islam was now dominant throughout the region. Only with the reconquest of Spain, and follow-through actions into North Africa following the fragmentation of Almohad power into three, Sunni dynastic States, did Christian interests advance, as the Christian kings learnt to divide and rule between squabbling Muslim dynasties.

2.  The Church

A.  Pope Innocent III Pope Innocent III reigned in Rome from 1198. He considered himself the Vicar of Christ on Earth, standing halfway between God and humanity, given ‘not only the universal church, but the whole world to govern’. He was ruled by the thought that the pope was responsible to God for the salvation of common people, ecclesiastics and kings alike. It was therefore his business to appoint, and control monarchs to ensure their righteousness and their respect for the rights of the Church. He would explain: The princes ought to recognise that the right and authority of examining the person whom they have elected as king, as of promoting him to the imperial power belongs to us who anoint, consecrate and crown him …1

And, We do not deny that the emperor is superior in temporal matters to those who receive temporal things from him, but the pope is superior in spiritual matters, which, as the soul is superior to the body, are more worthy than temporal ones.2

With such confidence and piety, Innocent III exerted influence over every part of ­western Christendom. Within Italy, he had the local princes, including the Prefect of the Senate of Rome, take an oath of allegiance to him. Outside of Italy, Aragon, Portugal and Poland were all reconfirmed as papal fiefs. The pope also sent crowns to the new kings of Bulgaria (which was breaking free from Byzantium) and Bohemia. He managed marriage arrangements for the monarchs of Europe, and ensured that Kings of England, France, Norway, Denmark and Sweden, all did as they were told, especially on ecclesiastical matters.3 1 

Innocent III, as reprinted in Cantor, N (ed) (1963) The Medieval World 300–1300 (NYC, Macmillan) 264. Mundy, J (1991) Europe in the High Middle Ages (London, Longview) 221. 3  See Moore, J (2009) Pope Innocent III: To Root Up and to Plant (Notre Dame Press, Notre Dame). For the 1198 ‘Oath of Fidelity to Innocent III’, see Thatcher, O (ed) (1905) A Sourcebook for Medieval History (NYC, Scribner) 214; Rousseau, C (1998) ‘A Papal Matchmaker: Principle and Pragmatism During Innocent III’s Pontificate’ Journal of Medieval History 24 (3): 259–71; Norwich, J (2011) Absolute Monarchs: A History of the Papacy (London, Random) 32–33, 43, 120. 2 

The Fourth Crusade 89 3.  The Fourth Crusade

A.  The Fracturing Relationship Pope Innocent III was in power when Constantinople fell to the Latins. Hatred is ­probably an inappropriate word for Innocent III’s attitude towards the Greek Church, but he did regard the Byzantines as rebels against his authority. Nevertheless, in 1203, he warned the leaders of the Fourth Crusade: Let no one among you rashly convince himself that he may seize or plunder the Greeks’ land on the pretext that they show little obedience toward the Apostolic See … Whatever evil the emperor and his subjects may have committed … it is not up to you to pass judgement on their crimes, nor did you take the cross for the purpose of punishing anyone for this offence.4

In addition to Innocent III’s prohibition, the broad history suggested this conquest of one Christian group by another should never have happened, as the genesis of the Crusades lay in helping, not fighting, Byzantium. However, just over 100 years after taking Jerusalem in the First Crusade in 1099, the Crusader forces, under the auspice of the papacy, would conquer Constantinople and nearly destroy their Christian cousin. In retrospect, this was not surprising, as the relationship between Byzantium and the West was tense, for three reasons which supplemented the ongoing theological fracture (and occasional anti-Latin riots in Constantinople) between the two foundations of the Christian faith.5 First, the Crusaders felt that the Byzantines, due to their willingness to make treaties with both the Fatimids (in the early part of the eleventh century)6 and the Seljuks (in the latter half of the twelfth century)7 could not be trusted. This lack of trust grew after the disasters that were the Second and Third Crusades when it became known that C ­ onstantinople had entered into alliances with Saladin. For the failure of the ­Byzantine city of Antioch to help Edessa, which was the catalyst for the Second ­Crusade, the French king, Louis VII, had advocated a Crusade against the Byzantine emperor, who was ‘Christian in name only’.8

4  Innocent III, as noted in Schmandt, R (1975) ‘The Fourth Crusade and Just War Theory’. The Catholic Historical Review 61 (2): 191, 213. The full study of this relationship is found in Andrea, A (1969) Pope Innocent III as Crusader and Canonist: His Relations with the Greeks of Constantinople (Ithaca, Cornell UP) 23–34, 56–59, 99–103. 5  See Harris, J (2004) ‘The Debate on the Fourth Crusade’ History Compass 2: 1–10; Angold, M (1999) ‘The Road to 1204: The Byzantine Background to the Fourth Crusade’ Journal of Medieval History 25 (3): 257–78; Madden, T (1995) ‘Outside and Inside the Fourth Crusade’ The International History Review 17 (4): 726–43. For the riots, see ‘The Byzantines Take Their Revenge’, as reprinted in Geanakoplos, D (ed) (1986) Byzantium: A Sourcebook on Church, Society and Civilisation Seen Through Contemporary Eyes (Chicago Ill, Chicago University Press) 365. 6  See page 15. 7  See page 76. Also, Neocleous, S (2010) ‘Byzantine-Muslim Conspiracies Against the Crusades: History and Myth’ Journal of Medieval History 36 (3): 253–74. 8  Louis VII, as noted in Hussey, J (ed) (1966) The Cambridge Medieval History: The Byzantine Empire, Vol IV (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press) 228. See also pages 210–14.

90  The Thirteenth Century

As regards the Third Crusade following the fall of Jerusalem, once Barbarossa had sought permission to pass through Byzantine territory and the two forces found themselves in military conflict due to the military alliance that Constantinople had reached with Saladin, Barbarossa would send his son to discuss with the pope the possibility of a Crusade against Byzantium, which he felt was acting against the wider interests of western Christendom. In so doing, Barbarossa was particularly aware of the interests of the Bulgarians and the Serbians, both of whom were trying to claw back their independence from Constantinople and making overtures to the Latin, not Orthodox, faith.9 The second reason for a tense relationship was that there was considerable anger towards the Latins on the part of Byzantium, because it was believed that the ­Crusaders, in the wake of the First Crusade, had reneged on their promises to return to the original owner—Byzantium—lands taken from the Muslims. The Crusaders, in contrast, argued that they were only obliged to do this if Byzantium gave them sufficient assistance in the recovery of the lands, which, the Latins argued, it had not. This was most obvious in connection with the city of Antioch, which had been Byzantine until 1085, when it was taken over by the Seljuks and then, three years later, in 1098, by the Crusaders. The city’s return to Byzantium only occurred with the 1108 Treaty of Devol, but even then, the terms of the Treaty were never fully implemented.10 The third problem had to do with on-going warfare between a subset of the Latin Crusaders—the Normans of southern Italy—and Byzantium. The southern Normans had sought to topple Constantinople in 1081, making the most of a dynastic dispute, trying to force their way into Illyria. However, the Byzantine forces were waiting, and some 40,000 men fought each other at the battle of Dyrrhachium. Although two-thirds of the 15,000 dead on the battlefield were Norman, victory was not assured to either side, and the opponents continued to wage war against each other in the region for many years to come. The most significant conflicts followed in 1147–49 (at the same time that the Second Crusade was occurring) and again in 1185–86 (during the time of Saladin and the Third Crusade). To suggest there was no good faith between the southern Normans and Byzantium is an understatement.11

B.  Venice and Byzantium In the end, it was not the forces of southern Italy that were at the forefront of the justifications for the attack on Constantinople. Rather, it was Venice. This was ironic, as 9 See Otto of Freising, The Deeds of Frederick Barbarossa trans Mierow, C (2004) (NYC, Columbia ­ niversity Press) 55; Gibbon, E (1926 edn) The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, Vol VI (London, U Methuen) 200–10, 390–93, 442–46. 10  Norwich, J (1996) Byzantium: The Decline and the Fall (London, Penguin) 33, 49–50, 94–95, 123. 11  Brown, G (2003) The Norman Conquest of Southern Italy and Sicily ( Jefferson, NC, McFarland) 10–11, 22–23, 38–41, 43–45, 132–33, 151, 160–66, 180–81, 191–93; Tanner, J (ed) (1957) The Cambridge Medieval History: Contest of Empire and Papacy, Vol V (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press) 284, 294–95, 367–70, 411.

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Byzantium, for a long period, had befriended Venice via treaty since 1082, as a counterweight to the other threats it faced from Europe. However, that friendship came to an end a century later, with Genoa being Constantinople’s new ally, with associated trading privileges agreed in 1170. Accordingly, there was now considerable mutual mistrust between Constantinople and Venice. This overlapped with the creation of the Fourth Crusade. This Crusade, which carried the traditional spiritual promises of redemption, was aimed at Egypt, as it was believed that it was the unification of Egypt and the rise of Saladin that allowed Jerusalem to be captured.12 To reach their target of Egypt, the Crusaders contracted with the Venetians in 1201 for Venice to transport 32,000 men for a set price and a share of the rewards of the conquest when Egypt was defeated. There were two problems, however. First, it appears that Venice may have made a treaty with Egypt the following year, in 1202 (although this may have been later), whereby, in exchange for commercial privileges and the right for Venetians to visit Jerusalem in safety, Venice agreed not to attack Egypt. Secondly, the Crusaders were unable to pay Venice the promised fee for the journey. This became apparent after the Venetians had constructed about 500 large vessels for the purpose. The solution was for the Crusaders to do some work for Venice by attacking a Venetian enemy as they progressed to their final goal, to make up the difference. That enemy was the Hungarian (Catholic) port of Zara, which had earlier renounced its allegiance to Venice for which the people of Zara were labelled as unjust, traitorous and perjured by the Venetians. For these justifications, the Crusaders were set loose upon Zara, reducing it to submission. Pope Innocent III was angered by this attack on fellow Christians (having warned the Crusaders earlier not to attack Zara) and excommunicated the Venetians involved. He also threatened the non-Venetian Crusaders with excommunication if they did not return to the crusade and continue to the Holy Land.13 The defining catalyst that mapped the path for war was dropped into the mix when Alexius IV Angelos, a Byzantine royal who had fled Constantinople, presented himself to the Crusaders. Alexius was trying to be the final victor after two decades of violent fratricidal struggle in Byzantium, which had seen the rapid turnover of the emperor’s throne and a subsequent state of civil terror. Alexius was one of the refugees of this struggle who had fled Constantinople after his father, Isaac II Angelos, was blinded and imprisoned by his uncle (Isaac III Angelos), who had seized the throne and sought Alexius in order to obliterate the family line of his own brother, the emperor of ­Byzantium. Alexius promised the Crusaders in the Treaty of Zara that he would give

12  See Jones, A (2010) ‘Fulk of Neuilly, Innocent III and the Preaching of the Fourth Crusade’ C ­ omitatus: A Journal of Medieval and Renaissance Studies 41: 119–48; Fotheringham, J (1910) ‘Genoa and the Fourth ­Crusade’ The English Historical Review 25 (97): 26–57. 13  Schmandt, R (1975) ‘The Fourth Crusade and Just War Theory’ The Catholic Historical Review 61 (2): 191–221; Crowley, R (2011) City of Fortune (London, Faber) 25–27, 31–39, 52–57, 63; Queller, D (1976) ‘Some Arguments in Defense of the Venetians on the Fourth Crusade’ The American Historical Review 81 (4): 717–37. The 1201 ‘Treaty of the Crusaders with Venice’, is reprinted in Laffan, R (ed) (1929) Select Historical Documents: 800–1492 (NYC, Holt) 61.

92  The Thirteenth Century

them 10,000 soldiers and accompanying ships for their mission to Egypt, and payment of the debt the Crusaders owed the Venetians, if they helped to restore him to power in Constantinople, before going on with their journey. He also promised to give the papacy primacy in Constantinople on religious matters.14 Philip of Swabia, the king of Germany, supported this approach, telling his men, ‘Since you are marching for God, for right and justice, it is your duty in so far as you can, to restore their possessions to those who have been wrongfully dispossessed’.15 With such an approach, the Fourth Crusade duly arrived beneath the walls of Constantinople in 1203, proclaiming to those defending the ancient capital of the Byzantium: In the case of honour and justice, we despise the usurper of Greece, his threats and his offers. Our friendship … [is] due to the lawful heir, to the young prince who is seated among us, and to his father, the emperor … who has been deprived of his sceptre, his freedom, and his eyes, by the crime of an ungrateful brother.16

Upon seeing the army beneath the walls of Constantinople, Isaac III fled, and the doors of the greatest city in the world opened to Alexius. The people of the city then released Isaac II from jail and requested him to govern, despite the fact that he was blind. The Crusaders agreed, provided Alexius’ son was made co-emperor. The ­Crusaders wanted this because it was from Alexius that they had the promise of money and assistance. The difficulty was that the Constantinople treasury was largely empty, and only half the promised sum could be found. Tensions between father and son, supplemented by a deteriorating relationship with the Crusaders, led to a coup, in which an independent nobleman, Alexius V Doukas, killed both of the co-emperors, as he believed it was wrong to negotiate with the Crusaders and the Venetians. For their part, the Crusaders and Venetians felt that they had been cheated, and that the co-emperors they had empowered had been wrongfully killed.17

C.  The Sack of Constantinople The majority of the Venetian Crusaders and the minority of the non-Venetian ­Crusaders now remaining (the majority of the non-Venetian Crusaders had already gone their own ways for various reasons) who were convinced of the justice of their cause, or felt unable to leave, now came together and drew up a plan for the attack on Constantinople and the division of the booty. The Venetians were to get ­three-quarters

14  See Madden, T (1993) ‘Vows and Contracts in the Fourth Crusade: The Treaty of Zara and the Attack on Constantinople in 1204’ The International History Review 15 (3): 441–68. 15  Philip of Swabia, as noted in Schmandt, R (1975) ‘The Fourth Crusade and Just War Theory’ The Catholic Historical Review 61 (2): 191, 210. 16  The statement of the Venetians, as reprinted in Gibbon, E (1926 edn) The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, Vol VI London, Methuen) 409. See also pages 390–405, 414–17, 419. 17 Hussey, J (ed) (1966) The Cambridge Medieval History: The Byzantine Empire, Vol IV (Cambridge, ­Cambridge University Press) 246–49, 394–95.

The Fourth Crusade 93

of the spoils, until their debt was settled. Thereafter, the booty was to be divided equally, a new (Latin) emperor was to be chosen and trading monopolies were to be agreed. Beneath the walls, the justification for the attack was buttressed by Latin bishops who urged the attack on the city since the Greeks: [H]ad seceded from the Church of Rome… this battle is lawful and just. And if you conquer this land with the right intention of bringing it under the authority of Rome, all those of you who die after making confessions will benefit from the indulgences granted by the pope.18

Others roused the troops by arguing that the forthcoming battle was righteous, as those inside the walls were ‘enemies of God … blasphemous, even heretical’.19 This ­preaching was consistent with the goals of the 1204 treaty, which set down the above agreement, and stipulated in its first article, ‘we will attack the city by armed force in Christ’s name’.20 The Crusaders then all agreed to act to, ‘the honor of God and of the Holy Roman Church and Empire’, and if they were successful in taking Constantinople, they would ‘endeavor in good faith to obtain the pope’s confirmation of this treaty’.21 Thereafter, some 20,000 Crusaders faced a force of 30,000 Byzantine defenders and achieved a military victory that shocked the western world, as the Latin Christians destroyed the capital of the Orthodox Christians. The Byzantine Empire was then divided up in the Partitio terrarum imperii Romaniae (‘partition of the lands of the empire of Romania’). This document, in accordance with the earlier preliminary set of rules, signed after the sack of Constantinople, was drafted by a committee of 12 Venetians and 12 representatives from the Crusader leaders. The Latin emperor, who was elected by majority vote of the 24 representatives, was given direct control of most of Constantinople. Venice got the lion’s share of five-eighths of the former Byzantine Empire, and the remaining three-eighths were granted to the Crusader chiefs. On paper, the Venetians were granted all of Western Greece, Corfu and the Ionian Islands, a scattering of bases throughout the Aegean Sea and a share of Constantinople. Venice, having started off with a debt owed by the Crusaders, ended up gaining an empire. One-fifteenth of all of the new territories taken outside of Constantinople was to be gifted to the Church.22 18  The conference of Latin Bishops, as noted in Schmandt, R (1975) ‘The Fourth Crusade and Just War Theory’ The Catholic Historical Review 61 (2): 191, 218; Hodgson, N (2013) ‘Honour, Shame and the Fourth Crusade’. Journal of Medieval Studies 39 (3): 220–39; Queller, D (1974) ‘The Fourth Crusade: The Neglected Majority’ Speculum 49 (3): 441–65. 19  See ‘A Latin Clerics Opinion of Greek Religious Practices’, reprinted in Geanakoplos, D (ed) (1986) Byzantium: A Sourcebook on Church, Society and Civilisation Seen Through Contemporary Eyes (Chicago Ill, Chicago University Press) 362, 368; Luttwak, E (2009) The Grand Strategy of the Byzantine Empire (London, Harvard University Press) 114, 191. 20  The 1204 ‘Treaty of the Crusaders with Venice’, as reprinted in Laffan, R (ed) (1929) Select Historical Documents: 800–1492 (NYC, Holt) 63–65. 21  ‘The Treaty of the Crusaders with Venice’, as reprinted in in Laffan, R (ed) (1929) Select Historical Documents: 800–1492 (NYC, Holt) 63–65. Also, Crowley, R (2011) City of Fortune (London, Faber) 86–90. 22 Crowley, R (2011) City of Fortune (London, Faber) 126–28; Gertwager, R (2014) ‘Venice’s Policy Towards the Ionian and Aegean Islands, 1204–23’ International Journal of Maritime History 26 (3): 529–48; Grant, R (2011) 1001 Battles (London, Penguin) 157.

94  The Thirteenth Century

Despite lamenting the sack of Constantinople, Pope Innocent III congratulated the Crusaders for acting as a medium of divine justice in translating the Greek kingdom of the schismatic Orthodox Christians to the Catholics. Rome had long been angered by the refusal of the Patriarchate of Constantinople to accept the supremacy of the papacy, and now there was a golden opportunity, which Pope Innocent accepted, to make the Orthodox Church of Constantinople subservient to the Latin Church of Rome. Orthodox bishops who submitted to the authority of the pope were able to continue as pastors of their flocks, but those who persisted in contumacious refusal to accept the new regime and its faith were excommunicated and replaced by Latin ­bishops. The formal position was clearly stated at the Fourth Lateran Council of 1215, that the Church of the East had to ‘conform with filial obedience to the sacred Roman church, their mother, in order that there may be one flock and one shepherd’.23 Thereafter, Rome became a protector for Latin Constantinople, continually directing men and materials to ensure their survival, when required.

4. Non-Conforming Communities

A.  Pagans, Jews and Witches The thirteenth century saw an increasing intolerance towards non-conformist communities within Europe and those on its fringes. With regards to those on its fringes, Innocent III was at the forefront in supporting war against pagans. Whilst the spiritual benefits of fighting such heathens in the Baltic had been iterated earlier by the papacy in 1171, 1195 and 1198, in 1209, Pope Innocent III had begun to push the boundaries of what was possible. In his bull Quod super his, he asserted that if pagans did something that was contrary to the law of nature, the pope, with his divinely ordained mission for universal salvation, could punish them. He warned that ‘it is natural for man to worship the one and only God’. Thus, the pope could order infidels to admit preachers into their lands. If they did not obey, they could be compelled. Pope Innocent then called upon the King of Denmark to: Drag the barbarian nations into the net of the orthodox faith … gird yourself manfully to root out the error of paganism and spread the bounds of the Christian faith … if you fight properly you will deserve to be crowned in eternal glory.24 23  The Fourth Lateran Council of 1215, as reprinted in Geanakoplos, D (ed) (1986) Byzantium: A ­Sourcebook on Church, Society and Civilisation Seen Through Contemporary Eyes (Chicago Ill, Chicago University Press) 215–16; Hussey, J (1967) The Cambridge Medieval History: The Byzantine Empire, Vol IV (II) (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press) 394–95, 546–54; Mundy, J (1991) Europe in the High Middle Ages (London, L ­ ongman) 55; Tanner, J (ed) (1957) The Cambridge Medieval History: The Victory of the Papacy, Vol VI (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press) 16–19. 24 Innocent III, noted in Riley-Smith, L (ed) (1981) The Crusades: Idea and Reality (London, Edward Arnold) 77–78. Also, Christiansen, E (1997) The Northern Crusades (London, Penguin) 23–24, 98, 107, 109, 111, 119, 127, 208–09. For the continuation of this Crusade, see Spence, R (1983) ‘Pope Gregory IX and the Crusade on the Baltic’ The Catholic Historical Review 69 (1): 1–19.

Non-Conforming Communities 95

With regards to non-conforming communities within Europe, Jewish people were the obvious target. Although the official line from the Fourth Lateran Council of 1215 was that monarchs were to protect and not oppress Jewish people, this was a difficult goal to achieve as even if violence was condemned, there was a strong trend of either direct, or indirect, anti-Jewish behaviour.25 In terms of direct actions, the Talmud, following a public trial in France of this book on charges of blasphemy and abuse of the Christian religion, was condemned by Pope Gregory IX. When found guilty, 24 cartloads of the Talmud were collected from around France and burnt. Although Gregory’s successor promptly rescinded the edict of destruction, the practice continued in a number of other European countries.26 In addition, Jewish people were denied the right to exercise any public (or ­nursing) function involving power over Christians. Christians were not meant to be doing commerce with Jewish usurers; and finally, Jewish people (and Muslims) were to have distinctive dress so they could be told apart from the general community. The end result was that by the end of the thirteenth century, Jewish communities were directly targeted by the kings of both France and England for expulsion from their kingdoms, upon which their properties were confiscated and vested in the crown.27

B.  The Albigensian Crusade The other intolerance of this century that was noticeable was the recognition of witchcraft as a specific crime,28 and the continued pursuit of heretics, such as those so classified at the Third Lateran Council of 1179.29 Pope Gregory IX added to this in 1232, establishing a system of ‘legal’ investigations—the Inquisition to stamp out heresy. The Dominicans’ were entrusted to carry out this work of the Inquisition. Due to the perceived severity of the risk of heresy, the Dominican Thomas Aquinas would add soon after, that it was not enough to excommunicate heretics or expel them from the

25 Decrees of the Fourth Lateran Council’, as reprinted in Laffan, R (ed) (1929) Select Historical ­Documents:  800–1492 (NYC, Holt) 104–05. Also, Rist, R (2007) ‘Papal Protection and the Jews in the Context of ­Crusading, 1198–1245’ Medieval Encounters 13 (2): 281–309. 26  Ventresca, R (2012) ‘War Without End: The Popes and the Jews’. Harvard Theological Review 105 (4): 466–90; Lower, M (2005) ‘Negotiating Interfaith Relations: Pope Gregory IX’. Essays in Medieval Studies 21: 49–62; Isaacs, A (1901) ‘The Talmud in History’ The Jewish Quarterly Review 13 (3): 438–45. 27  See ‘The Statute of the Jewry and the Petition of Commonalty’, as in Rosenwein, B (ed) (2006) Reading the Middle Ages: Sources from Europe, Byzantium and the Islamic World (Ontario, Broadview) 286, 410, 444–45; Barkey, K (2011) ‘State, Regimes and Decisions: Why Jews Were Expelled from Medieval England and France’. Theory and Society 40: 475–503; Jones, D (2012) The Plantagenets: The Kings Who Made England (London, Harper) 190–91, 320; MacKay, A (1977) Spain in the Middle Ages (London, Macmillan) 58–59, 63; O’Callaghan, J (2003) Reconquest and Crusade in Medieval Spain. (Philadelphia, Pennsylvania University Press) 2–3, 8, 23, 37, 47, 51, 56, 87, 94, 95, 103, 139–40, 146; Poole, A (1954) From Domesday Book to Magna Carta (Oxford, Oxford University Press) 353–54; Maddicott, J (1999) Simon de Montfort (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press) 15, 318–19. 28  As inspired by the exhortation, ‘Thou shalt not suffer a witch live’, Exodus 22:18. 29  See pages 68–70.

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Church. Rather, they had to be handed over to the secular authorities to be ‘severed from the world by death’.30 It was one of the groups labeled as heretics in 1179, the Cathars, that Pope Innocent III instigated the Albigensian Crusade. The French ruler, King Philip II, allowed this to happen as he wished to remain on the good side of the papacy with his continual conflicts with the English kings. In addition, Philip II, had earlier had his kingdom placed under interdict in the year 1200, due to his desire to divorce his first wife. With such knowledge, needs and concerns, when Pope Innocent III decided to wage war in the southern part of his country under the pretext of fighting heresy, Philip, who had already decided not to divorce his wife as planned, did not stand in his way.31 The enemy identified by Pope Innocent to be charged with the crime of heresy was the Cathars. The Cathars drew their name from the Greek word for ‘pure’, but many other names were given to them, such as Albigensians, because one of their greatest areas of influence was located in and around the city of Albi in the south of France. In theological matters, they were dualists—indeed they were probably related to various dualist sects such as the Manicheans, Gnostics, Bogomils and Paulicans, from the B ­ alkan peninsular—believing that a God who was good could not be responsible for the manifest evil in the world, which therefore must have a separate creator. The Cathars also adopted vegetarian practices, preached sexual abstinence, objected to the Crusades and sought control over their own political institutions. They viewed licentious and authoritarian local priests as hypocrites, and regarded the Catholic Church as the ‘Great Beast’ or ‘the Whore of Babylon’.32 The chronicler, William of Puylaurens, confidently proclaimed that the entire region of southern France was possessed by Satan, which Pope Innocent III began to combat by sending priests to the south of France to fight with words, not weapons. When one of these legates was killed in 1208, the pope called for the use of military force, urging Philip II and the aristocracy of France to ‘fill your souls with godly rage to avenge the insult done to the Lord’.33 At the Fourth Lateran Council he specifically warned: If a temporal lord neglects to fulfil the demand of the Church that he shall purge his land of this contamination of heresy, he shall be excommunicated … it shall be reported to the Supreme Pontiff, who shall pronounce his vassals absolved from fealty to him and offer his land to ­Catholics. The latter shall exterminate the heretics, possess the land without dispute

30 Aquinas, as noted in Drury, S (2008) ‘Aquinas and the Inquisition: A Tale of Faith and Politics’ ­Salmagundi 157: 91, 96. 31  See ‘An Interdict on France, 1200’, as reprinted in Laffan, R (ed) (1929) Select Historical Documents: 800–1492 (NYC, Holt) 101–02; Rousseau, C (2014) ‘Neither Bewitched nor Beguiled: Philip Augustus’s Alleged Impotence and Innocent III’s Response’ Speculum 89 (2): 410–36. 32  Madaule, J (1967) The Albigensian Crusade (London, Burns) 12–17, 23–34; 91–99; Derksen, J (2004) ‘Peacemaking Principles Drawn From Opposition to the Crusades’ Peace Research 36 (2): 41–58; Brooke, C (1987) Europe in the Central Middle Ages (London, Longview) 60, 432–38l. 33  Innocent III, as noted in Furtado, P (2012) 1001 Days (London, Cassel) 181; William of Puylaurens, as noted in Cohen, M (ed) (2004) History in Quotations (London, Cassell) 200.

Non-Conforming Communities 97 and keep it in the true faith … Catholics who assume the cross and devote themselves to the extermination of heretics, shall enjoy the same indulgence and privilege as those who go to the Holy Land.34

Pope Innocent then ordered Philip to: seize the little foxes who are influencing the simple, are forever destroying the vineyard of the Lord of Hosts … you must eliminate such harmful filth, so that the purity of your faith, which as a Catholic prince you hold as an ideal, may be revealed in deeds by vigorous action.35

The French king, however, could not commit forces to deal with the problem as he said he required them elsewhere, France being in a heightened state of alert as regards ­England at the same time. The pope then approached Raymond VI, Count of ­Toulouse, in whose region most of the offenders were located. However, Raymond seemed more inclined to help, not fight, the Cathars, for which Pope Innocent declared the Count of Toulouse excommunicate. It was this villainy of the Count of Toulouse and the martyrdom of the papal legate, which allowed Pope Innocent to proclaim a Crusade in this region of France. The remission of sin was offered to any Christian who took up arms against Raymond VI and his supporters, for a total of only 40 days of military service. The vassals of Raymond VI were absolved from their oaths of allegiance to him. Further, he declared all Catholics were entitled to legally seize the property of Raymond VI on the condition that they did not disturb the rights of the king of France or the German emperor. With such principles behind it, the Albigensian Crusade was then preached throughout France and further afield. Such was the success of this that a reported 200,000 men turned up to follow the papal direction in a war that would last for 24 years and which killed, perhaps, one million people and displaced many more.36 The indiscriminate killing began at Beziers in 1209, when the town was being sacked and it was obvious that a number of good Catholics were inside the walls and could not be distinguished from the heretics, to which the papal legate gave the order, ‘Kill them all, God will know his own’, from which almost 20,000 people were massacred.37 Once the enemies of the Cathars were in possession of a territory an inquisition could begin, of which burnings, such as the 140 persons who were incinerated at Minerve in 1210, followed. Despite regrouping, the Cathars could not find military victories, losing at least another 20,000 men at the battle of Muret in 1213. This large-scale 34  ‘Decrees of the Fourth Lateran Council’, as reprinted in Laffan, R (ed) (1929) Select Historical Documents: 800–1492 (NYC, Holt) 104–05. 35  ‘Innocent III to Philip II’, as reprinted in Riley-Smith, L (ed) (1981) The Crusades: Idea and Reality (London, Edward Arnold) 79–80; Fawtier, R (1974) The Capetian Kings of France (London, Macmillan) 117–21. 36  Chenu, C (2011) ‘Innocent III and the Case for War in Southern France in 1207’ Journal of Religious History 35 94): 507–15; Marvin, L (2002) Thirty-Nine Days and a Wake-Up: The Impact of the Indulgence and Forty Days Service on the Albigensian Crusade’ Historian 65: 75–94; Power, D (2013) ‘Who Went on the Albigensian Crusade’ The English Historical Review 128 (534): 1047–85; Cassidy, M (2010) ‘Displaced People After the Albigensian Crusade’ Parergon 27 (2): 111–131; White, M (2011) Atrocitolology: Humanity’s 100 Deadliest Achievements (Melbourne, Text Publishing) 127. 37  Ayerst, D (ed) (1977) Records of Christianity, Vol II (Oxford, Blackwell) 183–84; Moore, R (2012) The War on Heresy: Faith and Power in Medieval Europe (London, Profile) 8, 246–50.

98  The Thirteenth Century

defeat opened up Provence and the lower Rhone Valley, through which the enemies of the Cathars rolled on for a further 16 years, as future Popes Honorius III and Gregory IX, and the new French king, Louis IX, continued their military efforts of a total of 45 sieges and four field battles, until the whole area of the Albigenses was occupied.38 Peace was finally achieved with the Treaty of Meaux in 1229. Under this treaty, the new Count of Toulouse (son of Raymond VI) conceded defeat to the French king, ending the Albigensian Crusade. This made the authority of the Catholic Church undisputed. It also put an end to the political autonomy of the region, with more than half of the land going directly to King Louis IX and the rest being held as a fief. However, the persecution of the Cathars continued. Within the Albigensian region, 60 executions of heretics were recorded in 1233, 180 in 1239, 200 in 1244 and a further 80 in 1249. The future Pope Benedict XII would later supervise the last rooting out of Catharism, watching the burning of 183 men and women in 1321—a spectacle described by a contemporary as ‘a holocaust, very great and pleasing to God’.39

5.  Christian and Muslim Conflict

A.  The Fragmentation of the Ayyubids Pope Innocent III was not content to only launch crusades into the Baltic, France and Constantinople. He also wanted to win back the Holy Land. The background to this quest was the death of Saladin in 1193 and subsequent fragmentation of much of the Seljuk framework and Ayyubid dynasty that he had built.40 Within a year of his passing, both the independent princes and the heirs he left behind, all professing the same Sunni faith, would be squabbling over the division of the empire, from which further independent areas of note, such as the Seljuk Sultanate of Rum, covering much of Anatolia, would arise. The kingdom of Georgia broke free, as did the Armenian kingdom of Cilicia. Even those who were meant to be above such squabbles, such as the Caliph in Baghdad, Al Nasir, took advantage of the instability brought about by the competition between Seljuk sultans, princes and atabegs, to build an effective powerbase. The caliph took particular delight in having the last Seljuk emir over Baghdad killed, and his body put on public display, preferring an allegiance with

38  Marvin, L (2001). ‘War in the South: The Albigensian Crusade, 1209–1218’ War in History 8 (4): 373–395. 39 As noted in Norwich, J (2011) Absolute Monarchs: A History of the Papacy (London, Random) 211. ­Murphy, C (2011) God’s Jury: The Inquisition and the Making of the Modern World (London, Penguin) 8–9, 26–27, 34, 63; Tanner, J (ed) (1957) The Cambridge Medieval History: The Victory of the Papacy, Vol VI (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press) 22–25, 92, 95, 342–47, 398–300, 409; Grant, R (2011) 1001 Battles (London, Penguin) 160. 40  See pages 75–80.

Christian and Muslim Conflict 99

the Khwarazmian dynasty, who from this point in history seemed to be the most powerful Muslim grouping.41

B.  Spain and North Africa The same process of disintegration was also occurring within the Almohad Caliphate in Spain. The defining point in the conflict in Spain, and a key part in the formation of its collective identity, was the Battle of Las Navas de Tolosa in 1212. Prior to this, although the Christian forces of Castile and Aragon were cooperating in the fight against Islam, as the loss of 25,000 Christian soldiers at the Battle of Alarcos testified, the Almohads were still very powerful. However, following two short truces, the A ­ lmohads were destroyed at Las Navas de Tolosa by the Castilian-led forces of Alfonso VIII. At least 60,000 men from Castile, Navarre, Aragon and Portugal, and a further 70,000 from Italy and France, vanquished a larger Muslim force of around 200,000, leaving perhaps half of the latter dead on the field. Alfonso would write to the pope, following this battle, that when he rested his army after the conflict, ‘for all the fires which were needed to cook food, no wood was needed but that of the enemy arrows and spears which were lying around, and even then we burned scarcely half of them’.42 In winning this battle, Alfonso destroyed not only an army but, in essence, all of the Almohad engagement in Spain, forcing the internal cohesion of the Caliphate to fall apart in 1224. After this collapse the Almohads withdrew from the country, leaving their Muslim brothers, and what became the Nasrid dynasty, to their fate. Mallorca fell to James I of Aragon in 1229, Menorca and Ibiza following. In 1236, Cordoba, the former capital of the Caliphate, fell to Ferdinand III of Castile. Two years later, James took Valencia. He agreed treaties in 1244 (Sativa) and 1245 (Al-Azraq), in which the local Muslim commanders were allowed generous terms of surrender. Seville fell to the Christian forces in 1248. By 1250 Portugal had taken the Algarve, and Cadiz fell in 1263. Only the rump of Grenada remained in Muslim hands in the form of the Nasrid dynasty, but as a tribute-paying subsidiary.43 As the Nasrid lands shrunk, on the other side of the Strait of Gibraltar, the A ­ lmohads, disintegrated, fragmenting into three Sunni States that emerged around Tunis (the Hafsid dynasty), Morocco (the Marinid dynasty) and the area covering modern-day Libya and western Algeria (the Zayyanid dynasty). In this fragmented context, the 41 Black, A (2011) The History of Islamic Political Thought (Edinburgh, Edinburgh University Press) 83–89, 94–95, 235–39; Peacock, A (2006) ‘The Seljuk Campaign Against the Crimea and the Expansionist Policy’ Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society 16 (2): 133–40; Crone, P (2004) God’s Rule: Government and Islam (NYC, Columbia University Press) 243–47; Marozzi, J (2015) Baghdad: City of Peace, City of Blood (London, Penguin) 130–31. 42  Alfonso VIII, as noted in Cohen, M (ed) (2004) History in Quotations (London, Cassell) 155; Rodriguez, A (2012) ‘Forging Collective Memory: Las Navas’ Journal of Medieval Iberian Studies 4 (1): 15–19; Grant, R (2005) Battle: 5000 Years of Combat (London, Dorling Kindersley) 89–90. 43  MacKay, A (1977) Spain in the Middle Ages (London, Macmillan) 64–66; Hodgson, M (1974) The Venture of Islam, Vol II (Chicago, Ill, Chicago University Press) 271.

100  The Thirteenth Century

Christian kings quickly learnt how to act to their advantage, signing treaties of protection with one Muslim area in order to help it fight another, with a number of areas becoming protectorates of Aragon. In 1287, for example, a treaty was agreed between the remnants of the Almohad dynasty and Aragon, in which the Almohads agreed to pay and provide for the needs (including providing Churches, wine and their own legal system) of Aragon soldiers stationed in Almohad lands, to help protect what remained. Abd al-Wahid, the Almohad prince agreed: Moreover, we promise you upon our word that whenever you call upon us by letter or messenger, we will help you with all our might to oppose anyone, whether Christian, Muslim or otherwise, of whatever nation, religion or creed, and we will do this without deception, malice or treachery.44

C.  The Fifth Crusade Following the success at the battle of Las Navas de Tolosa, Pope Innocent III proposed in 1213 and then formalised at the Fourth Lateran Council in 1215 that a new crusade be sent to the Holy Land. The Council expressed this as their ‘desire to liberate the Holy Land from infidel hands’.45 By way of enticement to participate in the crusade, Innocent III promised potential Christian soldiers a ‘full remission of sins and an increase of eternal salvation’. This was in addition to financial support from the clergy, exemption from various taxes and the forbidding of creditors to pursue their claims against the Crusaders or add interest to their debts while they were away. Pope Innocent also demanded that the peace be kept among the Christian peoples in Europe while the crusade was ongoing.46 The military strategy this time was to reinstate the divide that had originally existed in the Muslim world through the invasion of Egypt. Either an independent Shia counterweight would appear, or, ideally, the entire Ayyubid structure, with its core in Egypt, would fracture into many pieces. As it was, the Ayyubid domain was already divided into the three parts, following the death of Saladin’s brother Al-Adil, who had ruled after Saladin. The three parts (broadly, Egypt, Palestine and Syria) were divided between Al-Adil’s three sons, with the eldest son, Al-Kamil (Saladin’s nephew), being the ruler of Egypt, and the supreme sultan. 44  The 1287 treaty is quoted in Fancy, H (2013) ‘The Last Almohads: Universal Sovereignty Between North Arica and the Crown of Aragon’ Medieval Encounters 19: 102, 120–21; Whalen, B (2011) ‘Corresponding with Infidels: Rome and the Almohads’ Journal of Medieval and Early Modern Studies 41 (3): 467–507; O’Callaghan, J (2003) Reconquest and Crusade in Medieval Spain (Philadelphia, Pa, Pennsylvania University Press) 5, 9–10, 19–20, 56–59, 62–63, 69, 83; MacKay, A (1977) Spain in the Middle Ages (London, ­Macmillan) 15–27, 30–35; Hodgson, M (1974) The Venture of Islam, Vol II (Chicago, Ill, Chicago University Press) 20–21, 29, 32–33. 45  Decrees of Lateran IV, reprinted in Rosenwein, B (ed) (2006) Reading the Middle Ages: Sources from Europe, Byzantium and the Islamic World (Ontario, Broadview) 399, 400. 46  Purkis, W (2014) ‘Memories of the Preaching of the Fifth Crusade’ Journal of Medieval History 40 (3): 329–45; Norwich, J (2011) Absolute Monarchs: A History of the Papacy (London, Random) 176, 182–83.

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To achieve their goal, some 200,000 Christian soldiers, under the leadership of the king of Hungary, the duke of Austria and count of Holland, formed an alliance with the Seljuk Sultanate of Rum from Anatolia, with the latter seeing the opportunity to pick up the slack in the wake of any Ayyubid tensions between the three brothers. The Crusaders eventually landed in Egypt and succeeded in taking Damietta, after 35,000 men clashed on the battlefield in 1218. After a frustrating 17 months of siege, the Sultan of Egypt, Al-Kamil, was willing to trade Damietta for Jerusalem. However, the Crusaders would not agree, with the persuasive papal legate, Pelagius Galvani, wanting to capture Cairo and, indeed, all of Egypt. The war went on for two more fruitless years, before disease and being trapped on the floodplain of the Nile wore down the crusading forces and their military might withered. For an exchange of prisoners and an eight-year truce, the Christian forces departed and sailed to Acre, holding nothing new at all. At the same time, the existing Christian territories in the Holy Land continued to deteriorate, as the settlers abandoned the land for safer climes.47

6. Frederick II

Frederick II was the son of Heinrich VI, the man who was the Holy Roman Emperor, as well as King of Germany, Italy and Sicily. Frederick II was crowned King of Sicily in 1198 at the age of four, which was also the year his mother Constance died and the year following his father’s death. Pope Innocent III expected that he would enjoy very strong control over Frederick, as he was his regent and the future Pope Honorius III was Frederick’s tutor. In time, Frederick would become the Holy Roman Emperor, as well as King of Germany, and also take the title King of Jerusalem. All of these, and other, claims were supported by his birthright, through battle, and by a succession of wives from royal families with title to Aragon, Jerusalem and England.

A.  The Civil War Surrounding the Child Frederick The child Frederick and Pope Innocent III were both watching the civil war that broke out in Germany when some 50 princes, following an exchange of money and promises, opted to elect Barbarossa’s youngest son (and uncle of Frederick II), Philip, Duke of Swabia, as king in 1198. He was duly crowned by the Archbishop of Cologne. However, Otto IV of Saxony, the son of Heinrich the Lion, with strong English s­ upport (from his

47  Innocent

III’s Proclamation of a Crusade, 1215, reprinted in Laffan, R (ed) (1929) Select Historical Documents: 800–1492 (NYC, Holt) 65–68. Grant, R (2011) 1001 Battles (London, Penguin) 164; Finucane, R (2004) Soldiers of the Faith (London, Phoenix) 36–40; Bury J (ed) (1957) The Cambridge Medieval History. Contest of Empire and Papacy, Vol V (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press) 276–78, 315, 323.

102  The Thirteenth Century

uncle Richard the Lionheart),48 a papal nod of approval, and support from the regions of Bohemia and Thuringia in particular, was also crowned king, by the Archbishop of Tarantaise, following an irregular and somewhat unrepresentative assembly in 1198. At the same time as Germany was breaking into civil war, Markward of Anweiler, with the support of Philip of Swabia, claimed the regency of young Frederick for himself, and invaded Sicily in 1200, seizing the young king. Although Frederick escaped and was spirited to safety (and would remain so until coming of age in 1208), Pope Innocent III responded by calling all Christian soldiers to arms against a false Christian ally. All who fought against Markward were given the same privileges as if they were fighting in the Holy Land.49 One participant in this crusade was the young Francis of Assisi, who was so affected by the experience that he went on to personally renounce a life of war and earthly riches (although Francis did later join the Fifth C ­ rusade to Egypt, accompanying it as a preacher).50 As Frederick continued to grow up in safety, Otto IV and Philip of Swabia continued to wage war against each other, until Philip was assassinated (in connection with another matter) in 1208. Following Philip’s assassination, Pope Innocent III persuaded Otto to submit himself peaceably to a free election. Innocent III was very much in favour of elections as opposed to hereditary title. He added that even after the electors had made their decision, it was his right to choose the king as he alone had the right to ‘anoint, consecrate and crown’.51 When the election was held in 1209, 35 princes were unanimous in their support of Otto, and Innocent III (following promises of benefit to the papacy) declared himself for Otto and recognised his kingship, crowning him emperor in 1209, ‘by the Grace of God and of the pope’.52 Innocent III then excommunicated the opposing ­Hohenstaufen party, and rewarded Otto’s allies with titles and privileges.53

B.  The Battle of Bouvines and the Rise of Frederick The positive relationship between pope and emperor unraveled as Otto disavowed his promises to Innocent III. Once in power, he started to reassert his authority over

48 

See pages 66–68. Abulafia, D (1988) Frederick II: A Medieval Emperor (Oxford, Oxford University Press) 85–100, 143–44, 246; Carlyle, AJ (1910) A History of Medieval Political Theory in the West, Vol V (London, Blackwood) 197. 50  Hoose, A (2010) ‘Francis of Assisi’s Way of Peace: His Conversion and Mission to Egypt’ The Catholic Historical Review 96 (3): 1–17. 51  ‘Innocent III’s Decretal Venerabilem, 1202’, as reprinted in Laffan, R (ed) (1929) Select Historical Documents: 800–1492 (NYC, Holt) 103. 52  This quote is from Tanner, J (ed) (1957) The Cambridge Medieval History: The Victory of the Papacy, Vol VI (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press) 55–57. See also the ‘Decision of Innocent III in Regards to the Disputed Election’, as reprinted in Thatcher, O (ed) (1905) A Sourcebook for Medieval History (NYC, Scribner) 220. 53  See the 1204 ‘Grant of the Title of King to the Duke of Bohemia’, reprinted in Thatcher, O (ed) (1905) A Sourcebook for Medieval History (NYC, Scribner) 218. 49 

Frederick II 103

all of Italy, including areas such as Apulia, Calabria and Sicily, which Innocent III believed were within his realm. Otto also pushed for further royal rights over Church appointments and taxes, despite his earlier promises that he would not do so. For these actions Otto was excommunicated, as a result of which he began marching towards Rome. In light of this, Innocent made it clear that Otto’s subjects had been released from their oath of allegiance to him. Overlapping this pronouncement, a council of the leading German princes met in Nuremburg and declared Otto deposed. They then dispatched ambassadors to the 17-year-old Frederick, and invited him to ascend the throne. ­Frederick was initially in favour of this, promising Pope Innocent III in 1213, that he would commit himself to doing what the pope required, as a true and loyal servant of the Catholic Church. Otto was thus faced with a large-scale rebellion. However, before he could fight Frederick directly, he was drawn into an alliance with the English against the French, at the Battle of Bouvines in 1214.54 The histories of King John of England, King Philip of France and Frederick II all collided at the Battle of Bouvines. In theory, John and Otto IV were allied against Philip. The Counts of Holland, Boulogne and Flanders, also fought against the French king. This coalition of 25,000 men, which John had failed to join on the battlefield, was comprehensively destroyed, with 1,000 men being killed and 9,000 being taken prisoner by a smaller army, comprising only 15,000 men, led by Philip II. This victory bestowed on France one of the most significant achievements ever completed by a French king.55 The consequences for Germany of the loss for Otto was that, although he ­personally survived the battle, he could no longer muster an effective force to challenge Frederick for the crown in Germany. Accordingly, following the latter’s being formally crowned Frederick II at Aix-la-Chapelle in 1215, Frederick slowly took control of most of the country, forcing the remnants of Otto’s forces back into small corners of ­Germany. This progress continued when Frederick made a further agreement with Pope Innocent in 1216, in which he promised the papacy to defend its rights, cede certain territories to it, allow free ecclesiastical elections, and punish all heretics and to go on crusade. He also promised to pass the Sicilian throne on to one of his sons, and thereby avoid the union of Sicily with the Empire. Although Otto IV fought on with dogged perseverance and unfailing courage, when he died in an accident in 1218, the opposition to the Hohenstaufen dynasty was at an end. Two years later, in 1220, Frederick II was crowned Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire by Pope Innocent III.56 54  The 1213 ‘Promise of Frederick II to Innocent III’, as reprinted in Thatcher, O (ed) (1905) A Sourcebook for Medieval History (NYC, Scribner) 230–31. 55  The Alliance between Otto IV and John of England is reprinted in Thatcher, O (ed) (1905) Source Book for Mediaeval History. Selected Documents Illustrating the History of Europe in the Middle Age (NYC, Scribner) 327–28. Also Jones, D (2012) The Plantagenets: The Kings Who Made England (London Harper) 202–05; McLynn, F (2007) Richard and John: Kings at War (London, DaCapo) 312–16, 331; Fawtier, R (1974) The Capetian Kings of France (London, Macmillan) 145–50; Grant, R (2011) 1001 Battles (London, Penguin) 162. 56  The 1216 ‘Promise of Frederick II’, as reprinted in Thatcher, O (ed) (1905) A Sourcebook for Medieval History (NYC, Scribner) 232–33; Abulafia, D (1988). Frederick II: A Medieval Emperor (Oxford, Oxford ­University Press) 138–39, 166–71; Carlyle, A (1906) A History of Medieval Political Theory in the West (London, Blackwood) Vol II, 217 and Vol V, 137–38, 197, 226–31, 237–42, 250–51; Runciman, S (1998) The Sicilian

104  The Thirteenth Century

For the following few years, Frederick proceeded to strengthen his eastern and northern borders. German soldiers and settlers were invited into pagan Prussia (modern day north-east Poland, Lithuania and Russia) by the Piast prince of the region, Conrad of Mazovia, who in 1226 offered them the district of Chelmo as a reward if they helped pacify the area. Likewise in Hungary, their king, Andrew II, who was going to great lengths to build a constitutional Hungary,57 invited both German soldiers and German settlers into Transylvania (although he later asked them to leave for lack of loyalty to his crown). Frederick II also came to terms with Denmark, after incorporating the disputed territories of Hamburg and Lubeck into his realm after one of his Counts, beat the Danes in 1227 at the Battle of Bornhovede, thus allowing the Danish border with the Holy Roman Empire to be moved north from the River Elbe to the Eider River.58

C.  The Challenge of the Papacy and the Sixth Crusade Pope Honorius III and then Pope Gregory IX wanted a new military effort to recapture the Holy Land. The timing was good as the Middle East was in turmoil. The Khwarazmian Empire was disintegrating, the Seljuks were fighting each other, the Ayyubid regime was both nervous and divided and the Mongols were on the horizon. Rome wanted Frederick II to lead the new Crusade. Frederick was an excellent choice. He was not only loyal and beholden to the papacy, he also spoke Arabic and understood the Islamic religion, having been brought up, in part, by Islamic scholars in the relatively cosmopolitan setting of Sicily. Yet he was also strong enough to face down Muslim rebellions in his Sicilian realm, scare off emirs who were funding the rebels and deport dissident Muslim populations (some 15,000 people) to areas where they were isolated but were able to practice their own faith if they paid a special poll tax. Finally, in 1225, with the help of Pope Honorius, Frederick married Yolande, the queen of the kingdom of Jerusalem, who had inherited the title and had been living in Sicily.59 The problem was that the relationship between Frederick II and Rome had soured after Frederick refused to leave on Crusade as originally directed. In addition, F ­ rederick had reneged on his promise to the pope to keep Sicily separate from the Empire. Vespers (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press) 12–15, 17–19; Tanner, J (ed) (1957) The Cambridge Medieval History: The Victory of the Papacy, Vol VI (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press) 59, 74, 78–79, 82–85, 198, 472. 57  For Andrew’s constitutional efforts, akin to the English Magna Carta, see his ‘The Golden Bull of Hungary, 1222’, as reprinted in Laffan, R (ed) (1929) Select Historical Documents: 800–1492 (NYC, Holt) 119. 58  Sawyer, P (1997) Medieval Scandinavia (London, Minnesota University Press) 66–67, 155–56; Urban, W (2003) The Teutonic Knights (London, Greenhill) 22–30, 55–70, 95–100, 108–10; Johnson, L (1996) Central Europe: Enemies, Neighbours, Friends (Oxford, Oxford University Press) 42–45. 59 Smith, T (2015) ‘Between Two Kings: Pope Honorius III and the Seizure of the Kingdom of ­Jerusalem’  Journal of Medieval History 41 (1): 41–59; Taylor, J (2007) ‘Muslim-Christian Relations in M ­ edieval Southern Italy’ The Muslim World 97 (2): 190–198; Abulafia, D (1988) Frederick II: A Medieval Emperor (Oxford, Oxford University Press) 146–47, 170–72.

Frederick II 105

­ rederick preferred to join the two, and make them one harmonious whole, by placF ing his son, Conrad, on both thrones. The justification he used for this act was that it was necessary to keep his kingdoms safe whilst he, Frederick, went on crusade for the Church. The papacy, which wanted to keep the two separate as it had its own claims on southern Italy, was very dubious. When Frederick delayed going on crusade yet again, Pope Gregory IX, in late 1227, excommunicated the emperor. Frederick responded, accusing the pope of trying to stir up hatred, abandoning the founding principles of the Church (especially poverty) and being guilty of hypocrisy. Nonetheless, Frederick decided to go to Jerusalem as he pledged, albeit at a later date, in 1228. This did not weaken Pope Gregory’s resolve, who forbade donations to the endeavour being organised by Frederick as this was an expedition not blessed by the pope.60 Unmoved by such a lack of support, Frederick left on his quest with some 40,000 men, and achieved the remarkable feat of not only retaking Jerusalem but doing it without bloodshed. The brilliance of Frederick II, who had not been part of the Fifth Crusade, was to achieve exactly the same goal, based on the same assumptions, without bloodshed. That is, Frederick took advantage of the breach between the three brothers (rather than trying to force it) who had inherited the Ayubbid dynasty, to persuade Al-Kamil, the Sultan of Egypt, who feared Frederick would otherwise make an alliance with his rebellious and belligerent brother Al-Mu’azzam who occupied Damascus. In 1229 Frederick and Al-Kamil concluded the Treaty of Jaffa.61 Article 1 of this treaty promised, ‘the Sultan delivers Jerusalem to the Emperor and his officials, that he may dispose of it or deal with it according to his will’. This was not an absolute freedom, as Frederick had to promise in exchange that Muslim interests in Jerusalem, including a dual system of justice for Muslims, would be accommodated. This meant that Muslim pilgrimage to all the key sites, including those in Christian areas, would be guaranteed, and certain areas sacrosanct to Muslims would be respected.62 Most critically, Frederick promised he would not join any Christian war persecuting Muslims, and in particular he ‘shall restrain all who propose to make any attack on the lands of Sultan Al-Kamil’.63 The treaty was seen by both the caliph in Baghdad and the pope in Rome as a betrayal. As for the Christians, although most of the Franks in the region welcomed what Frederick had achieved, in Rome the pope, who still held Frederick excommunicated, denounced the treaty as an ‘execrable pact’ that was an insult to the Savior as it allowed a separate Muslim quarter in Jerusalem, and Frederick had accepted a truce with the Muslims for 10 years. Jerusalem was placed under interdict, with church

60 

Powell, J (2007) ‘Church and Crusade: Frederick II’ The Catholic Historical Review 93 (2): 250–64. ‘The Treaty of Jaffa’, as reprinted in Laffan, R (ed) (1929) Select Historical Documents: 800–1492 (NYC, Holt) 68. Also Abu-Munshar, M (2013) ‘Sultan al-Kamil, Emperor Frederick II and the Submission of ­Jerusalem’ International Journal of Social Science and Humanity 3 (5): 443–49; Bozeman, A (1994) Politics and Culture in International History (NYC, Transaction) 276–79. 62  Articles 2 and 3 of the Treaty. 63  Article 7 of the Treaty. 61 

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services being forbidden and pilgrims visiting holy places no longer promised remission of their sins. The Knights Templar, loyal only to the pope, even tried to ambush Frederick.64

D.  War, Peace and War in Italy Pope Gregory IX renewed his efforts to displace Frederick from all of his thrones and to rule Sicily and southern Italy directly. He sought to do this by releasing all of ­Frederick’s subjects in the contested area from their oath of fidelity to their king. He also set up an anti-king in Germany who was more amenable to papal instructions. Pope Gregory then attempted to gather soldiers from across Western Europe to fight Frederick. He saw his actions against Frederick as analogous to a crusade, and demanded tithes from the Churches of England, France and Scandinavia to finance the armies required, but there was no promise of indulgences or remission of sins for those who fought. Soldiers who answered the call did not bear a cross on their shoulders but the keys of Saint Peter. As such, this was a type of half-crusade. Once assembled, Gregory’s forces invaded Sicily. At the same time, the Lombard League which had caused so much trouble to Frederick Barbarossa was reinvigorated to the north of Rome.65 Despite the bluster, neither of these actions was a significant military problem for Frederick, who, in their initial encounters, crushed the forces of Pope Gregory IX with relative ease upon his return from Jerusalem.66 However, realising the difficulties of longer-term conflict in the Italian peninsula, agreed in 1230, Frederick agreed to a type of reconciliation with the pope in the Treaty of Saint Germano. In exchange for being released from the sentence of excommunication, Frederick agreed to an inquiry, rather than war, to examine why the disputed c­ ities in northern Italy had stopped fulfilling their obligations under the Peace of Constance. The first goal of the independent investigation was to reach a mutual agreement on the obligations of the cities in the Lombard League to the emperor, as part of a larger, and second, goal of keeping peace with the Church. With Sicily, Frederick agreed that the civil courts would not have jurisdiction over the clergy, save for feudal matters. Frederick also promised ‘that he will not invade or waste the lands of the church in the duchy [of Rome] or march [on disputed territories]’.67 As a show of good faith, Frederick’s forces then ceased to occupy parts of papal states (which covered most of the modern

64  Ross, L (2003) ‘Frederick II: Tyrant of Benefactor of the Latin East?’ Al-Masaq 15 92): 149–159; See Frederick II’s ‘Letter to the Catholic Kings’, as reprinted in Laffan, R (ed) (1929) Select Historical Documents: 800–1492 (NYC, Holt) 121–23. 65  See pages 64–66. 66  Abulafia, D (1988) Frederick II: A Medieval Emperor (Oxford, Oxford University Press) 196–200; Waley, D (1957) ‘Papal Armies in the Thirteenth Century’ The English Historical Review 72 (282) 1–30. 67  ‘The Peace of St. Germano, 1230’, as reprinted in Laffan, R (ed) (1929) Select Historical Documents: 800–1492 (NYC, Holt) 124–25.

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Italian regions of Lazio, including Rome, Marche, Umbria, Romagna and portions of Emilia), and all papal possessions in Sicily were restored to Pope Gregory.68 As Frederick reached a truce with the papacy, he also took giant strides to try to consolidate peace in Germany. He advanced this in 1231, when he promulgated a series of privileges in favour of the German princes, describing them as ‘lords of their lands’, in which each prince was granted ‘the customs of the land, the liberties, jurisdiction and authority over the counties … which are in his possession’.69 The importance of this was that Frederick was trying to bolster the traditional areas of support within ­Germany, by granting the hereditary local rulers greater autonomy. Such grants recognised that although the king of Germany was powerful, he was not absolute in his rule.70 At the same time, Frederick tried to impose some control over the new nobles and leaders from the urban areas, who wished to govern themselves as free citizens, with a senate, or council or curia, chosen from the richer class of the inhabitants, which would lead to local sovereignty of a more or less democratic character. Frederick, keenly aware of what had happened with the Lombard League in northern Italy, had no intention of letting this process get out of hand, legislating in 1232 that municipalities established without the consent of the archbishops and bishops, in cooperation with himself, were to be dissolved and deemed null and void. Moreover, all significant regional appointments had to be ratified by him, feudal obligations to serve when called were owed, and imperial castles could be held and maintained in all regions.71 In both cases, with the established local rulers and the authorised new urban groupings, Frederick was to be the ultimate overlord, and he alone would deal with matters of national importance through specially convened diets. In reality, in the following decades, both groups attempted to break free from the grip of the king.72 In Italy, the investigation mandated by the Treaty of Saint Germano found in favour of Frederick and called for financial penalties to be placed on the Lombard cities, but the cities, with the active support of the papacy, refused to pay. Frederick demanded that they act in accordance with the ruling, and told Pope Gregory to excommunicate them if they would not obey. The Lombards would not negotiate. Frederick then tried to cast the Lombards as both treasonous and heretical, as threatening both Empire and the Church. Gregory was not persuaded and threw his support behind the Lombards,

68 

MacKinnon, J (1906) A History of Modern Liberty, Vol I (London, Longmans) 42–43; Abulafia, D (1988) Frederick II: A Medieval Emperor (Oxford, Oxford University Press) 71, 73, 155–59, 196, 294–96, 303, 314–17; Tanner, J (ed) (1957) The Cambridge Medieval History: The Victory of the Papacy, Vol VI (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press) 10–11, 103, 147. 69  See Frederick’s 1231 ‘Statute in Favor of the Princes’ and his 1220 ‘Concessions to the Ecclesiastical Princes of Germany’, as reprinted in Thatcher, O (ed) (1905) A Sourcebook for Medieval History (NYC, ­Scribner) 238 and 233 respectively. 70  Bernd, S (2013) ‘Rule by Consensus: Forms and Concepts of Political Order in the European Middle Ages’ Journal of Early Modern History 16 (2): 449–71; Arnold, B (2000) ‘Emperor Frederick II and the Political Particularism of the German Princes’. Journal of Medieval History 26 (3): 239–52. 71  MacKinnon, J (1906) A History of Modern Liberty, Vol I (London, Longmans) 36–37, 139. 72  Johnson, L (1996) Central Europe: Enemies, Neighbours, Friends (Oxford, Oxford University Press) 30–31.

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after alleging Frederick was not honouring his obligations regarding the autonomy of the churches in Sicily. Frederick then entered north Italy and was excommunicated again, as a result of which all of his subjects were absolved from their oaths of fidelity towards him. Following this excommunication, a number of German princes rebelled against Frederick. Pope Gregory IX then ordered a crusade (with full remission of sins) to be preached against the emperor. Appeals for men and money were sent throughout Europe, to which there was a timid response. Frederick acted by warning the monarchs of Europe of the ‘impure priest, the unjust judge and the unseeing prophet’.73 He then established a counterweight to papal power by reinforcing his peace with France, and, as a display of this neutrality, in 1235 he took as his third wife Isabella, the daughter of the English king, John—the niece of Richard the Lionheart, whom Frederick’s own father had imprisoned many years previously. A battle between Frederick and the republics of northern Italy, the latter richly supported by the pope, occurred in 1237, when about 35,000 men met on the field at Cortenuova. Of these soldiers, about 19,000 fought under Imperial banners. At least 10,000 of the enemy were slain or captured by the end of the day. With such a loss, the Lombard League wobbled but did not fall, as the principal cities, like Milan, held out. As Frederick continued to make his way towards Rome, Pope Gregory, in fear of being crushed, reiterated and supplemented the excommunication against Frederick. ­Sixteen grounds were given for the excommunication, of which 11 related to F ­ rederick’s behaviour in his Sicilian kingdom. In three of these charges, breaches of the Treaty of Saint Germano were cited. Other charges related to Frederick’s attempts to stir up the Italians against the pope, and his occupation of Sardinia and of other lands belonging to the Church. There was also a general charge that Frederick put obstacles in the way of relieving the Holy Land and of helping the Byzantine Empire rather than the new regime in Constantinople. Gregory then ordered a crusade to be preached against ‘the son of perdition’.74 Gregory hoped that by making out the case against Frederick, other powers in Europe would come to his aid. The Venetians and Genoese answered Gregory’s call, but the French and the English declined. Frederick then replied to Gregory, calling for a general council to judge the Pope, whom he called ‘a Pharisee seated on the chair of pestilence, anointed with the oil of wickedness’.75 Frederick, wisely, did not try to take Rome, and before the next move could be decided, Pope Gregory IX died.76 73  Frederick, as noted in Abulafia, D (1988) Frederick II: A Medieval Emperor (Oxford, Oxford ­University Press) 317. Also, Tanner, J (ed) (1957) The Cambridge Medieval History: The Victory of the Papacy, Vol V (­Cambridge, Cambridge University Press) 103. 74  The quotation is in Tanner, J (ed) (1957) The Cambridge Medieval History: The Victory of the Papacy, Vol VI (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press) 103. The actual ‘Excommunication of Frederick II’ is found in Thatcher, O (ed) (1905) A Sourcebook for Medieval History (NYC, Scribner) 254–56. 75  As noted in Norwich, J (2011) Absolute Monarchs: A History of the Papacy (London, Random) 190. 76  Carlyle, A (1906) A History of Medieval Political Theory in the West (London, Blackwood) Vol II, 58–66, 70–75 and Vol V, 280–87; Skinner, Q (1980) The Foundations of Modern Political Thought, Vol I (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press) 3; Abulafia, D (1988) Frederick II: A Medieval Emperor (Oxford, Oxford U ­ niversity Press) 303, 314–15; McLynn, F (2007) Richard and John: Kings at War (London, DaCapo) 374–85, 389, 420, 424, 433–34, 441; Poole, A (1954). From Domesday Book to Magna Carta (Oxford, Oxford University Press) 379, 430–32, 456–58, 468–69, 479.

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Pope Innocent IV came to power in the middle of 1243. In the few intervening years, Europe had been transfixed by the rise of the Mongols and their rapid military advances in many areas, of which Frederick II directed the defence of western Europe.77 Despite these efforts, and the fact that Innocent was a friend of Frederick II before his appointment, peace could not be made as the rights of the emperor over the Lombards could still not be agreed. When war broke out again, Innocent IV, at the Council of Lyon in 1245, excommunicated Frederick once more for his actions in Sicily (over the Church and tax) and his actions against papal representatives and his personal life (his dealings with Muslims). This excommunication stated that Frederick was deposed of imperial and all other thrones, and stripped of all titles and dignities. This allowed Frederick’s subjects to be (again) released from their bonds of allegiance to him. The disorder followed quickly in 1246, when the last Badenberg Duke of ­Austria, without an heir, was killed in a border skirmish with the Hungarians. Technically speaking, the king of Germany (Frederick) had the right to dispose of the titles and territories left vacant within the Holy Roman Empire. However, before Frederick could act, Otakar II, King of Bohemia, and Bela IV, King of Hungary, jointly invaded Austria and divided it between themselves. As Frederick digested this news of his failing influence, Pope Innocent invited the German princes to elect a new king, from which process William of Holland emerged in 1248.78 Frederick responded, ‘I have not yet lost my crown, neither will pope or [papal] council take it from me without a bloody war’.79 Pope Innocent IV subsequently preached another crusade against Frederick. Although this occurred mainly in Germany, Italy and Denmark, full remission of sins was promised and the wearing of the Crusaders’ cross was permitted. Nevertheless, relatively few accepted Pope Innocent’s offer, and the war rumbled on only lightly in parts of Italy and Germany, from which Frederick slowly gained the upper hand. The only good news for the pope came in 1250, when it was reported that Frederick had died of natural causes. Upon hearing this, Innocent IV wrote jubilantly, ‘Let the heavens rejoice and let the Earth be glad.’80 Frederick II had succeeded in ensuring that the princes of Germany elected his son, Conrad, King of the Germans in 1237, when Conrad was nine years old. However, when Frederick died and Conrad IV took up his father’s mantle, this king of ­Germany, with his Swabian and, via his wife, Bavarian forces, had a fight on his hands. Pope Innocent IV charged Conrad with heresy and usurpation of the German crown. Innocent IV also believed that William of Holland was a more worthy candidate. When Conrad failed to arrive in Rome to answer these charges, he was excommunicated. Conrad was then defeated by William of Holland in Germany in 1251. With this loss,

77 

See pages 148–149. Innocent IV, noted in Mundy, J (1991). Europe in the High Middle Ages (London, Longview) 227; Carlyle, A (1906) A History of Medieval Political Theory in the West, Vol V (London, Blackwood) 300–03, 319. 79  Frederick, as noted in Abulafia, D (1988) Frederick II: A Medieval Emperor (Oxford, Oxford University Press) 369–75; Runciman, S (1998) The Sicilian Vespers (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press) 18. 80  Innocent IV, as noted in Tanner, J (ed) (1957) The Cambridge Medieval History: The Victory of the Papacy, Vol VI (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press) 104–09, 109, 168. 78 

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and trying to regain his father’s patrimony, Conrad left for Italy and Sicily, at this point under the control of Manfred of Sicily. Manfred was also the son of Frederick II, the favourite of his 11 illegitimate children. Manfred was meant to rule Italy on behalf of his brother. Conrad died before reaching Sicily, in 1254. Conrad’s death brought in the Great Interregnum in Germany, and chaos across many of the areas previously under the control of the emperor of the Holy Roman Empire.

7. Following the End of the Hohenstaufen Line

A. Italy After Conrad’s death, the papacy began to claim extensive tracts of land. The Marche, Spoleto, Ravenna, Umbria and Tuscany, as well the whole of central Italy were absorbed into the Patrimonium Petri. To the south of Rome, the kingdom of Sicily was meant to go to the son of Conrad, but Manfred had himself crowned King of Sicily, against the wishes of the pope. Furthermore, because Manfred used Muslim troops as mercenaries, the pope excommunicated him, declared his coronation null and void, and announced that Sicily had been annexed to the papal territories. Unperturbed, Manfred struck outwards and pushed his forces into central Italy, fighting and defeating a papal army in 1254 at Foggia. It was at this point that Pope Innocent IV tried to sell Sicily to Henry III of England, offering him the crowns of Sicily and Naples, arguing that the southern lands were papal fiefs, not part of the Holy Roman Empire. However, due to difficulties within England, Henry was unable to complete the bargain.81 Pope Innocent’s anger was particularly acute, as not only was Henry III unable to support his plan to deprive Manfred of Sicily and Naples, but Manfred was also making gains in the control of central Italy through the use of proxies. The opposing sides here divided between those who supported the claims of Manfred, known as the ­Ghibellines, who favoured monarchy and Italian unity under the Empire, and the Guelphs, who favoured republican forms of government and were supported by the papacy. Generally speaking, the Ghibellines represented the aristocracy. The Guelphs the popular party, resented the monopoly of power enjoyed by the wealthy and the German king, although this was not an absolute rule, as republics would fight on both sides if the justifications, especially commercial ones, were sufficient. The opposing sides met at the Battle of Montaperti in 1260, when more than 10,000 Florentine men supporting the Guelphs were left dead on the battlefield by the victorious soldiers of Sienna supporting the Ghibellines.82

81  See Tanner, J (ed) (1957) The Cambridge Medieval History: The Victory of the Papacy, Vol VI (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press) 172–75. 82  MacKinnon, J (1906) A History of Modern Liberty Vol I (London, Longmans) 42–43.

Following the End of the Hohenstaufen Line 111

B.  Charles of Anjou As central and northern Italy was being engulfed in war, the new Pope, Urban IV, offered the crowns of Sicily and Naples to the French king on condition that the territories remained separate from France. The price was a lump sum of 50,000 marks sterling and an annual tribute of 10,000 ounces of gold, freedom of the Church in the gifted territories and military aid. This offer was accepted on behalf of Charles of Anjou, the son of King Louis VIII of France and brother of the future King Louis IX. By papal grant, Charles was given Sicily in 1262 and Naples in 1264. He was later gifted the title King of Jerusalem. To hold these titles, Charles of Anjou had to defeat Manfred of Sicily. To assist in this war, Pope Urban IV declared a crusade against Manfred because he: [a]ssails the Church … He strikes her with unremitting persecution, divides her with tyrannical frenzy and incessantly afflicts her with various other kinds of tribulation … Manfred has embraced the rites of the Saracens, … to the dishonour of the Catholic faith … Episcopal authority and power is counted for little, ecclesiastical censure is despised, souls perish, bodies are slaughtered, cities are burnt.83

The fateful meeting between Charles of Anjou and Manfred of Sicily occurred at Benevento in 1266, when Charles led over 30,000 men, including his Guelf allies, into battle. Manfred died fighting, along with most of his Ghibelline supporters, who numbered around 6,000. This was not the end of the matter, as the following year, when resistance sprang up in Sicily against the rule of Charles of Anjou, the teenager Conradin, Manfred’s son, marched south with military support from within Germany to intervene in Italy in support of both allies and a reclamation of territory he believed was his. This attempt by Conradin to reclaim the rights of the Hohenstaufen dynasty went forward despite Pope Clement IV’s excommunicating Conradin and his adherents and deposing him from any thrones he believed he held. Although Conradin had some initial success, his army was smashed at Tagliacozzo in 1268, at which time he was captured, tried and executed by Charles of Anjou. Pope Clement IV did nothing to prevent the execution of the 16-year-old Conradin, content to witness the rise of Charles of Anjou and the end of the Hohenstaufen dynasty.84

C.  Thomas Aquinas It was in this exact climate that Thomas Aquinas began to pen his famous d ­ efinition of  just-war. Aquinas, who had been born in Sicily and grown up in the wake of the 83 ‘Urban IV to Louis IX’, as reprinted in Riley-Smith, L (ed) (1981) The Crusades: Idea and Reality (­London, Edward Arnold) 86. For the religious support to this particular war, see Bachrach, D (2004) ‘The Friars Go To War’ The Catholic Historical Review 90 (4): 617–33. 84 Runciman, S (1998) The Sicilian Vespers. (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press) 30–31, 38, 57, 60–63, 70–71, 76–77, 90–97, 113–16; Stubbs, P (1908) Germany in the Later Middle Ages (London, Longmans) 60–61; Grant, R (2005) Battle: 5000 Years of Combat (London, Dorling Kindersley) 109.

112  The Thirteenth Century

wars and disagreements between the Emperor Frederick II and the Pope Gregory IX, responded to Pope Clement IV’s summons in 1265, to serve as the papal theologian. Over the following decade, he completed his most famous work, the Summa Theologica. This work was, in essence, a compendium of all of the main theological teachings of the Catholic Church, through which a balance was struck between theology, politics, power and ethics.85 Question 40 of the Summa Theologica dealt with the issue of whether warfare could be ethically justified. This was an important question, for as Aquinas recognised, not only was warfare prevalent in his time and the papacy was often deeply involved, there was also a strong presumption against war, especially in the New Testament. Aquinas argued against the presumption, concluding killing fellow human beings could be ethical if three considerations were satisfied. First, and most critically, going to war must be mandated by the correct temporal authority, ‘for it is not the business of a private individual to declare war’. Second, a just cause was required. ‘Namely, that those who are attacked, should be attacked because they deserve it on account of some fault’. Fault could be seen by causing wrongs, when a nation or state ‘has to be punished, for refusing to make amends for the wrongs inflicted by its subjects, or to restore what it has seized unjustly’.86 Finally, the belligerents must have right intention (such as the pursuit of peace), whereby they fight to advance good and avoid evil. Lust for power, thirst for vengeance, the fever of revolt, or a restless and warlike spirit, were all seen as wrongful intentions.87

D.  The Wider Ambitions of Charles of Anjou In theory, the key considerations for just war now required that it be pursued by the correct authority (of which, in theory, the papacy held the reins of control), that some fault must be evident on the part of the enemy, and the final goal had to be peace. In practice, this meant that any war with a papal stamp of approval next to the temporal authority in question, could now be seen as ethically legitimate, if the enemy had done some wrong. Given that the definition of ‘wrong’ had the potential to be stretched in all directions, it was no surprise that within a few years, the idea of what was a just conflict, or not, was open to interpretation. A good example of this involved the wider ambitions of Charles of Anjou. 85  See Fortin, L (1997) ‘Thomas Aquinas as a Political Thinker’. Perspectives on Political Science 26 (2): 92–99; Schall, S (1997) ‘The Uniqueness of the Political Philosophy of Thomas Aquinas’ Perspectives on Political Science 26 (2): 85–91. 86  Aquinas, T. Summa Theologica trans, McDermott, T. (1989). (Christian Classics, Westminster) 120–22. 87  Vorster, N (2015) ‘Just War and Virtue: Revisiting Augustine and Aquinas’ South African Journal of Philosophy 34 (1): 55–68; Reichberg, G (2011) ‘Aquinas’s Moral Typology of Peace and War’ The Review of Metaphysics 64 (3): 467–87; Reichberg, G (2010) ‘Thomas Aquinas Between Just War and Pacificm’ The Journal of Religious Ethics 38 (2): 219–41; Turner, J (2003) ‘Aquinas and Luther on War and Peace: Sovereign Authority and the Use of Armed Force’ The Journal of Religious Ethics 31 (1): 3–20; Miller, R (2002) ‘Aquinas and the Presumption Against Killing and War’ Journal of Religion 82 (1): 173–204.

Following the End of the Hohenstaufen Line 113

By 1282, Charles was King of Sicily, Jerusalem and Albania, as well as Count of Provence, Anjou and Maine. He had also recovered the Dalmatian coast, obtained control over both Bosnia and northern Serbia, eastern Bulgaria, Moldova and W ­ allachia. Although his empire stretched further than any other within the thirteenth-century Europe, he was not content. His next target was Constantinople, which had fallen from Latin control in 1261, when Baldwin II, the grandnephew of the original Latin ruler, Baldwin I, surrendered to Michael VIII Palaiologos. Michael was the conclusion to a remarkable reacquisition of power, after five decades of treaties with regional powers, military advances against the Latins and the indirect benefits of the Mongolian invasions (that sapped the strength of the allies to Latin ­Constantinople). All of these factors allowed Orthodox Byzantium to regain power in Constantinople, rather than be extinguished as was the original goal.88 This was the alliance that Charles of Anjou was being asked to overturn. The outline of the endeavour was agreed to in the 1267 Treaty of Viterbo, under which Baldwin II was prepared to transfer one-third of the territory within the Latin Empire of Byzantium to Charles of Anjou, if he successfully defeated Michael VIII. Initially, the Papacy did not support this plan, as ecclesiastical attempts at a peaceful re-union with the ­Orthodox Church were still being undertaken. However, as Pope Innocent IV affirmed the primacy of the Roman Church in these discussions, reconciliation proved impossible, since the population in Constantinople, now back in power in their own capital, refused to accept any proposed settlement in which their Church was not equal in power to the Church in Rome. In light of this failure, the next Pope, Martin IV, gave his blessing to the new planned conquest of Constantinople, and excommunicated Michael VIII, ‘who calls himself emperor of the Greeks’.89 Pope Martin then authorised what appeared to be a crusade against Constantinople, in the updated treaty for the purpose, that of Orvieto in 1281. This crusade was for the dethronement of Michael VIII, the restoration of the Latin Empire, returning all of her privileges to Venice, and the Union of the Two Churches, bringing the Orthodox Church under the authority of the Pope.90 (i)  The Sicilian Vespers and their Aftermath The reconquest of Constantinople by Charles of Anjou never occurred due to the uprising that started on 29 March 1282 in Sicily, during which the invasion fleet in Messina harbor, preparing to set sail for Constantinople, was burned. The insurrection was timed to begin when the Church of the Holy Spirit and all the churches in the city of Palermo began to ring their bells for vespers. The uprising was spurred

88  Abulafia, D (2000) ‘Charles of Anjou Reassessed’ Journal of Medieval History 26 (1): 93–114; Gibbon, E (1926 edn) The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, Vol VI (London, Methuen) 432–34, 450–52. 89  Runciman, S (1998) The Sicilian Vespers (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press) 42–51, 135–41, 220–21. 90  Norwich, J (1996) Byzantium: The Decline and the Fall (London, Penguin) 228; Mundy, J (1991) Europe in the High Middle Ages (London, Longman) 55.

114  The Thirteenth Century

on by a hatred of the French overlords, their bad administration and Byzantine gold provided by Michael VIII. The Sicilians attacked every French person they could find, sparing neither man, nor women or child, causing the deaths of some 2,000 people in the capital alone. This pattern spread throughout the island, and the rebels requested Peter III of Aragon, a descendant of the daughter of Robert Guiscard91 and the son of James I of Aragon, to send a force to help them and be their king. Michael VIII assisted the operation by providing 60,000 gold pieces to finance the expedition. Peter added weight to his claim by taking Constance (the sole daughter of Manfred, the former King of Sicily) to be his wife. He also made generous promises to the local barons, in exchange for their support.92 Pope Martin IV responded by excommunicating Peter III and the leading Sicilian rebels, and then declared a crusade against them. The French king, Philip III, answered the call in support of his uncle, Charles of Anjou. Although tens of thousands of men responded to this and crossed the Pyrenees, Peter III could not be shaken from ­Sicily, and Philip died in the retreat, whilst Peter also died, of unknown causes, in 1285. Before Peter died he asked for the taint of excommunication to be lifted, in exchange for his granting the kingdom of Sicily to the Holy See. But Peter’s successor, Alfonso III, would not honour this agreement and allowed his brother (and Peter’s younger son, James II) to hold Sicily. Because of this, Pope Honorius organised a new offensive and an extended excommunication to those who refused his authority in Sicily. The military offensive was a particular disaster, as James captured the son of Charles of Anjou— Charles II of Salerno—in the battle that followed. In order to obtain his ­freedom, Charles II had to agree to James’ being King of Sicily. The papacy refused to accept this deal, set out in the Treaty of Barcelona, which crowned Charles II of Salerno as King of Naples and Sicily (on the promise of papal overlordship) and set upon orchestrating a complicated set of treaties, beginning with the 1287 Treaty of Oloron (and further additions in 1288 and 1291). Alfonso III, seeking to end the excommunication and stopping the crusade against Aragon, promised to remove all military support for his brother, James—who still refused to give up the Sicilian throne. Before this matter could be resolved, and to make matters worse, James invaded papal territories in Italy.93 It was this invasion with which the next pope, Boniface VIII, had to deal upon coming into power in 1294. The Treaty of Anagni, which followed in 1295, ended the struggle on terms that left the Aragonese masters of Sicily. Pope Boniface then reconciled with James II, naming him the military leader of the Church, and in the following year, bestowed the kingdom of Sardinia and Corsica upon him. However, this time 91 

See pages 21. S (1998) The Sicilian Vespers (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press) 160–70, 175–78, 190–201, 215–18, 220–22, 232–33, 257–65; Norwich, J (2011) Absolute Monarchs: A History of the Papacy (London, Random) 193–99; Crowley, R (2011) City of Fortune (London, Faber) 138–45; Hussey, J (ed) (1966) The Cambridge Medieval History: The Byzantine Empire, Vol VI (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press) 338–40. 93  Runciman, S (1998) The Sicilian Vespers (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press) 144, 215–18, 222, 232–33, 246, 257, 278–79; Tanner, J (ed) (1958) The Cambridge Medieval History: Decline of Empire and Papacy, VO VII (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press) 6, 15, 586–88; Powicke, M (1962). The Thirteenth Century (Oxford Clarendon Press) 263–64. 92  Runciman,

Following the End of the Hohenstaufen Line 115

the ­Sicilian people rose up against the outcome, which would have seen a marriage of alliance between Aragon and Anjou over Sicily, and the papacy gaining substantial control of the island. Now it was the third son of Alfonso, Frederick III, who refused to agree, and he successfully fought both his own brother and the papal forces. Here, despite a crusade being launched by Pope Boniface, and the pope offering the Sicilian throne to Charles of Valois (son of Philip III), Frederick III managed to survive and settle the situation with the 1302 Peace of Caltabellotta. This divided Sicily and Naples in accordance with the military status quo, into two parts: Sicily was recognised as belonging to Frederick III (until his death), and the kingdom of Naples was to be held by Charles of Valois, although Charles had to pay a tribute of 100,000 ounces of gold to Frederick. The deal was sealed with a marriage alliance, an exchange of prisoners, and the crown of an independent Sicily for Frederick III.94

E. Germany The Great Interregnum that followed the death of Conrad IV in Germany lasted until 1273, when Rudolf von Habsburg placed the crown of Germany on his head, starting the most successful dynastic family of all time. Before Rudolf came to power, Germany was gridlocked in a series of disputed elections, when for a short period, in theory, Richard of Cornwall, the second son of King John, was elected by a majority of the seven voters, to be King of Germany from 1257 to until 1272.95 However, Richard’s tenure in Germany was more theoretical than practical, as the country devolved into its own forms of self-government. The general autonomy encouraged by Frederick II took on a life of its own, with self-government progressing rapidly as the feudal lords in the rural areas, and the largely autonomous governments in the hands of aldermen, elected from wealthy businesses in the urban areas, emerged and sought to shake themselves free from imperial control, in a manner akin to what was occurring in northern Italy. These urban conglomerations were unique, as free and imperial cities, not belonging to bishops or directly under the rule of a particular prince. They sought to represent the diverse interests of ‘electors, princes and representatives of the cities’.96

94 

Schneidman, J (1969) ‘Ending the War of Sicilian Vespers’ Journal of Peace Research 6 (4): 335–48. Wiler, B (2000) ‘Matthew Paris, Richard of Cornwall’s Candidacy for the German Throne, and the Sicilian Business’ Journal of Medieval History 26 (1): 71–92; Weiler, B (1998) ‘Image and Reality in Richard of Cornwall’s German Career’ The English Historical Review 113 (454): 1111–42; Bayley, C (1947) ‘The ­Diplomatic Preliminaries of the Double Election of 1257 in Germany’ The English Historical Review 62 (245): 457–83. 96 As noted in Stubbs, P (1908) Germany in the Later Middle Ages (London, Longmans) 64–65. Also, Bachrach, D (2006) ‘Making Peace and War in the City State of Worms, 1235–1273’ German History 24 (4): 505–25. 95 

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Their principal concern, in that time of chaos, was the collection of taxes, raising of their own armies and creation of mutual defence leagues, because the national authorities were clearly unable to protect them. As the Rhine League declared in 1254: Since now for a long time many of our citizens have been completely ruined by the violence and wrongs which have been inflicted on them in the country and along the roads, and through their ruin others have been ruined, so that innocent people have suffered great loss, it is high time that some way be found for preventing such violence, and for restoring peace in all of our lands.97

F.  Rudolf von Habsburg As the various powers in Germany were seeking to defend themselves and make sense of the power vortex that was occurring around them, to the east, Otakar II, the King of Bohemia was rising to become the most powerful man in Europe. He came to control large swathes of the central areas, defeating the Hungarians, controlling the area that became Austria, and buttressing military efforts in what became Lithuania and Estonia, to entrench loyal allies and advance colonization by Christian forces, up to the borders of what became Russia.98 King Otakar’s plans for domination of central Europe were challenged when Rudolf  von Habsburg was elected King of Germany in 1273, following the death of Richard of Cornwall. Rudolf I, the very first Habsburg king, who was married to Isabella, the daughter of the Duke of Burgundy, was chosen by the electoral princes because it was believed he had enough money and power to restore order, but not enough to allow him to overstep the bounds of monarchy. That is, Rudolf possessed less power (he was only a count at the time of election, not even a duke) than the most likely contender for the German throne, Otakar of Bohemia. The difficulty for Rudolf was that Otakar would not accept Rudolf ’s election and refused to pay homage to him as king of Germany. Otakar also refused to cede all imperial lands taken since the reign of Frederick II back to the German crown. For these failures, the Diet of ­Nuremburg authorised Rudolf to wage war against Otakar. Otakar responded by making allies of Poland and Hungary, all positioned against the ‘never satisfied mouths’, ‘filthy hands’ and ‘vile desires’99 of the Habsburgs. The eventual clash occurred at Marchfeld in 1278, when some 60,000 men faced one another in combat, of which some 12,000 Bohemians, including Otakar, died. Following this battle and the resultant

97  The 1254 ‘Establishment of the Rhine League’, as reprinted in Thatcher, O (ed) (1905) A Sourcebook for Medieval History (NYC, Scribner) 604–06. Also Tanner, J (ed) (1957) The Cambridge Medieval History: The Victory of the Papacy, Vol VI (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press) 80–82, 87–88, 99–100, 121, 155, 270. 98  Urban, W (2003) The Teutonic Knights (London, Greenhill) 95–100, 108–10, 160–65, 185–94. 99 Otakar, as quoted in Johnson, L (1996) Central Europe: Enemies, Neighbours, Friends (Oxford, Oxford ­University Press) 35; Curtis, B (2013) The Habsburgs (London, Bloomsbury) 17–19, 21–22.

Following the End of the Hohenstaufen Line 117

Treaty of Rheinfelden of 1283, Rudolf was able to subdue much of southern Germany. He acquired the whole Duchy of Austria and gifted Bohemia to his own son, providing fertile soil for the H ­ absburg dynasty.100 (i)  The Break from Italy Rudolf I of Germany then undertook the most radical of all acts, abandoning all title to the imperial lands and associated claims in Italy. He did this so that ‘all cause for dissension and trouble or occasion for ill-will between the Church and the Empire be removed’.101 At the same time, all of the Empire’s interests in Italian lands, including Rome, Sicily, Sardinia and Corsica, were granted to the Church. Rudolf also agreed to the permanent separation of Sicily from the Empire. He did this because he wanted to concentrate on the reassertion of central authority in Germany and the aggrandisement of his own family. Italy was a secondary consideration for him, which, he realised, had been a deadly burden for centuries of German kings before him. Rudolf still accepted the ‘fidelity, obedience, honour and reverence owed by Roman emperors and kings to the Roman pontiffs and the Church’.102 However, Rudolf failed to go on crusade for the Church. For this refusal he was excommunicated, but when Rudolf gifted the city of Bologna to the pope, all was forgiven.103 (ii)  Switzerland Begins to Surface To the south of Germany, Rudolf directed policies that ultimately led to the formation of what is modern-day Switzerland. This territory was part of the great Frankish kingdoms. It was loosely part of Burgundy and Swabia. Until the twelfth century, competing dynasties from each region struggled to gain the upper hand, although as early as 1180, opposing groups of peasants were being recorded as difficult to keep in line. All of the dominant dynastic lines had died out by the early part of the thirteenth century, whilst new ones, such as the Habsburgs, began to emerge. In this environment, in 1291 three forest cantons (Uri, Schwiz and Unterwalden) collectively refused to submit to canon law or to appear for judgement when summoned by an abbot. The members of this group then committed themselves to common defence, mutual help, arbitration (rather than war) and an overlapping legal system without outside

100  The 1274 ‘Diet of Nuremburg’, as reprinted in Thatcher, O (ed) (1905) A Sourcebook for Medieval ­History. (NYC, Scribner) 260–61; Stubbs, P (1908) Germany in the Later Middle Ages (London, Longmans) 17–20, 61–63, 67, 71; Tanner, J (ed) (1958) The Cambridge Medieval History: Decline of Empire and Papacy, Vol VII (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press) 50–80, 101, 175, 244–55, 266. 101  The Electoral Confirmation of Rudolf ’s Surrender of Imperial Claims in Italy’, as reprinted in Laffan, R (ed) (1929) Select Historical Documents: 800–1492 (NYC, Holt) 137–38. 102  ‘The Electors Confirmation of Rudolf ’s Surrender of Imperial Claims’, as reprinted in Laffan, as above. 103  The 1291 ‘Edict of Rudolf ’, as reprinted in, Thatcher, O (ed) (1905) A Sourcebook for Medieval History. (NYC, Scribner) 269; Stubbs, P (1908) Germany in the Later Middle Ages (London, Longmans) 71.

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i­nterference, as they were all ‘free men’.104 It was for this freedom, in that they ‘accept everyone as a citizen … even the serfs’,105 that they were scorned. However, as they did not throw off allegiance to the king of Germany or desire to form a fully independent state, seeking only more autonomy, they did not face war. Indeed, Rudolf agreed to their request, decreeing that, ‘no one of servile condition shall ever in the future exercise the authority of a judge over you’.106

G.  Albert of Habsburg and Adolf of Nassau Rudolf I had intended his son, Albert of Habsburg, to succeed him. Albert was the holder of the traditional Swabian possessions, as well as of the Duchies of Austria and Styria that had been taken from Otakar of Bohemia in 1278. The prince-electors agreed with the sequestration of these duchies of Otakar for the son of Rudolf, in exchange for specific rules covering exclusion of rights for future Habsburgs in other areas. However, fearing the power that Albert would possess, they chose to elect Adolf of Nassau as King of Germany, after he had made the prince-electors grand promises of greater independence. Adolf also bolstered his reign by making an alliance with Edward I of England in 1294 against Philip IV of France, after Philip IV had tried to invade both Burgundy and Flanders, as part of an overall pattern of the expansion of both France directly, and France indirectly, with the advances of Charles of Anjou further afield.107 Although Adolf managed to stay out of the conflict between France and England, fearing excommunication if he got involved, his policies in Thuringia in Germany promoted much disquiet, as his attempts to sequestrate land to the imperial fief ran into direct opposition from a number of other self-interested parties. These concerns came to a head in 1298, when five of the electors in Germany changed their minds and pronounced him deposed, despite the fact that he was not under papal excommunication. This was a unique move as the traditional pattern before a ruling monarch was challenged was that they had to be, first, excommunicated. The charges against Adolf were incapacity, uselessness, theft and/or destruction of churches and church property, and serving the king of England, with whom he had entered into a military alliance. Albert of Habsburg was then affirmed king by a majority of the electors, after promising to rectify many of the charges that Adolf was confronted with.

104 The 1290 ‘Beginnings of the Swiss Confederation’, as reprinted in Thatcher, O (ed) (1905) A ­Sourcebook for Medieval History (NYC, Scribner) 267. 105  Statement from 1405, ‘Against the Forest States’, as noted in Weart, S (1998) Never At War: Why ­Democracies Will Not Fight Each Other (New Haven, Conn, Yale University Press) 102. 106  The 1291 ‘Edict of Rudolf, Judges of Servile Rank to Exercise Authority’, as reprinted in Thatcher, O (ed) (1905) A Sourcebook for Medieval History (NYC, Scribner) 269; Barker, E (1959) From Alexander to Constantine (Oxford, Clarendon Press) 134–43. 107  Barraclough, G (1940) ‘Edward I and Adolf of Nassau: A Chapter in Medieval Diplomatic History’ The Cambridge Historical Journal 6 (3): 225–62; See the ‘Concessions of Adolf ’, as reprinted in Thatcher, O (ed) (1905) A Sourcebook for Medieval History (NYC, Scribner) 270–71.

England 119

Adolf would not accept this, and went on to fight Albert at Gollheim in 1298. Albert emerged victorious, Adolf dying on the battlefield. Nevertheless, Albert had to send armies to subdue three electors and their associated military forces that continued to resist him. He also reversed the policy that Adolf had adopted with regard to France, preferring a peace treaty with the French King Philip IV, and arranging for one of his sons to marry one of Philip’s daughters. Despite these victories, and the will of the German electors on the matter, papal recognition of Albert’s title was not forthcoming, as Pope Boniface VIII believed Albert to be a rebel usurper of power. He then went one step further and excommunicated Albert. This was only lifted in 1303, when, having quarreled with the French king, and in need of a powerful friend, Pope Boniface changed his position and recognised, absolved and confirmed his former enemy.108

8. England

A. John The character of King John that Shakespeare wrote of was not historically accurate. However, the story-line of intrigues, double-crossings, national and international pacts for war and the changing nature of threats whilst hanging on to power was correct.109 Indeed, had Richard the Lionheart not been killed at Chalus-Mercadier in 1199,110 it is possible that conflict with his brother John would have broken out. As it was, Richard, who died without issue, initially wanted the throne to go not to his brother John but to his (and John’s) nephew, Arthur of Brittany, the son of his other brother, Geoffrey. However, Richard’s mother, Eleanor of Aquitaine, disagreed, and on his deathbed Richard left the crown to his brother, John. Accordingly, following Richard’s death, John was crowned king of England, agreeing in his Coronation oath, inter alia, to protect the Church, do away with bad laws and ‘see justice rightly administered throughout the kingdom’.111 It was John’s failure to live up to this promise, intertwined with an unplanned sequence of events, that ultimately lead to the formation of a peace treaty, the Magna Carta, which continues to have great importance eight centuries later.

108  Stubbs, P (1908) Germany in the Later Middle Ages (London, Longmans) 87; Tanner, J (ed) (1958) The Cambridge Medieval History: Decline of Empire and Papacy, Vol VII (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press) 86–87, 184. 109  Womerlsey, D (1989) ‘The Politics of Shakespeare’s King John’ The Review of English Studies 40 (160): 497–515. 110  See pages 67–68. 111  ‘The Coronation of John’, as reprinted in Adams, G (ed) (1947) Select Documents of English Constitutional History (London, Macmillan) 35.

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(i)  The Loss of Normandy Upon taking the throne, John omitted to ask King Philip of France to invest him with Normandy as a vassal of the French crown for the Plantagenet territories in France. Philip responded by supporting John’s nephew, Arthur of Brittany, as being more suited to sit on the English throne. War was initially avoided with the peace agreement signed in May 1200 with the Treaty of Le Goulet. In exchange for Philip’s recognition of John’s title to the throne of England, John gave up his alliance with his nephew Otto IV (who was the son of his sister Matilda) the disputed king of Germany. John also agreed that Arthur would be his man in Brittany and also accepted Philip as the overlord of all English lands held in Normandy. John further promised not to support any rebellions in Boulogne or Flanders, which were recognised as vassals of the French king. The Duchy of Aquitaine was not part of the treaty, as this was held by his mother, Eleanor.112 Although Arthur had his fiefdom and position confirmed in the treaty, war broke out very soon afterwards when, in August of 1200, John abducted and then married ­Isabella of Angoulême, great grand-daughter of Louis VI of France. As a result of John’s temerity in taking Isabella as his wife (as she had already been betrothed to another vassal of the French king), Philip confiscated all of Isabella’s lands in Angoulême and armed conflict started to spark. Soon after, in early 1201, rebels against John in ­Normandy bypassed their feudal lord and appealed to the clearly ultimate suzerain, the king of France. John, realising the predicament in which he found himself, in 1202 reinvigorated the English alliance with his nephew, Otto IV, ‘for the purpose of guarding and defending his empire and his rights’.113 Philip, seeing the trap building around him, ordered his dispute with John to be settled in the royal court of Paris and summoned John to attend. When John failed to do so, Philip declared John deposed from his fiefs, and moved to seize the English lands in Normandy. At the same point, Arthur rose up in Normandy against John, and besieged his grandmother, Eleanor of Aquitaine, John’s mother. Arthur failed in his goal, being captured, and most likely killed by John in 1203. Arthur’s sister, Eleanor of Brittany, was also captured due to her own dynastic claims now that Arthur was gone, and spent her next 39 years in captivity. Philip accelerated his attacks under a campaign justified to avenge Arthur. With remarkable speed, the English forces were evicted from ­Normandy, Anjou and Poitou. These were areas that had been held by the AngloNormans for over 130 years. There was no formal proclamation of the annexation of these areas to the royal domain of France, although it was notable that when Philip II

112  Reston, J (2001) Warriors of God: Richard the Lionheart and Saladin in the Third Crusade (NYC, Anchor) 33–35, 208–09, 213, 214, 277; McLynn, F (2007) Richard and John: Kings at War (London, DaCapo) 37–41, 49, 71, 76, 256–60, 283; Turner, R (2009) Eleanor of Aquitaine (New Haven, Conn, Yale University Press) 206–19, 221, 225. 113  The 1202 ‘Alliance Between Otto IV and John of England’, as reprinted in Thatcher, O (ed) (1905) Source Book for Mediaeval History. Selected Documents Illustrating the History of Europe in the Middle Age (NYC, Scribner) 228.

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entered the city of Rouen in 1204, for the first time he styled himself rex Franciae (‘King of France’) instead of rex Franorum (‘King of the Franks’). These new areas in the realm of the French king simply dropped from English ownership, leaving Aquitaine as the only part of France linked to the Plantagenet crown. The owners of the individual estates in Normandy had a choice to either pledge allegiance to the French king, or lose their titles.114 (ii)  Scotland, Ireland, Wales, France and Rome The following year in 1205, John struggled to put together an army to cross the ­Channel from England to reclaim the disputed lands. His barons, despite being chastised by Pope Innocent III for their disloyalty, refused to fight, due to John’s series of failed military defences and his associated rising demands for money, men and service. This marked the first time John’s barons defied him. They did not seek his overthrow, nor was there any principle of governance at stake. The dissident barons were not opposed to the notion of feudal kingship, but they were opposed to the way in which it was performed by John. John’s continual need of money to fund his wars and the massive debts that Richard the Lionheart had left behind, meant that he had overtaxed his citizens. Moreover, his willingness to seize the lands of the nobles by tools such as forfeiture, and/or to pursue those (including widows and children) who disobeyed him throughout his territories, made many feel nervous. In light of this stand-off with his own barons, John had to agree to a two-year truce with Philip II in 1206.115 The truce with France allowed John the time he needed to concentrate on his difficulties at home and with the territories of Wales, Ireland and Scotland. At home in 1209, he held assemblies throughout England at which barons and non-barons were obliged to swear fealty and do homage to the king and his baby son Henry. In the same year, John concluded the Treaty of Norham with King William of Scotland. By this instrument, as the price of avoiding direct confrontation with the English crown, ­William renounced his claims to Cumberland and Northumberland, promised to pay John 15,000 marks of silver and handed over his two oldest daughters for marriage within the English royal house. This effectively crippled William’s power, and by 1212 (when the treaty of 1209 was renewed) John was having to intervene north of the border to support the Scottish king against his internal rivals. Nonetheless, John kept one of William’s daughters as a hostage to ensure compliance by the Scottish king.116

114 Moore, T (2010) ‘The Loss of Normandy in 1204’ The English Historical Review 125 (516): 1071–1109; Seabourne, G (2007) ‘Eleanor of Brittany and Her Treatment by King John and Henry III’ Nottingham Medieval Studies 60: 73–110. 115 Hughes, J (2007) ‘King John’s Tax Innovations: Extortion, Resistance and the Establishment of the Principle of Taxation by Consent’ Accounting Historians Journal 34 (2): 75–107; Barratt, N (2001) ‘The English Revenue of Richard I’ The English Historical Review 116 (467): 635–56. 116 Maddicott, J (2011) ‘Fear, Government and Popular Allegiance in the Reign of King John’ The English Historical Review 126 (159): 281–318.

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John crossed into Ireland in 1210. This followed a baronial revolt against the Crown’s Irish administration and the heavy taxes imposed on them. When some of the barons which John had empowered refused the summons to court to explain themselves, John intervened. This intervention also helped confront a number of English rebels who were believed to be finding refuge in Ireland, and were encouraging rebellion against him in both the Anglo-Norman and Gaelic parts of the country. Although John managed to reassert control in the Anglo-Norman areas, this stability was transitory, and as soon as he left the country, the pattern of internal feuds, large degrees of autonomy in some areas, and the provision of men to assist various rebellions and/or wars against the English king continued.117 A similar scenario developed in Wales, which John entered in 1211, using military force and diplomacy to achieve a series of deals to secure the loyalty of some of the Welsh magnates. However, he also managed to ensure the anger of others, such as Llywelyn the Great, whose son John took hostage.118 One relationship with John that did turn to his benefit was with the pope. He had earlier run into trouble with the papacy when he refused to accept Pope Innocent III’s choice for Archbishop of Canterbury. Accordingly, the pope issued an interdict against England in 1208, prohibiting the clergy from conducting religious services, with the exception of baptisms for the young and the confessions and absolutions of the dying. John, recalling the lack of support that the papacy had given his brother Richard in earlier decades, would not back down, seeing the opportunity to plunder the possessions of the clergy. Accordingly, John insisted ‘he would stand up for the rights of his crown’.119 However, realising that he had too many enemies to deal with all at the same time, John backed down with his confrontation with the pope in 1213. He paid back what he had plundered from the Church and accepted Innocent III as the secular and spiritual overlord of the kingdom by: [s]wear[ing] fealty to … pope Innocent and his catholic successors and the Roman Church … [A]nd [we] will do liege homage to the same lord the pope … binding our successors and heirs for ever … they should pay fealty and acknowledge homage without contradiction … [and] in proof of our perpetual obligation and grant, we will establish proper and special revenues [1,000 marks per year] …120

Matters for John became increasingly complex. When the truce with the French king, Philip II ended, Phillip launched an invasion fleet against the English king. Although this fleet was destroyed in what was the first great naval victory in English history, any 117  Veach, C (2014) ‘King John and Royal Control in Ireland’ The English Historical Review 129 (540): 1051–78; Morris, M (2009) Edward I: A Great and Terrible King (Croydon, Windmill) 287. 118  McLynn, F (2007) Richard and John: Kings at War (London, DaCapo) 85–87, 305, 338–47. 119  The Interdict, as reprinted in Baker, D (ed) (1982) The Early Middle Ages (London, Hutchinson) 164. The 1206 ‘Command of Innocent to the English Barons’ is reprinted in Thatcher, O (ed) (1905) A Sourcebook for Medieval History (NYC, Scribner) 217. See also, Poole, A (1954) From Domesday Book to Magna Carta (Oxford, Oxford University Press) 445–48. 120  ‘John’s Concession of the Kingdom to the Pope’, reprinted in Adams, G (ed) (1947) Select Documents of English Constitutional History (London, Macmillan) 38–39. Also, Cheney, C (1949) ‘King John’s Reaction to the Interdict on England’. Transactions of the Royal Historical Society 31: 129–50.

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hope of being able to follow up the victory was quickly destroyed by the French victories at the Battle of Bouvines.121 John did not fight at Bouvines. He failed to turn up on the battlefield because his barons would not follow him to the Continent to fight the French, with many refusing, saying they could not afford to do so. In this regard, John was lucky to survive as his German allies (Otto IV), as well as those from Holland, Boulogne and Flanders, were effectively destroyed by the French King Philip II and his allies. John was unlucky because now he had to achieve a truce with the French at a price (60,000 marks) that effectively bankrupted England, the country only being kept afloat by a further round of taxation.122 At this point, the English barons’ disquiet over losing their French possessions, heavy taxation and the loss of their ‘ancient and accustomed liberties’123 became very vocal. Two meetings between the king and his barons at the end of 1214 failed to resolve their differences. Both sides wrote to Pope Innocent III. The barons submitted demands that John should be obliged to obey the Charter of Liberties that had been issued by Henry I,124 and fulfil those pledges made on his own coronation. John offered to put the matter to arbitration by a panel of eight barons, chaired by the pope himself. His terms were rejected, and in May 1214 he ordered the confiscation of rebel lands, to which the rebels replied that this final act, following all of John’s other violations of existing laws, made his ‘tyrannical will’ the only authority in England. There was no escaping the fact that England was now at war with itself. Aware that the tide was against him, John chose to negotiate, the end result of which was the Magna Carta, concluded in 1215 at Runnymede.125

B.  The Magna Carta The Magna Carta (Great Charter) was a treaty between the King of England and his barons that has echoed down the ages. It revealed a royal abuse of power that was to be remedied in a series of 63 clauses. Excessive extractions in the form of inheritance tax, the oppression of minors and widows, and encroachment on the liberty of the

121 

See page 103. Baldwin, J (2014) ‘The Consequences of Bouvines’ French Historical Studies 37 (2): 243–69. 123 Jones, D (2012) The Plantagenets: The Kings Who Made England (London, Harper) 190–208; McLynn, F (2007) Richard and John: Kings at War (London, DaCapo) 399–400; Poole, A (1954) From Domesday Book to Magna Carta (Oxford, Oxford University Press) 468; Rosenwein, B (ed) (2006) Reading the Middle Ages: Sources from Europe, Byzantium and the Islamic World (Ontario, Broadview) 350. 124  See page 47. 125  The Magna Carta/Great Charter of Liberties, as reprinted in Adams, G (ed) (1947) Select Documents of English Constitutional History (London, Macmillan) 42–52. The words ‘tyrannical will’ are taken from The Waverley Annals of 1215. This is reprinted in Cohen, M (ed) (2004) History in Quotations (London, Cassell) 241. For the legal precedents, in addition to the Charter of Liberties, see O’Brien, B (2010) ‘Forgers of Law and Their Readers: The Crafting of English Political Identities Between the Norman Conquest and the Magna Carta’ Political Science and Politics 43 (3): 467–73. 122 

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subject were all obvious abuses that were addressed. The foundations for the principle of consent for taxation were also set down. In terms of the political foundations upon which England would be built for the following centuries, three clauses were particularly important. First, clause 14 established the blueprint for a Parliament, by setting down a procedure for holding ‘a common council of the kingdom’ by which the ‘archbishops, bishops, abbots, earls and greater barons’ could be summoned to meet at a given point and time, to discuss the matters at hand.126 Second, the importance of individual liberty and freedom, which no person (including the king) could abrogate were established. Perhaps the most famous and longstanding clause of the document, clause 39, stated: No free man shall be seized or imprisoned, or stripped of his rights or possessions, or outlawed or exiled, or deprived of his standing in any other way, nor will we proceed with force against him, or send others to do so, except by the lawful judgement of his equals or by the law of the land.

Clause 40 then provided, ‘To no one will we sell, to no one deny or delay right or justice.’ In terms of constitutional importance, this document challenged the absolute rights of the king in clause 61. Compliance by the king with the terms of the Magna Carta was to be achieved by 25 barons, who were given a legal right of resistance. Clause 61 stated, in part: The barons shall elect twenty-five of their number to keep, and cause to be observed with all their might, the peace and liberties granted and confirmed to them by this charter. If [they are transgressed by anyone, the twenty-five barons, can, in absence of immediate redress] distrain upon and assail us in every way possible, with the support of the whole community of the land, by seizing our castles, lands, possessions, or anything else … until they have secured such redress as they have determined upon. Having secured the redress, they may then resume their normal obedience to us.

The settling of the grievances John had created with both Scotland and Wales were also part of the deal. John was obliged to recognise the primacy of Welsh law in Wales and return all ‘lands, liberties or anything else’ that he had taken from the Welsh without the lawful judgement of their equals.127 He was also obliged to return the son of Llywelyn and all other Welsh hostages who had been taken as security for the peace.128 The return of the sisters and hostages of Alexander, King of Scotland, were also mandated. Clause 59 added that the Scottish king was to be treated ‘in the same way as our other barons of England, unless it appears from the charters that we hold from his father William, formerly king of Scotland, that he should be treated otherwise’.

126 

See Maddicott, J (2015) ‘Magna Carta and the Origins of Parliament’ The Historian Spring 22–26. Clause 56. 128  Clause 58. 127 

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Finally, Ireland was granted its own version of the Magna Carta in 1216, in which the established freedoms of Ireland were underlined and brought to the fore.129 (i)  The First Barons’ War John made no serious attempt to abide by the Magna Carta. The unpopular foreign soldiers who John promised would be expelled from England remained, and many of John’s promised restitutions and re-instalments failed to eventuate. John acted in this way, in part, because Pope Innocent III supported this approach, excommunicating 30 named barons associated with the Magna Carta and declaring it quashed, as it was ‘shameful and baseless … illegal and unjust’. Pope Innocent then ‘utterly condemned’ the conduct of the barons and demanded that they must no longer hinder the king ‘in his good plans’.130 The Barons’ War against John broke out in 1215, spurred on by the future Louis VIII of France. King Alexander struck from Scotland, invading Northumberland, taking Norham Castle and sacking Newcastle. At the same time, Llywelyn took advantage of the confusion to extend his control over most of Wales. Most significantly, the French king, Philip II, decided to take the battle to England, and claim the English crown. The first French attempt to land soldiers was a failure, with 65 of the 80 French ships being captured. The second attempt, led by Philip’s son, Louis, managed to land some 7,000 French troops in support of the rebel barons. Although Louis managed to hold nearly half of England, John prevented a relief force of French soldiers from landing. Before a military conclusion could be brought to the contest between John and Louis with the support of many English rebel barons, John died in October of 1216.131 John’s death took the heat out of the rebel barons’ concerns, as many of their grievances were personal to the man and not his son, Henry III. Furthermore, with John dead, the danger from Louis of France seemed much greater than that of supporting the claim to the throne of John’s nine-year-old heir. Even more wisely, Henry’s regents persuaded the young king to issue the Forest Charter at the end of 1217. Although not of the same constitutional significance as the Magna Carta, it effectively released some of the prized crown lands (the forests), allowing access for the common people to what was previously classified (and protected) as the private land of the king. With this law, people of free status were able to hunt, fish, mill and forage within the forests, provided no injury was done to others. Moreover, the previous death penalties for those hunting species of royal concern, were removed.132 129  The 1216 ‘Magna Carta of Ireland’, as reprinted in Curtis, E (ed) (1943) Irish Historical Documents 1172–1922 (London, Methuen) 28–30. 130  ‘Innocent III Rebukes the English Barons’, 1216, as reprinted in Thatcher, O (ed) (1905) A Sourcebook for Medieval History (NYC, Scribner) 219; Tanner, J (ed) (1957) The Cambridge Medieval History: The Victory of the Papacy (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press) 10–11, 15, 29–30, 48–50, 60–70, 287–89; Poole, A (1954) From Domesday Book to Magna Carta (Oxford, Oxford University Press) 456–58, 468–69, 479. 131  Jones, D (2012) The Plantagenets: The Kings Who Made England (London, Harper) 202–05, 232–35; ­Powicke, M (1962) The Thirteenth Century (Oxford, Clarendon Press) 11–13, 75–76. 132  See Langton, J (2015) ‘Royal and non-Royal Forests and Chases in England and Wales’ Historical Research 88 (241): 381–401.

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With such actions reflecting a clearly more moderate version of the monarchy, most of the rebel barons were content to allow the English crown to remain in the Plantagenet hands of the Anglo-Normans, rather than fall into the Capetian hands of the French. This change of emphasis overlapped with Louis being defeated at Lincoln. The result of this was the 1217 Treaty of Lambeth, under which Louis gave up his claim to the throne of England and all English followers of Louis were released from their oaths of fealty to him. Louis then accepted 10,000 marks (about a quarter of the annual revenue of England) to relinquish the lands he held in England and returned home. The Scots withdrew from the lands they occupied which were not in dispute. As for the Welsh, their recent conquests in Wales were recognised and two royal castles were handed over, in the Treaty of Worcester of 1218.133

C.  Henry III The regency of Henry III lasted until 1227, during which time his authorities brought order back to the realm of England. To the north, Henry’s relationship with Scotland was broadly good. King Alexander II married Joan, Henry’s sister. Nonetheless, there was still tension between the two realms, and the question of homage, though mainly in abeyance, remained unsettled. When claims to overlordship were seriously advanced by Henry III in 1236, Alexander II retorted with a counterclaim to the northern E ­ nglish counties. By the Treaty of York of 1237, Alexander of Scotland abandoned his claim to sovereignty over specific northern counties, receiving in return land in N ­ orthumberland and Cumberland, to be held on feudal terms, for which the king of Scotland was obliged to render homage and fealty to the king of England. The border, which broadly stands to this day, was settled in 1244 with the Treaty of Newcastle.134 The Treaty of Newcastle was later sealed with the marriage of the next Scottish king, Alexander III, to Henry’s daughter, Margaret. Upon the marriage festivities in 1251, Henry III suggested to Alexander III that he should render homage for the S ­ cottish kingdom to the English crown. Alexander refused, and only gave homage for his ­English lands. This peace with England allowed Alexander III to concentrate on placing the Hebrides and the Isle of Man, under Scottish, and not Norwegian, control. ­Following a conflict on the islands, the Treaty of Perth of 1266 confirmed that Scotland took the Hebrides and the Isle of Man, for which they paid an annuity, whilst the ­Shetlands and Orkney went to Norway.135 133  Beverley, S (1979) ‘The Treaty of Lambeth, 1217’ The English Historical Review 94 (372): 562–79; Turner, R (2009) Eleanor of Aquitaine (New Haven, Conn, Yale University Press) 281–98; McLynn, F (2007) Richard and John: Kings at War (London, DaCapo) 267, 302, 374–85, 389, 408–412, 420, 424, 433, 434, 441, 447–50. 134  The 1237 ‘Treaty of York’, as reprinted in Dickinson, W (ed) (1952) A Sourcebook of Scottish History, Vol I (Edinburgh, Thomas) 82–83; Poole, A (1954) From Domesday Book to Magna Carta (Oxford, Oxford University Press) 283, 301. 135  Venning, T (2013) The Kings and Queens of Scotland (Cheltenham, Amberley) 74.

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(i)  The Pressure Grows Despite the signing of the Treaty of Lambeth in 1217, keeping French armed forces out of England, hostilities between England and France broke out on the Continent within five years of Henry’s coming to the throne. The cause was Louis VIII’s having intervened, as overlord, in English-held lands in 1223, after some of Henry’s nobles in these areas had expressed discontent. When Henry sent over an army in response, disaffected nobles in the former Plantagenet lands, especially many of those in B ­ rittany, Normandy and Poitou, as well as those in the Low Countries, which had all earlier been sequestrated into the French realm, asked for help from the king of England, promising rebellion against Louis. Thousands of soldiers poured into each battle zone as war raged between 1224 and 1227, and then again between 1229 and 1231, as Henry battled to recover Angevin lands lost in France in the early decades of the century. When victory for either side was not possible, attempts were made to resolve matters via truces, and, most notably, in 1236 Henry III married Eleanor of Provence, whilst his sister Margaret married the French king, Louis IX, in 1233.136 Such alliances did not improve the relationship between England and France. Each king would go on to deny the feudal claims of the other and assert that the other had breached treaties, with the English arguing that the French were holding Normandy and Poitou wrongfully, and the French arguing that the English were holding Aquitaine wrongfully. War broke out again in 1242, and continued to simmer thereafter. To make matters even worse for Henry, the relationship with Wales deteriorated. Initially, Henry III had a good relationship with Wales, following his example with Scotland, concluding treaties of peace at Gwerneigron in 1240 and London in 1241. Under these, Dafydd ap Llywelyn ceded some territory, handed over his challenger to the Welsh throne (whom Henry kept as a pawn) and promised allegiance to the English crown for English lands held by him. However, certain areas remained in dispute, in terms of both ownership and occupation. These disputes became violent when ­Llywelyn ap Gruffydd, the grandson of Llywelyn the Great, successfully led an army through the area of English occupation in 1256, before going on to destroy a relief army of Englishmen.137 (ii)  The Right to Topple a Tyrant At all points, the discontent in Henry III’s kingdom was growing, as military, economic, political and social problems multiplied. Despite Henry’s confirmation of the Magna Carta in 1253, his actions suggested a failure to consult with his barons. In

136  Jones, D (2012) The Plantagenets: The Kings Who Made England (London, Harper) 264; Mundy, J (1991) Europe in the High Middle Ages (London, Longman) 31; Powicke, M (1962) The Thirteenth Century (Oxford, Clarendon Press) 84–89, 95, 124–25, 134. 137  Tanner, J (ed) (1957) The Cambridge Medieval History: The Victory of the Papacy, Vol VI (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press) 260, 262, 283, 358–59, 538.

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a­ ddition, local officers were often out of control and a continual display of a partisan generosity towards his favourites, particularly the relatives and hangers-on of his wife, Eleanor of Provence, created disquiet in the kingdom.138 Even with members of his own immediate family, Henry indulged in fanciful schemes at great cost. The foremost example of this was when Henry adopted the idea of funding a conquest of Sicily, as a papal fief, granted by Innocent IV, for which he could have his son crowned king. This may have been for the purpose of a steppingstone towards a crusade in the Holy Land. Although Henry initially promised to pay the requested price and to provide 8,500 armed men for the purpose, from which he amassed a huge debt to the pope in pursuance of this goal, he failed to achieve it due to very strong opposition in England.139 Such actions by Henry III directly overlapped with a number of influential scholars’ beginning to question the acceptability of such acts by monarchs. Thomas Aquinas wrote in 1254: A king who is unfaithful to his duty forfeits his claim to obedience. It is not rebellion to oppose him … a tyrannical government is not just, because it is directed, not to the common good, but to the private good of the ruler …140

And, There is no sedition in disturbing a government of this kind … Christians are not bound to obey tyrants … one who liberates his country by killing a tyrant is to be praised and rewarded.141

The most famous scholars of the day in England (Henry de Bracton), France (Philippe de Beaumanoir) and Italy (Bartolus de Saxoferrato) concurred, advising that the ­monarch who acted without justice could forfeit his authority. Therefore, a monarch slipped from being a lawful ruler to an unlawful tyrant if he acted with cruelty for his own advantage, not the common good of the community. To such rulers, obedience was not obligatory. It was in the light of such ideas that Henry III and Simon de Montfort became bitter enemies.142 (iii)  Simon de Montfort Simon de Montfort, a French nobleman, was married to Eleanor of England, Henry III’s sister. He had been Henry’s military commander in Gascony, which he had brought to

138  Carpenter, D (2013) ‘More Light on Henry III’s Confirmation of the Magna Carta in 1253’ Historical Research 86 (232): 190–95. 139  Weiler, B (2001) ‘Henry III and the Sicilian Business’ Historical Research 74 (184): 127–50. 140  Aquinas, as reprinted in Baumgarth, W (ed) Saint Thomas Aquinas. On Law, Morality and Politics (NYC, Hackett) 232. 141  Aquinas, ‘Commentary on the Sentences of Peter Lombard’, as reprinted in Elmer, P (ed) The Renaissance in Europe: An Anthology (London, Yale University Press) 124. 142  Carlyle, AJ (1910) A History of Medieval Political Theory in the West (London, Blackwood) Vol III, 34–36, 39–40, 50, 65–68, 73–74, 85–86, 89–91, 95, 111–13; Vol IV, 255; Vol V, 91–93; and Vol VI, 79–88.

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heel but at a huge cost, in terms of the unpopular nature of his actions. Henry’s lack of support for de Montfort in Gascony, and his slow payment of de Montfort’s costs for his efforts in France, led to a deep dislike between the two men, the king being of the view that de Montfort was ‘kicking against my authority’.143 This view was, or soon became, correct, as the barons, with de Montfort at their head, came together as a force opposing the power of the king. In 1258, after much diplomatic positioning within England, when Henry became aware that he could not win against the barons if he opted for war, the king agreed to the Provisions of Oxford and the Provisions of Westminster in 1259. Collectively, these charters were almost as influential as the Magna Carta.144 The Provisions of Oxford created a court of four elected knights to hear complaints ‘touching any wrongs and injuries inflicted on any persons by sheriffs, bailiffs, or any other men’. A council, made up of 24 men, half on behalf of the king, half on behalf of the barons, was also established ‘to consider common needs along with the king’s council at the three annual parliaments … to examine the state of the kingdom and to consider the common needs of the kingdom’.145 Although this council was not a parliament made up of what is today known as popular representation, the inclusion of representatives was a step towards such a body. Simon de Montfort’s parliament may not have been a ‘popular’ one, but it came as near as the circumstances would allow to becoming a national one. From the group of 24, a further group of 15, with the ‘power of advising the king’, was agreed. The king’s Chancellor and Treasurer of the Exchequer were required to render accounts at the end of each year. Lastly, considerations regarding the appointment of a Chief Justice were set down, as were standards for sheriffs, and ‘reform’ of the household of the king and queen. It was added that ‘the intolerable Poitevins and all aliens [all of the hangers-on of foreign persuasion] should flee from your presence and ours … [and] swear total observance to our counsels’.146 In essence, the new council removed all of Henry III’s executive powers and removed the foreign influences of his wider family. Nothing was to be left to Henry’s initiative except the most routine aspects of government. The Provisions of Westminster were agreed between Henry and the 24 barons. They were empowered by the Provisions of Oxford. The Provisions of Westminster stated that the tourns (the circuits made by the sheriffs) would ‘be held according to the form of the king’s Great Charter, and as they were customarily held in the time of the kings John and Richard’.147 Thereafter, the Provisions consisted of miscellaneous measures 143  Henry III, as noted in Jones, D (2012) The Plantagenets: The Kings Who Made England (London, Harper) 250; Morris, M (2009) Edward I: A Great and Terrible King (Croydon, Windmill) 14–16. 144 Maddicott, J (1999) Simon de Montfort (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press) 21, 30, 34–35, 106–11, 113–15, 119–25, 129, 151–52, 156–62, 168–70; Ambler, S (2013) ‘Simon de Montfort and King Henry III: The First Revolution in English History’ History Compass 11 (12): 1076–85. 145 The Provisions of Oxford, as in Baker, D (ed) (1982) England in the Later Middle Ages (London, ­Academica) 6–10. 146  This quote is from the Annals Monastici of 1258. It is reprinted in Cohen, M (ed) (2004) History in Quotations (London, Cassell) 242. 147  The Provisions of Westminster, as in Baker, D (ed) (1982) England in the Later Middle Ages (London, Academica) 11–12.

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to reform the administration of justice, which were, in essence, the first legislation in England to deliberately alter the procedures in the king’s courts. Henry, realising that he needed to deal with one problem at a time, decided to make a definitive peace with France. The 1259 Treaty of Paris that followed was concluded three months after the Provisions of Westminster. The final text agreed by Henry in 1259 were significantly weaker than what he had originally sought to obtain, tempering his goals so that he could obtain peace with France to concentrate on other matters at home. In substance, in addition to a number of smaller matters relating to rents and military supplements, the 1259 agreement terminated the English claims to Normandy, Anjou, Touraine, Maine and Poitou. Conversely, the French king acknowledged Henry as Duke of Aquitaine, including his lordship over Bordeaux, Bayonne and Gascony. The lands accorded to Henry were to be held as fiefs, within the traditional feudal structure, from the French crown, which was overlord. This, although painful for Henry, meant that France would stay out of any immediate conflicts Henry was about to enter. This was very wise, for had France been inclined to become involved in the conflict between Henry and his barons, the outcome could have been very different.148 (iv)  The Second Barons’ War The Provisions of Oxford and Westminster were short-lived. Henry asserted that the barons were seeking to obtain power for themselves, and did not meet the parliament as required, due to his having to attend to wars against the Welsh and conclude negotiations with the French. Simon de Montfort and his followers would not accept these excuses and began to campaign for the enforcement of the Provisions of ­Westminster. Both sides agreed that, rather than risk conflict, matters of dispute could be ­arbitrated—in essence, pronouncing on the validity of the Provisions—by the French king, Louis IX, so as to avoid the ‘desolation, destruction and irreparable loss which threaten the whole land’.149 In agreeing that Louis was the best person to arbitrate, de Montfort was probably aware that the French appeared to have an emerging constitutional system that was larger than just the king. Indeed, it was the French at this period who gave us the word Parlement, referring to the action parler (‘to speak’ or, in the shared medieval word, ‘­parley’). France had a history of ad hoc occasions pulling together the ‘great men’, who were summoned in the different regions, along with bishops and the king’s ­counsel, to talk about matters such as the rights of serfs, corrupt officials or the circulation of money. 148 Pierre, C (1952) ‘The Making of the Treaty of Paris, 1259’ 67 The English Historical Review 235–52; Sanders, I (1251) ‘The Texts of the Peace of Paris, 1259’ The English Historical Review 66 (258): 81–97; Maddicott, J (1999) Simon de Montfort (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press) 174–75, 182–89, 292–95. 149  The Baronial Document of 1261, as reprinted in Cohen, M (ed) (2004) History in Quotations (Cassell, London) 242. Also, Jacob, E (1926) ‘The Complaints of Henry III Against the Baronial Council in 1261’ The English Historical Review 41 9164): 559–71; Bjerke, J (2016) ‘A Castilian Agreement and Two English Briefs: Writing in Revolt in Thirteenth Century Castile and England’ Journal of Medieval Iberian Studies 8 (1): 75–91.

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The problem was that, although France had these emergent systems, Louis greatly disliked them, recording famously that ‘there is only one king in France’.150 With such a viewpoint, it was no surprise when, in 1264, Louis ruled in favour of the English king. Louis annulled the Provisions, stating that the ‘king shall have full power and unrestricted rule within his kingdom’, while ordering that old charters and customs—the Magna Carta—should be respected and all quarrels forgotten.151 Pope Alexander IV added to Henry’s cause, giving him papal absolution from his oath to the Provisions, and placed those who upheld them under sentences of excommunication and interdict.152 Simon de Montfort refused to accept the ruling by the French king and issued a letter of defiance, withdrawing his homage and fealty to the king of England. He felt secure in doing this, as a new pope, Urban IV, had ascended the papal throne in Rome and the barons had succeeded in getting Pope Alexander IV’s absolution of King Henry revoked and the Provisions confirmed. As such, both sides believed that they were fighting with papal support. When Henry classified the men who challenged him as ‘perfidious traitors’, to whom he would talk only if they presented themselves to him with nooses around their necks, war was inevitable. Soon after, in mid-1264, some 10,000 of the king’s soldiers and about half of that number led by de Montfort clashed at Lewes. Despite the odds, de Montfort’s forces won and the king’s son (the future Edward I) was made prisoner. Accordingly, Henry agreed to the peace known as the Mise of Lewes/Peace of Canterbury, in which he promised to implement the Oxford and Westminster Provisions, and agreed to further arbitration on some outstanding questions. De Montfort then summoned a parliament, which painted itself as being for ‘the people of the kingdom of England’.153 The Song of Lewes, which came out quickly after the victory, proclaimed: To what purpose does free law wish kings to be bound? That they may not be stained by an adulterine [false] law. And this constraining is not of slavery, but is the enlarging of kingly virtue … Let [the king] know that the people is not his own but God’s … The commonality comes first, law rules the royal dignity, for law is light and rules the world.154

At this stage the real power in England was concentrated in the hands of three men (de Montfort and two others), not the original 24 envisaged in the Oxford and ­Westminster Provisions. This power was short-lived, as Edward escaped captivity and one of the three men swapped sides to work for Henry. De Montfort made up the losses by approaching the self-styled ‘Prince of Wales’, Llywelyn ap Gruffydd, who, in the 1265 Treaty of Pipton, agreed to a military alliance with de Montfort in return for the granting of disputed territory and sovereignty to Llywelyn. De Montfort also

150 

Fawtier, R (1974) The Capetian Kings of France (London, Macmillan) 26. Decision of Louis IX, as in Baker, D (ed) (1982) England in the Later Middle Ages (London, ­Academica) 12–13. 152  Maddicott, J (1999) Simon de Montfort (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press) 163–65, 192–98, 208–10, 219, 246–49, 279, 304–05; Morris, M (2009) Edward I: A Great and Terrible King (Croydon, Windmill) 81–82. 153  Maddicott, J (1999) Simon de Montfort (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press) 285. 154  The Song of Lewes, as reprinted in Cohen, M (ed) (2004) History in Quotations (London, Cassell) 243. 151 The

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betrothed his only daughter to Llywelyn. Soon after, in the middle of 1265, the two sides, comprising de Montfort’s 5,000 men and Prince Edward’s 10,000 men, came to face each other at Evesham. This time, de Montfort and 4,000 of his men failed to leave the battlefield. Llywelyn did not turn up to support de Montfort at Evesham, and thus lived to fight another day.155 The last rebels eventually laid down their arms once the Dictum of Kenilworth was issued in 1266. This Dictum, although noting the Magna Carta and other constitutional documents protecting ancient freedoms, defended the king’s right to ‘freely exercise his lordship, authority and royal power without impediment or contradiction’.156 ­Nevertheless, in the interests of building a peace, the rebels were allowed the right to buy back forfeited estates, at prices depending on their level of involvement in the rebellion. This was typically at a rate of between five to seven times the value of the land. Although harsh, peace was achieved. Moreover, in 1267, the Statute of Malborough dictated 29 chapters of legal reform, as originally planned by de Montfort, such as the removal of many of the difficulties surrounding inconsistent and often unfair justice (such as communal fines) within the realm.157 Henry III also made peace with Llywelyn ap Gruffydd, in the 1267 Treaty of ­Montgomery, Llywelyn being granted extensive control of and territory in north-west Wales, in exchange for a tribute of 25,000 marks and a promise to appear before the English king when summoned. These territorial gains were supplemented by acceptance of Llywelyn’s supremacy throughout Wales as a whole, with the homage of all of the other Welsh lords being transferred from Henry to Llywelyn, thus making him truly master in his own country. In the words of the treaty, ‘the king, wishing to magnify the person of Llywelyn,’ granted that ‘Llywelyn and his heirs shall be, and shall be called, Prince of Wales’. This was the only time that an English ruler recognised the right of a Welshman to rule over Wales and every other Welsh lord. However, control was not total. The King of England retained the right, as absolute suzerain of the Welsh principalities, to sit in judgement on legal appeals from the prince’s courts and to summon his vassals to answer lawsuits like normal plaintiffs.158

D.  Edward I Edward I, also known as ‘Longshanks’ because of his height, was king of England from 1272 to 1307. He was on his way back to England from the Crusade to the Holy 155  Maddicott, J (1999) Simon de Montfort (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press) 269–83, 287, 341–42; Grant, R (2011) 1001 Battles (London, Penguin) 178. 156  See the ‘Confirmation of the Charters’ of 1265, as reprinted in Adams, G (ed) (1947) Select Documents of English Constitutional History (London, Macmillan) 68. Also, Ambler, S (2015) ‘Magna Carta: Its Confirmation at Simon de Montfort’s Parliament of 1265’ The English Historical Review 130 (454): 801–30. 157  Lewis, A (1939) ‘Roger Leyburn and the Pacification of England, 1265–67’. The English Historical Review 54 (214): 193–214; Powicke, M (1962) The Thirteenth Century (Oxford, Clarendon Press) 216–18. 158  Morris, M (2009) Edward I and the Forging of Britain (Croydon, Windmill) 32–35, 133–35; Maddicott, J (1999) Simon de Montfort (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press) 338.

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Land,159 accompanied by his wife, Eleanor of Castile, the daughter of Ferdinand III of Spain, when the news arrived that his father, Henry III, had died. It had been ­Ferdinand III who had instructed his own son: Son, you are rich in lands and in many good vassals … If you should manage to hold it all in the way which I leave it to you, then you are as good a king as I; and if you should enlarge it, you are better than I; and if you should lose any of it, you are not as good as I.160

How much Edward was influenced by the views of his father-in-law is a matter of conjecture. What is not a matter of speculation was that by the time his life had ended, Edward had made unprecedented gains in power over both Wales and Scotland, as well as keeping the English possessions in France safe. (i) Parliament Edward was different to his father in understanding that to achieve his aims, a better system of representative government had to be established. He iterated his commitment to the Magna Carta and the Forest Charter, stipulating that ‘any judgement rendered contrary to [them] shall be null and void’.161 Due to such actions, the jurist Henry of Bracton thus wrote that although the king had no equal within his realm, he did have two others above him: God and ‘his curia, namely the earls and barons, because if he is without a bridle, that is without law, they ought to put the bridle on him’.162 Edward demonstrated his commitment, calling parliaments in 1282, 1290, 1294 and 1295. These were much more representative than their predecessors, and more radical than Simon de Montfort had ever envisaged, summoning the higher clergy, barons and sheriffs, as well people from the commons, that is, ‘knights, citizens and burgesses [freemen of a borough] … with regard to providing remedies against the dangers which are in these days threatening the kingdom’.163 This change of emphasis meant that Edward had made the parliament into a body that comprised all three estates of the realm, numbering about 600 men (of whom 200 were citizens and burgesses). All of these people came together to deal with matters of taxation, legislation and general political deliberation. This was in accordance with Edward’s view that ‘it

159 

See page 162. Ferdinand III, as noted in MacKay, A (1977) Spain in the Middle Ages (London, Macmillan) 59. 161  ‘The Confirmation of the Charters’, as reprinted in Baker, D (ed) (1982) England in the Later Middle Ages. (London, Academica) 19; Morris, M (2009) Edward I: A Great and Terrible King (Croydon, Windmill) 305–06, 317. 162  Bracton, as in Carlyle, AJ (1910) A History of Medieval Political Theory in the West, Vol VI (London, Blackwood) 7, 30. 163  ‘Summons of Representation, 1298’ as reprinted in Baker, D (ed) (1982) England in the Later Middle Ages (London, Academica) 89. The Summons of Representation, 1295’ is reprinted in Adams, G (ed) (1947) Select Documents of English Constitutional History (London, Macmillan) 82–83, as is the 1297 ‘Confirmation of the Charters’, at 86. 160 

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is the custom of the realm of England that in all things touching the state of the same realm there should be asked the counsel of all whom the matter concerns’.164 (ii) Wales Although Edward was able to reconcile with the English Parliament, he found it much more difficult to reconcile with the Welsh. The autonomy and control that Henry III had promised Llywelyn ap Gruffydd in 1267 had not materialised. Those who occupied land that had been promised to the Prince of Wales refused to comply, insisting that the treaty did not cover their castles. The ambiguity in the treaty that was being exploited resulted in Prince Llywelyn stopping to pay tribute, and then failing to appear when summoned by Edward to London, after fighting those who would not abandon the areas he had been promised. In 1277, after Llywelyn’s latest failure to appear when summoned, Edward assembled an army of more than 15,000 men and went forth to crush the ‘rebel and disturber of the peace’.165 Llywelyn’s forces were pushed back into regions that could not sustain them, and accordingly, he had to settle. The settlement laid out in the Treaty of Aberconwy obliged Llywelyn to pay a fine, and the fealty of the Welsh lords to him was restricted to that of only five minor lords, and this was to end up on the death of Llywelyn. Five years later, Llywelyn’s brother Dafydd began fighting the English for the territory the English had taken, and the imposition of English law, custom and authority upon the Welsh. Llywelyn explained that when he joined the uprising with his brother, ‘the people of Snowdonia do not wish to do homage to a stranger whose language, manners and laws they are entirely ignorant’.166 With this defiance, the Welsh and English were at war again. When the forces of around 7,000 men on each side eventually clashed at Cilmeri at the end of 1282, the English won the day. Prince Llywelyn, along with some 2,000 of his men, was left dead on the field. Dafydd was captured, being taken to Shrewsbury, where, in June 1283, he was hanged, drawn and quartered for treason. Edward justified the bloodshed as necessary to ‘suppress the malice of the Welsh’. He added that it was for ‘the praise and honor of God, the increase and renown of him and his realm, and the perpetual peace of his people’.167 Edward then took back the title ‘Prince of Wales’, insisting in his Statute of Wales of 1284 that the people in this

164  Edward I, as noted in Bisson, T (1973) Medieval Representative Institutions (Chicago, Dryden Press) 46; see also at 13, 16–17, 24–25, 34–39. Also, Herlihy, D (ed) (1998) The History of Feudalism (NYC, Harper) 278–84. 165  Edward, as noted in Jones, D (2012) The Plantagenets: The Kings Who Made England (London, Harper) 307, and also pages 288–89. See also Neal, K (2013) ‘Words as Weapons in the Correspondence of Edward I with Llywelyn ap Gruffydd’ Parergon 30 (1): 51–71. 166  Llywelyn, as noted in Morris, M (2009) Edward I: A Great and Terrible King (Croydon, Windmill) 184–85. 167  Edward, as noted in Morris, M (2009) Edward I: A Great and Terrible King (Croydon, Windmill) 184. Also pages 17–19, 275–77.

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region were ‘­subject unto our power … [and had] submitted themselves completely to our will’.168 As the rebellions of both Rhys ap Maredudd and Madog ap Llywelyn would later show, the Welsh were not quite as subdued as Edward initially thought. However, following his third invasion of Wales in 1294, with 35,000 men at his side, a massive castle building campaign over the Principality, the Welsh commitment to resistance dissolved.169 (iii) Scotland Soon after Edward’s Welsh campaigns, he gained an unprecedented opportunity to also control his relationship with the Scots. This occurred with the death of Alexander III of Scotland. Upon the coronation of Edward in 1274, Alexander had repeated the act of fealty for (only) his English lands. He was, without doubt, absolute sovereign over the territories in Scotland. However, on his death in 1286, all of the stability he had built up came crashing down as the House of Dunkeld was at an end because Alexander had outlived all three of his children, and it was not at all obvious who should accede to the throne of Scotland. An assembly of Scottish nobles decided that the best candidate was the late king’s granddaughter, Margaret, the so-called Maid of Norway (Norway being where she was born and was living). The plan was that she was to marry the son of Edward I. By this union, Norway, England and Scotland would be knitted more closely together, although, as the supplementing Treaty of Birgham of 1290 agreed, ‘the kingdom of Scotland shall remain separate and divided from the kingdom of England … and that shall be free from subjection’.170 The 1290 treaty proved ineffectual because Margaret died on her way to Scotland from Norway. This resulted in a very complex situation, in which 13 different claimants all stepped forward to lay claim to the Scottish throne, Robert Bruce (grandfather of Robert the Bruce) and John Balliol being the main contenders. Bruce, who at this point was married to Isabella, the illegitimate grand-daughter of Llywelyn the Great, had a weaker genealogical claim than Balliol who was married to Isabella, whose mother was the sister of Henry III of England. Balliol had been favoured as the better candidate by Alexander III, but his claim had not been settled before the death of the Scottish king. As both sides started to use force against the other, it was agreed that rather than wage war, they would arbitrate the matter, with Edward I as the arbiter. Edward agreed to do this only after all of the candidates agreed that he ‘ought to have, the sovereign lordship

168  The Statute of Wales, as reprinted in Baker, D (ed) (1982) England in the Later Middle Ages (London, Academica) 23; Morris, M (2009) Edward I: A Great and Terrible King (Croydon, Windmill) 134–137, 176–80, 190–93; Powicke, M (1962) The Thirteenth Century (Oxford, Clarendon Press) 382–85. 169  Tanner, J (ed) (1958) The Cambridge Medieval History: Decline of Empire and Papacy, Vol VII (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press) 321. 170  The 1290 ‘Treaty of Birgham’, as reprinted in Dickinson, W (ed) (1958) A Sourcebook of Scottish History, Vol I (London, Nelson) 107. Also, Stevenson, W (2007) ‘The Treaty of Northampton (1290): A Scottish Charter of Liberties?’ The Scottish Historical Review 86 (1): 1–15; Lyon, A (2006) ‘The Place of Women in European Royal Succession in the Middle Ages’ Liverpool Law Review 27: 361, 378–80.

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of the kingdom of Scotland’.171 After examining the various claims, Edward found in favour of John Balliol. In turn, Balliol recognised in 1291 that Edward possessed ‘the sovereign lordship of the kingdom of Scotland … [W]e concede and grant to receive justice before him as sovereign lord over the land’.172 (iv) France For the first two decades of his reign, Edward’s relationship with the King of France, Philip III, was peaceful, as Edward had performed homage to Philip in 1273 for all the territories he held in France under the Treaty of Paris. This submission allowed Philip to turn his attention to his interests in Spain, which were close to his heart as he was married to Isabella, the daughter of King James of Aragon. It was these dynastic links with Spain, and papal support against Aragon due to their support for the wrong side in the wars in Sicily, which pulled Philip III into a conflict that came to encompass both Castile and Aragon. Philip failed in this quest, finding the areas impossible to subdue, dying in the homeward retreat in 1285.173 Philip IV of France was seven years old when his father, Philip III, died in Spain. He ascended the throne in 1285, after marrying Joan I of Navarre the year before, thus making him the King of Navarre too. As soon as Philip IV became King of France, Edward I of England repeated the same act of homage for his lands held in France as he had to Philip’s father. Philip IV was happy with this submission. However, neither king could stop their disgruntled citizens sparking conflict with opposing locals, despite promises to each other that they would try. When nobles within Edward’s possession in France appealed to the French king for relief, Philip thought it would be best if Edward came to Paris to help resolve the issue. When Edward refused to appear before the French king when summoned in 1293, and suggested that arbitration would be a better resolution for the difficulty before them, the French authorities declared Edward’s fiefs in France confiscated. The French advanced quickly, raiding Dover and putting great pressure on Gascony. Edward defended his territories and struck a treaty with King Adolf of ­Germany in 1294, which allowed a united front against France, after Philip IV had tried to invade the disputed territories of both Burgundy and Flanders.174 171  The 1291 ‘Submission of the Competitors to Edward I’, as reprinted in Dickinson, W (ed) (1958) A Sourcebook of Scottish History, Vol I (London, Nelson) 113. 172  ‘The Sovereignty of Scotland, 1291’, as reprinted in Baker, D (ed) (1982) England in the Later Middle Ages (London, Academica) 24. Also, Morris, M (2009) Edward I: A Great and Terrible King (Croydon, Windmill) 238–40; Tanner, J (ed) (1958) The Cambridge Medieval History: Decline of Empire and Papacy, Vol VII (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press) 305, 562–63; Jones, D (2012) The Plantagenets: The Kings Who Made England (London, Harper) 322–30. 173  Powicke, M (1962) The Thirteenth Century (Oxford, Clarendon Press) 118–19, 693; MacKinnon, J (1906) A History of Modern Liberty, Vol I (London, Longman) 252; MacKay, A (1977) Spain in the Middle Ages (London, Macmillan) 100–01, 105–07. 174  See pages 118–119, Tanner, J (ed) (1958) The Cambridge Medieval History: Decline of Empire and Papacy, Vol VII (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press) 184–85, 309, 570–75; Abulafia, D (1988) Frederick II: A Medieval Emperor (Oxford, Oxford University Press) 238–39.

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(v)  The Auld Alliance As Edward tried to outmaneuver Philip of France with an alliance with Germany, Philip responded by seeking to form an alliance with Scotland. This followed quickly when John Balliol found that, despite being galvanised by a 12-man committee designed to help run Scotland, the Scots were resistant to English authority. The relationship began to fray in 1294, after Balliol was called to answer to the English parliament f­ollowing disputes with local landholders in the border area. When he was summoned, like any other vassal, to provide an army from Scotland to serve the English king in France, Balliol saw an opportunity to turn the tables. He threatened to come to an agreement with the French if he did not get more power in Scotland. Edward was f­urious, as Scottish raiding parties then started to cross the border into England. If there was any question of Balliol’s maintaining his fealty to the English crown, the answer was given when the Scots concluded a defensive pact with France the following in year in 1295. This Auld Alliance, that would last 365 years, was built around the premise that if France was attacked, ‘the king of Scotland with all his power shall see to it that he invades the land of England as widely and as deeply as he can, attacking by every kind of military operation’.175 Edward decided to test this relationship immediately, sending an army north, capturing the castles of Edinburgh, Stirling and Roxburgh. At the Battle of Berwick alone, perhaps 11,000 Scots may have died. After further defeats in quick sequence, John ­Balliol decided to surrender. Edward then publicly stripped him of all of his honours, placed him in the Tower of London and elected to rule Scotland directly, as he did Wales. This was not a union of crowns. This was the attempted annexation of Scotland, involving total absorption into the English legal and political system.176 Although John Balliol was captured, many of the Scots would not accept an Englishappointed government in Scotland, and in 1297 a rebel Scottish army, led by William Wallace, a commoner with large popular support, made rapid gains and ‘recovered by war, Scotland from the power of the English’.177 Wallace issued charters, in which he was described as ‘Guardian of the kingdom of Scotland and commander of its armies … by consent of the community of that realm’.178 He and his force of some 2,300 men then routed their English opponents at Sterling Bridge, killing 5,000 men from an army double that size, having averred, ‘Go back and tell your people that we

175  The 1295 ‘Treaty Between John Balliol and Philip of France’, as reprinted in Dickinson, W (ed) (1958) A Sourcebook of Scottish History, Vol I (London, Nelson) 116; Bonner, E (1999) ‘Scotland’s Auld Alliance With France, 1295–1560’ History 84 (273) 5–23. 176  Morris, M (2009) Edward I: A Great and Terrible King (Croydon, Windmill) 256–60, 287–90; Jones, D (2012) The Plantagenets: The Kings Who Made England (London, Harper) 338–40. 177  The 1297 ‘Letter from William Wallace to the Towns of Lubeck and Hamburg’, as reprinted in Dickinson, W (ed) (1958) A Sourcebook of Scottish History, Vol I (London, Nelson) 118. 178  The 1297 ‘Charter of William Wallace’, as reprinted in Cohen, M (ed) (2004) History in Quotations (Cassell, London) 246.

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have not come for the benefit of peace, but are ready to fight, to avenge ourselves and to free our kingdom’.179 The advances of Wallace came to an end after he had crossed the border into ­England and besieged Carlisle. At this point, an English army of 30,000 men pushed the Scots force back, before drawing them into battle and defeating them at Falkirk, after the Scottish nobles deserted the field. This English victory was not welcomed by many, with Pope Boniface VIII condemning the invasion of Scotland that followed, as he believed Scotland to be an independent Christian country that was a fief of the Church, not of England. The pope insisted that Edward I should free John Balliol, who was still in the hands of the English king. When Philip IV of France also requested that Balliol should be freed, or else he could not make peace with the English, Edward obliged. This coincided with a one-year truce in the year 1300. Edward was content to agree this truce, as his grand plans to encircle France via his alliance with King Adolf of Germany had also come to nothing, as Adolf had become embroiled in civil war against his own challenger, Albert of Habsburg, before being killed in 1298. With the loss of his ally in Germany, Edward decided to make peace with France, and in 1299, following the death of his first wife, married Margaret, the daughter of Philip III.180

9.  The Mongolian Empire

A.  Genghis Khan (i) Formation The Mongols claimed that they were directly descended from the Huns, who founded the first empire on the high steppe in the third century. In the thirteenth century, in the space of only seven decades, they carved out the second most extensive empire the world has ever seen, with only the British Empire exceeding it and only by a narrow margin. The man with the birth name of Temujin, went on to become a local khan in 1185, and Great Khan (emperor) of the Mongolians, with the title of Genghis Khan in 1206, after he had risen to the top of the Mongol tribes. By the time of the death of his grandson, Kublai Khan, ninety years later in 1296, perhaps 40 million people had been killed in wars of the Mongolian Empire.181

179  Wallace, as noted in Jones, D (2012) The Plantagenets: The Kings Who Made England (London, Harper) 345. See also Taylor, J (2007) ‘Springing a Trap at Stirling Bridge’ Military History, June, 58. 180  Reid, S (1945) ‘The Papacyand the Scottish War of Independence’. The Catholic Historical Review 31 (3): 282–301; Morris, M (2009) Edward I: A Great and Terrible King (Croydon, Windmill) 320, 326. 181  White, M (2011) Atrocitolology: Humanity’s 100 Deadliest Achievements (Melbourne, Text Publishing) 115–26; Biran, M (2013) ‘The Mongol Empire in World History’ History Compass 11 (11): 1020–33; Biran, M (2004) ‘The Mongol Transformation: From the Steppe to Eurasian Empire’ Medieval Encounters 10 (1): 369–61.

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The Mongolian empire built upon a near unbelievable amount of human blood followed centuries of conflict. They formed, broke up, and reformed into conglomerations of tribal confederacies that existed in the vacuum of post-Liao rule on the Steppes, with the Mongols, as one group, amongst many, competing for their survival. The clans within the wider Mongol family fought each other continuously over slaves, women and horses, as well as competing loyalties. Slowly, one grouping, under the authority of the Kerayits, came to fore. Their most impressive general was Temujin. The Kerayits were replaced by the tribe of Temujin—the Mongols—after the refusal of the king of the Kerayit dynasty in 1201, to allow Temujin to marry his daughter, despite the Great Khan’s military brilliance and accomplishments. Then, fearing that Temujin was getting too strong, the king had him attacked. Temujin saw this attack, after years of faithful service as a vassal to the Kerayit, as a just cause to rebel against the Kerayit and then destroy them over the following five years. To solidify, and legitimise, his rule in 1206 Temujin summoned a great gathering, or quriltai, of all the Mongols who had already submitted to his power. He was proclaimed as Genghis Khan (Firm or Fierce Ruler) in 1206 at a Mongolian congress after it was announced by the shaman that the celestial Eternal Blue Sky wanted this.182 (ii) Difference The Mongols were a complete anomaly on many issues. For example, on the topic of slavery, although they kept slaves from other cultures, no Mongolian could enslave another Mongolian. This was unlike both Islam and Christianity, which were both attracted to the idea but never regulated it.183 Also uniquely, the Mongols when invading, always presented themselves as liberators of the lower classes against the haughty landowners and nobles. All social status was (in theory, but not always in practice) meant to be dissolved so that only the Khan’s supreme authority remained. All competing claimants, dynastic, social or even nonobedient military forces, were destroyed. All inherited aristocratic titles and/or forms of social power that could be inherited were abolished. All offices and the right to bestow them passed to the Mongolian authorities, and reshuffled to ensure loyalty, from which came rewards. In many instances, the Mongols would either completely assimilate (such as via marriage), or kill the aristocracy to prevent future wars against them. In this mindset, unlike those with practical skills, they had little going for their preservation in terms of usefulness to the Mongols. Once the conquerors had decided who would be most useful to them, the Mongols then proceeded to follow the same template with each success. Namely, the ruler had to come personally to the court of

182  Broadbridge, A (2008) Kingship and Ideology in the Islamic and Mongol Worlds (Cambridge UP, Cambridge) 6–7; March, A (2003) ‘Citizen Genghis? On Explaining Mongolian Democracy’ Central Asian Survey 22 (1): 61–66. 183  Davis, D (2006) Inhuman Bondage (Oxford, Oxford UP) 50; Chambers, J (1979) The Devil’s Horsemen: The Mongol Invasion of Europe (London, Cassell) 66, 189, 192–95.

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the Khan; sons and younger brothers had to be handed over as hostages; all of the population had to be registered; soldiers had to be provided when requested; taxes had to be collected, and finally, a Mongol senior administrator was left to take charge of all significant affairs.184 The Mongols were also completely unique on the question of religion and conquest. Unlike all of their major competitors, they promised, and promoted, religious toleration so that their Empire of so many different faiths could be held together. This was very unique, as they also had their own theology, which was shamanistic in basis, in which the supreme sky-God gave Genghis Khan sovereignty over the whole world. This appears to have been linked to the cult of the sky, which was probably a traditional part of Mongol identity, by which Mongol leaders encouraged a unified realm, in imitation on Earth of the universal reach of the sky. That is, the one God for the Genghis Khan was the Eternal Blue Sky that stretched from horizon to horizon in all directions. It was something that covered the Earth and was not cooped up in house or ornate building, or confined to the words in a book. However, having recognised such a philosophy, Genghis Khan did not believe that the shamans of this faith were sacrosanct, and accordingly, when the one who had consecrated him as ruler tried to unduly influence the royal family, Genghis Khan had him executed. Similarly, although Genghis Khan continued to worship the spirits of his homeland, he did not permit them to be used as a national cult. This approach was then carried further when the Mongols became a world empire, in which religious personnel of all faiths were exempt from taxation and obligations of military service. In addition, religious buildings were often avoided from destruction in times of warfare.185 With such thinking in mind, when Genghis Khan captured the Muslim city of Bukhara, he dismounted from his horse and walked into the great mosque in the city. Upon entering, he ordered that the scholars and clerics feed his horses. This act, in a time when his soldiers were sacking the city, placed these men of religion under his protection. This approach filtered out throughout the Mongols. Thus, despite possessing their own theology, all three faiths that the Mongol encountered, namely, Buddhism, Christianity and Islam received equal protection and toleration. The Persian historian, Ala-ad Juvaini explained in 1260: Being the adherent of no religion and the follower of no creed he eschewed bigotry, and the preference of one faith to another, and the placing of some above others; rather he honoured and respected the learned and the pious of every sect, recognising such conduct as the way to the Court of God. And as he viewed the Muslims with the eye of respect, so also did he hold the Christians and the idolaters in high esteem.186 184  Neumann, I (2010) ‘Entry Into International Society Reconceptualised: The Case of Russia’ Review of International Studies 37: 463–84; May, T (2012) The Mongol Conquests in World History (London, R ­ eaktion) 25–37, 62–63, 132, 168–69; Lorge, P (2005) War, Politics and Society in Early Modern China (London, R ­ outledge) 61. 185  Black, A (2011) The History of Islamic Political Thought (Edinburgh, Edinburgh UP) 142; Grousset, R (2010) The Empire of the Steppes (Atlantic City, Rutgers UP) 218–19, 260–63; Weatherford, J (2004) Genghis Khan and the Making of the Modern World (NYC, Three Rivers Press) 5–6, 68–69, 112–14. 186  Ala-ad Din Juvaini, as noted in Cohen, M (ed) (2004) History in Quotations (London, Cassell) 251. Also Gvosden, N (2000) ‘Finding the Roots of Religious Liberty in the Asian Tradition’ Journal of Church and State 42 (3): 507–27.

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(iii)  The Xi Xia, the Jin and the Song In 1207, Genghis Khan sent his newly unified forces north, to subdue the so-called ‘Forest People’, who existed to the north of Mongolia/Manchuria. These people submitted, and then in a pattern that was to become frequent, the leaders were married into the Mongolian aristocracy. Whilst the northern frontier was settled with relative ease, to the right hand side of Genghis, sat the more formidable China. However, it was not formidable at this point, as it was comprised of three parts. To the south and east, the Jin, to the southwest was Xi Xia, and deep south, (below the Jin) was the Song.187 The first to fall was the Xi Xia. They were attacked in 1205 under the pretext that they were harboring Mongols who were the enemy of Genghis. Xi Xia with its nomadic background and connections with the politics of the steppe, made it an easy first target. Three armies were defeated in quick succession, and then their capital of Chong Xingfu fell. Although initially subdued by 1211, their subsequent rebellion by failing to provide troops when demanded and attempting to link up to both the Jin and the Song, brought the full weight of Genghis Khan down upon them in 1226.188 Before they disappeared from history, the Xi Xia had requested an alliance with the Jin against the Mongols. The Jin had declined the offering, stating, ‘it is in our advantage when our enemies attack one another. Wherein lies the danger to us?’189 The Jin felt confident enough to reject the requests of the Xi Xia, as they had a relationship with earlier Mongolian tribes which dated back to 1147, in which the Jin had agreed to pay annual subsidies in cattle, sheep, beans and rice. For this tribute, they believed they were safe. The problem was that Genghis Khan was a very different man to his predecessors and the resources at his disposal were considerably larger. This was especially so after the Xi Xia had been defeated, and the men of his defeated enemy were incorporated into the Mongol ranks. The tension increased even more after several tribes on the shared borders with the Jin, attempted to swap allegiances to the ­Mongols. The rhetoric for the justification of war was that Genghis Khan was repaying the Jin for the death of one of his ancestors, from 80 years earlier.190 Some 100,000 Mongol warriors crossed the border with the Jin in 1211. The decision to attack the Jin cannot have been taken lightly, as it was the Jin, not the Song, who were the dominant force in China at this point. Despite their earlier peace treaty of 1161 between the Jin and the Song,191 Ningzong, the thirteenth emperor of the Song, sought to take advantage of the difficulties that the Jin were having with both the Xi Xia and the Mongols. Accordingly, in the middle of 1206, the Song brought an abrupt end to 45 years of peace with the Jin, when over 130,000 soldiers crossed the border. The Song had limited military success, before the pendulum swung the other way, and Jin troops spilled back over the border, into Song territory. Peace was only 187 

May, T (2012) The Mongol Conquests in World History (London, Reaktion) 44–45. Waterson, J (2013) Defending Heaven: China’s Mongol Wars (Frontline, London) 36–39. 189  Jin reply to Xi Xia embassy, as noted in Waterson, J (2013) Defending Heaven: China’s Mongol Wars (Frontline, London) 38. 190  Kuhn, D (2009) The Age of Confucian Rule (Massachusetts, Harvard UP) 88–90. 191  See pages 80–81. 188 

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returned with a new treaty in 1208 with both sides returning to their original positions. The annual tribute paid by the Song to the Jin was increased to 300,000 ounces of silver and 300,000 bolts of silk per year. The Song also had to apologise for breaching the old peace treaty. Uniquely, the Song also had to hand over the heads of the leading bureaucrats who were deemed responsible for advocating the war.192 Six years later the Jin found themselves fighting a completely different enemy, which acted with unprecedented speed, besieging Beijing with 50,000 men. The Jin court had just been through a palace coup, and rather than fight, the leader gave massive amounts of silk, silver and gold, as well as 3,000 horses and 500 young people. To seal the arrangement, the leader recognised himself as a vassal of Genghis Khan, and gave him one of his royal princesses as a wife. This conquest and settlement provided ­Mongol control of north China, from which it was agreed that rather than depopulating northern China and letting it go back to pasture, it was more profitable to extract large amounts of tribute on an ongoing basis. However, no sooner had Genghis Khan left, leaving Beijing intact and not pillaged as promised, he discovered that the Jin emperor had decamped from the city, leaving with 3,000 camels and 30,000 cartloads of possessions, to the ancient Chinese capital of Kaifeng, well south of the Yellow River. Believing he had been deceived, Genghis Khan returned, starved Beijing into submission and then occupied it.193 The other dominant force in China at this time, the Song, were aware that the Jin were threatened with extinction. By 1214 the Song had stopped paying tribute to the Jin. When the Jin approached the Song for an alliance against the Mongols in 1218, they would not even contemplate the idea, although in 1224, they did agree to a peace between the two empires, on the basis of full equality between the two sides. (iv) Korea In 1216, the Mongols drove one of their traditional enemies, the Khitans (whom had been incorporated into the Jin dynasty) to the Yalu River, which was, and still is, the border with Korea. When the rulers of this part of the world, the Koreo (from which the title Korea comes) refused them supplies, the Khitans crossed the border to pillage towns. Accordingly, the Koreans were forced to fight back against the Khitans, whom the Mongols wanted to pursue. The Mongols then asked the Koreo government to enter their country and assist them on the grounds that they had come to Korea to liberate its people from the Khitan yoke. Although weary of the Mongols, permission was given to enter, and together, the two sides fought the Khitans. When the Khitans were defeated, the Mongols went to leave the region, after demanding a large tribute from the Korean leaders, on the justification that the Mongolian intervention had saved Korea.194 192 

Waterson, J (2013) Defending Heaven: China’s Mongol Wars (London, Frontline) 30–34. Gat, A (2008) War in Human Civilisation (Oxford, Oxford UP). 387; Waterson, J (2013) Defending Heaven: China’s Mongol Wars (London, Frontline) 37–45; Weatherford, J (2004) Genghis Khan and the Making of the ­Modern  World (NYC, Three Rivers Press) 96–97; Grant, R (2011) 1001 Battles (London, Penguin) 161. 194  Gabriel, R (2005). Empires at War (NYC, Greenwood) III: 874–75. 193 

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(v) Islam Islamic forces collided with the migratory peoples of the steppes in 1141 at the B ­ attle of Qatwan, when the Seljuk forces of the Khwarazmian dynasty were completely routed by the Kara Khitai of the Liao dynasty. As with many of these engagements, the migratory victors returned whence they had come, leaving only a battered and defeated enemy on the field, after the latter had agreed to paid tribute to the victors. Such migratory warriors did not reappear until decades later, as the Liao dynasty was destroyed by the Song, and in the power vacuum that resulted on the steppes, the ­Mongolian Empire arose. As such, it was not until 1213, when following the routes used by the Liao, the Mongolians clashed with the Khwarazmian dynasty, when the Muslim and the Mongolian sides came upon one another as some Mongolian troops were passing through some disputed territory.195 The initial altercation of 1213 was overlooked by both sides, and around 1216, a trade delegation from the Mongols reached the city of Bukhara, one of the most important areas in the Khwarazmian Empire, in what is now Uzbekistan. The Mongol delegation requested trading rights to the magnificent metals, glass and textiles that could only be found in the then thriving cosmopolitan-merchant friendly Muslim civilisations. In exchange, they offered expensive gifts, which impressed Shah Ala ad Din Muhammad II. Ala ad Din was very powerful, having recently defeated a number of (Sunni) Ghurid armies, and was in the process of marching on to Baghdad to obtain all of the formal recognitions from the caliph that he desired. It was at this point that a letter, sent from ‘the Emperor of Mankind’, Genghis Khan, arrived. This explained: I send you these gifts. I know your power and the vast extent of your empire and I regard you as my most cherished son. For your part you must know that I have conquered China and all the Turkish nations north of it; my country is an anthill of soldiers and a mine of silver and I have no need of other lands. Therefore I believe that we have an equal interest in encouraging trade between our subjects.196

With a nod of approval, relations between the two were set to begin. However, when Ala ad Din ordered the execution of the members of the Mongol trade mission, on the suspicion that they were spies when they arrived in 1218, an outcry followed. When the Mongols sent ambassadors to demand that those responsible be brought to justice, they were insulted and sent back with the severed head of one of their number. This was tantamount to a declaration of war as Mongol tradition demanded that the murder of an ambassador should be avenged. Ala ad Din simply looked the other way, refusing to make recompense to the Mongols, whom he considered to be inferior. When Genghis Khan heard this, he put his plans for the conquest of the Jin on hold, and decided to send his forces against the Khwarazmian Empire instead.197 195 Islam,

A (2016) ‘The Mongol Invasions of Central Asia’ International Journal of Social Science and Humanity 6 (4): 315–19. 196  The Letter from Genghis Khan, as reprinted in Chambers, J (1979) The Devil’s Horsemen: The Mongol Invasion of Europe (London, Cassell) 4. 197  Turnbull, S (2003) Genghis Khan and the Mongol Conquests (London, Osprey) 20, 80; Man, G (2004) Genghis Khan (London, Bantham) 154–55; May, T (2012) The Mongol Conquests in World History (London, Reaktion) 41–43.

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The following year, a Mongol force numbering perhaps 200,000 men, including 125,000 cavalry, divided into four armies and invaded the Muslim lands. Although the size of the Khwarazmian force was probably twice that of the Mongols, they tended to fight piecemeal. At each point, the Mongolian forces offered safety to the communities they were about to attack, if they surrendered in advance of an attack and agreed to become vassals, or complete annihilation if they refused to surrender. The first to fall after refusing to surrender was the city of Bukhara, where the trade mission had been executed. After its fall, the governor was sent to Genghis Khan, who ordered molten silver to be poured into his eyes and ears until he died, in a symbolic attempt to fill his avarice. Sengar and Khojend fell next, before the Mongols took Samarkand, Urgench and Nishapur. Of Nishapur, Genghis Khan warned, ‘know that God has given me the empire of the earth from the east to the west, who submits shall be spared, but those who resist, they shall be destroyed with their wives, children and dependents’.198 True to his word, and perhaps spurred on by the death of his daughter’s husband who had been killed during the siege, when the walls of Nishapur were breached, Genghis Khan ordered that all living creatures be killed and pyramids were made of the tens of thousands of human skulls. The last resistance to the invasion was in 1221 on the banks of the Indus, after Ala ad Din and the survivors had fled through Afghanistan to Muslim-ruled northern India.199 (vi)  North India The Mongols were now eyeing the Muslim forces of northern India. The Muslims in this area had recently divided into two with the Sultanate of Delhi, with the approval of the Abbasid Caliphate in Baghdad, breaking away from the Ghurids and declaring independence in 1206. The Ghurids, under the leadership of Muhammad of Ghur, had eclipsed the Ghaznavid dynasty by 1185, and most of modern-day Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Iran, Pakistan, and Tajikistan and upper India was under his control by 1203.200 The Ghurids were initially driven by a fanaticism that targeted Shia Muslims, Hindu’s and Buddhists alike, although they, as a minority population, did become a bit more tolerant to the Hindus, the primary population, if they paid the jizra tax, and accepted the sultan as the suzerain of the region.201 The Mongols had been pursuing their Khwarazmian enemies through the territories of the Ghurid Empire, which in itself, was already rotting with internecine conflict. When the Khwarazmian’s attempted to retreat further into northern India, the ­Sultanate of Delhi was faced with a Khwarazmian force on his border, being ­pursued 198  As noted in Weatherford, J (2004) Genghis Khan and the Making of the Modern World (NYC, Three Rivers Press) 110–11, 117. 199  Weatherford, J (2004) Genghis Khan and the Making of the Modern World (NYC, Three Rivers Press) 5–10. 200  See Eraly, A (2014) The Age of Wrath: A History of the Delhi Sultanate (London, Penguin) 59–75. 201  Hodgson, M (1974) The Venture of Islam, Vol II (Chicago, Ill, Chicago University Press) 269, 272, 275, 274–78; Goel, S (1994). The Story of Islamic Imperialism in India (Delhi, Voice of India) 70–71; Black, A (2011) The History of Islamic Political Thought (Edinburgh, Edinburgh University Press) 165; Smith, V (1962) The Early History of India (Oxford, Oxford University Press) 277, 337, 360, 369, 377–78, 382, 391, 402–09,

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by an even larger Mongolian force. The Mongol leader made a request to cross through the Sultanate of Delhi in pursuit of the survivors. The fact that the Mongols did not attack Muslim Delhi, and that the Mongol embassy returned safely to Genghis Khan and, most importantly, that the survivors of the Khwarazmian Empire were not allowed to find sanctuary in northern India, coupled with a steady supply of war horses provided from Delhi to the Mongols, probably explains why Genghis Khan (unlike his successors) did not invade India.202 (vii)  Eastern Europe The Mongols had first appeared in eastern Europe in 1220, when, with the consent of Genghis Khan, two Mongol generals proceeded west on a reconnaissance mission, broadly linked to the destruction of the Muslim Khwarazmian Empire, that in the process crossed the territory of Georgia. In the course of this, two clashes occurred between some 70,000 troops from Georgia and Armenia, who were preparing to leave on crusade to the Holy Land, and 20,000 Mongols. The Georgians and Armenians were defeated. Although the Mongols won both of these engagements, they withdrew, and the Georgians and Armenians believed that the battle had scared them off.203 The Mongols had not been scared off. Rather, they were merely moving between targets. Their next target was another nomadic group, the Cumans. Mongol ­ ­ambassadors approached the Rus to see if they would, collectively, fight their common enemy, the migratory Cumans (who, in turn, were linked to another migratory group, the Kipchaks), who inhabited a shifting area north of the Black Sea and along the River Volga. The problem for many of the Rus was that, following a succession of truces and peace treaties over the last century, the Cumans and the Rus had now commonly intermarried. The Cumans therefore made the same request of the Rus, to combine forces against the Mongols, which most (but not Novgorod or Sudalia) of the Rus accepted. Accordingly, the leader of the joint force, Prince of Kiev, Mstilav Romanovich, ordered the execution of the Mongol ambassadors. The next Mongol ambassador sent to the Rus warned, ‘you have killed our envoys and are coming against us, come then, but we have not touched you, let God judge all’.204 The two armies then met in battle in 1223 at the River Kalka. It was a disaster for the Rus. All of the assembled Cuman and Rus troops of the small kingdoms of the region, perhaps 30,000 of them, including nine princes and 70 nobles, lay dead, defeated by fewer than 18,000 Mongols and their

418–20, 446, 450, 474–75, 495; De Barry, R (ed) (1958) Sources of Indian Tradition, Vol I (NYC, Columbia University Press) 192–93. 202 Robinson, F (2009) The Islamic World (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press) 46, 49, 52; ­Chambers, J (1979) The Devil’s Horsemen: The Mongol Invasion of Europe (London, Cassell) 11. 203 Hussey, J (ed) (1966) The Cambridge Medieval History: The Byzantine Empire, Vol IV (Cambridge, ­Cambridge University Press) 624–26, 655; May, T (2012) The Mongol Conquests in World History (London, Reaktion) 136–39, 140–42. 204  The Mongol Declaration, as recorded in Rossabi, M (ed) (2011) The Mongols and Global History (NYC, Norton) 96; Moss, W (2005) A History of Russia (London, Anthem) 68–69.

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5,000 Brodniki allies. Mstilav, who had earlier ordered the death of the Mongol ambassadors, was suffocated within a specially made table, upon which the Mongol leaders dined to celebrate their victory.205

B. Ogedei Genghis Khan died in a riding accident in 1227. Soon after his death the Mongolian forces all returned to their homeland, to form a quriltai of the Mongol elite. Following the wishes of Genghis, the quriltai chose Ogedei, the third son of Genghis Khan as their new Khan and ruler of the overall Mongolian Empire. The subsidiary leaders were then given territories. The Mongol homeland on the eastern steppes was bequeathed to Tolui; the south-western territories, went to Chagatai (the eldest). The inheritance of Jochi, who had died earlier, went to his two sons, Orda and Batu. (i) Korea The first area to feel the military weight of Ogedei was Korea. Tensions had been high between the two countries after Mongol envoys, returning with their annual tribute from Korea had been attacked by bandits. In 1231, open warfare broke out between the two sides, and the Koreans were defeated. To rub this in, the following year in 1232, the Mongols demanded even greater amounts of tribute, requesting gold, ­silver, pearls, 10,000 otter skins, 20,000 horses, 10,000 bolts of silk and clothing for one m ­ illion soldiers. In addition, thousands of hostages were to be handed over, and 72 Mongol rulers were planted over Korea to ensure compliance. Intermittent warfare then continued for the next 27 years before the Koreo court finally sued for a full and final peace. Thereafter, the Mongols dominated the kingdom and the Koreo ruling class became infused with the Mongolian aristocracy through both marriage and position. Despite the peace, relations with the Mongols were frequently tense, as officials and monarchs continually tried to sustain Koreo’s independent identity.206 (ii)  The Song The second area to feel the wrath of Ogedei was the Song in China. Initially, upon hearing of the accession of Ogedei, the Song had decided to accept his request to allow Mongolian troops to transit through Song territory, to attack the Jin from another d ­ irection (despite the Song having an alliance with the Jin), providing the 205  Fennel, L (1983) The Crisis of Medieval Russia 1200–1304 (London, Longman) 17–19, 26, 34, 73–75; Moss, W (2005) A History of Russia, Vol I (London, Anthem) 67–70. 206  See the ‘Resistance to the Mongolian Invasion’, as reprinted in Lee, P (ed) Sources of Korean T ­ radition (Columbia UP, NYC, 1997) I: 202-203. Also, Turnbull, S (2003) Genghis Khan and the Mongol Conquests (­London, Osprey) 35–39.

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­ ongolian forces with supplies as they went. The price of this cooperation was the M return of some of the Sixteen Prefectures to the Song which the Jin currently possessed. By 1233 the Mongol conquest of the Jin was largely completed. The Jin (and former Song) capital, Kaifeng fell after being besieged by three Mongol armies and the last Emperor of the Jin, Aizong, committed suicide. The Mongols then, true to their word, gave certain territories back to the Song, as agreed in their alliance.207 With such initial cooperation between the Song and the Mongols against the Jin, it was not obvious that the allies would become enemies. However, when the Song seized three cities in Jin territory, which they claimed traditionally belonged to them, Ogedei was presented with a perfect excuse for declaring war on them in 1234. The Song, who were looking for an external distraction due to the catastrophic inflation that was following their adoption and printing of paper money, initially took the advantage, seeking to take back all of the Sixteen Prefectures in the desire to make the Song empire whole again. This attempt was a disaster, with the Song armies quickly pushed back into Song territories from which a stalemate appeared in China. When the Mongols offered the Song peace, in accordance with the traditional tribute the Song made to the Jin, the Song who were feeling confidence in not having collapsed, refused. (iii) Tibet Although a stalemate occurred in China in associated territories such as Tibet, the Mongolian forces advanced in 1240. This was easily done without opposition by the different warlords in the region. All of the local clan leaders under the leadership of the head Buddhist monk agreed to accept Mongol rule unconditionally. Under the eyes of the Mongolian leadership, Tibet was then carved up into a number of administrative districts, each under the authority of a particular Tibetan who was likely to show strong loyalty to the new Mongolian regime. Both the local rulers, and the Mongolian leaders faraway, gave generously to the leading Buddhist schools and monasteries in Tibet, as well granting them exemptions from tax and work obligations. The monasteries responded by produced texts which managed to trace the origins of the universe and living beings down to the birth of Buddha, culminating in the rise of Tibet, ­Genghis Khan and the Mongols.208 (iv)  Eastern Europe The first countries in eastern Europe to accept vassal status to Ogedei were Georgia and Armenia. By the spring of 1237, the Bulgar kingdom of Middle Volga was also a 207  Waterson, J (2013) Defending Heaven: China’s Mongol Wars (Frontline, London) 17, 45–46; Lorge, P (2005) War, Politics and Society in Early Modern China (London, Routledge) 70–72. 208  For some of the laws, see the 1278, ‘Elucidation of the Knowable’, as reprinted in Schaeffer, K (ed) Sources of Tibetan Tradition (NYC, Columbia UP) 328. Also, the ‘Zhalu Edict of the Mongol Prince’, in the same volume, at 342. Also pages 357–64. For commentary, Haw, S (2014) ‘The Mongol Conquest of Tibet’ Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society 24 (1): 37–54; Turrell, W (1977) ‘The First Mongol Conquest of Tibet Reinterpreted’ Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies 37 (1): 103–33.

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vassal state of the Mongols. At the end of that year, a Mongol army of 130,000 men crossed the frozen River Volga. They first attacked and sacked Riazan and surrounding regions, and then stormed Moscow. Suzdal was taken in 1238, and finally Kozelsk, which fell after a siege of seven weeks. The slaughter that followed this siege was so great that the Mongols renamed it the ‘city of sorrow’.209 Pereiaslav, Chernigov and Kiev suffered the same fate. After the fall of Kiev in 1240, there was no more organised resistance to the ­Mongols in either southern or eastern Russia. Novgorod had escaped the fate of Kozelsk and others when its ruler, Alexander Nevsky, who had earlier been victorious at Neva in 1240, defeating a combined force of some 2,000 fighters from Sweden, Estonia and Germany, convinced the citizens of Novgorod to accept the rule of the Mongols, paying tax as required, rather than risk all-in fighting. He did this after receiving the communication from Batu Khan, ‘God has subjected all the nations to me; you alone do not wish to subjugate yourself to me, nor to my power; but if you wish to preserve your land, come to me and perceive the glory of my realm’.210 Alexander then went to accept the overlordship of Batu Khan, for which Batu gave him gifts, the obligation to collect taxes for him and the right to rule (including the ability to make treaties and settle borders, as he did with Norway) that part of his domain in Batu Khan’s name. Most significantly, Batu also gave Alexander help to defeat his brother, Andrey, with whom he was in the middle of a dynastic struggle for the control of Norvgorod.211 Thereafter, the local rulers in all other parts of the Rus lands could only hold power if the leaders of the Golden Horde (or Kipchak Khanate) agreed, and if they did homage and paid tribute as demanded. These rulers were thus, under the so-called ‘Tatar Yoke’. Only the Orthodox Church, in accordance with the Mongol principles of religious freedom, retained a high degree of autonomy. From this point on, the Mongols ruled over almost all the former Rus principalities, the southern steppes, the Volga valley and much of western Siberia.212 Refugees from the Mongol conquests had been streaming into eastern Europe for five years before the Mongols attacked. In 1235, at least 40,000 Cumans and Kipchaks begged asylum from the Hungarian king, Bela IV, promising their loyalty and religious conversion in exchange. King Bela granted them their wish. It was this acceptance of 209 

Chambers, J (1979) The Devil’s Horsemen: The Mongol Invasion of Europe (London, Cassell) 93. The 1240 ‘Çhronicle on Alexander Neveski’, as reprinted in Vernadsky, G (ed) A Sourcebook for Russian History, Vol I (London, Yale University Press) 64; Maiorov, A (2015) ‘Batu Khan’s Conquest of Southern Rus’ Studia Slavica et Balcanica Petropolitana 1: 169–96. 211  Neumann, I (2010) ‘Entry Into International Society Reconceptualised: The Case of Russia’ Review of International Studies 37: 463, 474–80; Jackson, T (2004) ‘On the Date of the First Russian Norwegian Border Treaty’ Acta Borealia 21 (2): 87–97. 212  For the protection of the Orthodox Church, see the 1313 ‘Charter to Protect the Russian Church’, as reprinted in Rosenwein, B (ed) (2006) Reading the Middle Ages: Sources from Europe, Byzantium and the Islamic World (Ontario, Broadview) 418; Moss, W (2005) A History of Russia, Vol I (London, Anthem) 13, 30–32, 69, 73–75, 86, 95–100, 104, 110–20; Halperin, C (1983) ‘Russia in the Mongol Empire’ Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies 43 (1): 239–61; Bilz, M (2008) ‘Deconstructing the Myth of the Tatar Yoke’ Central Asian Survey 27 (1): 33–43. 210 

The Mongolian Empire 149

these refugees and the giving of sanctuary to them, that the Mongols used as the reason for why they would attack King Bela IV.213 The refugees spoke of a group known as ‘Tatars’ or what the scholar Matthew Paris wrote of in 1240, as ‘an immense horde of that detestable race of Satan … like demons loosed from Tartarus’.214 Matthew’s hysterical apocalyptic warnings arrived a few months before the first wave of Mongols hit Hungary towards the end of 1240. The Hungarians joined forces with Frederick II, and together they prepared to meet the invader with a large defence force comprising Poles, Hungarians, Germans and Cumans.215 The Mongols advanced quickly, destroying Moldovia, Wallachia and most of ­Hungary, before turning into Poland. Lublin, Zawichost and Cracow were the first cities to burn. When a major confrontation occurred at Liegnitz, near the ­modern German–Polish border, the Mongols defeated a European army including the ­ much-feted Christian knights from the military orders of the Teutonic Knights, the Knights Hospitallers and the Templars. The entire European army of 30,000 men was destroyed, including most of Poland’s aristocracy. The following day, 10 April, the main Mongolian army achieved its objective at the Battle of Mohi River, when 60,000 Hungarian soldiers (out of a force of 100,000) were slain by a force of about 80,000 Mongolians. The cities of Pest and Buda were razed to the ground soon after. By this point, most of Hungary had been abandoned, with large parts of the south of the country and Transylvania becoming wildernesses. An estimated 60 per cent of the population was lost.216 Europe was saved by the death of the great Mongol Khan, Ogedei, which necessitated the Mongols’ large-scale withdrawal to their homelands to select a new leader. Accordingly, having defeated the forces of both Bela and Frederick, some returned to the steppes, whilst the others rode east through southern Russia, towards Sarai, near the River Volga. It was here that Batu Khan established his capital and based his forces, which were to become known as the Golden Horde, from which the Rus were ruled.217

213  See Halperin, C (2000) ‘The Kipchak Connection: The Ilkhans, the Mamluks and Ayn Jalut’ Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies 63 (2): 229, 236–37; Also, the ‘Letter to Pope from King Bela’, as reprinted in Rosenwein, B (ed) (2006) Reading the Middle Ages: Sources from Europe, Byzantium and the Islamic World (Ontario, Broadview) 419. 214  Paris, as noted in Weatherford, J (2004) Genghis Khan and the Making of the Modern World (NYC, Three Rivers Press) 148. Also, Noreen, G (2012) ‘Monstrous Mongols’ Postmedieval: Medieval Cultural Studies 3 (2): 227–45. 215  Jackson, P (2001) ‘Medieval Christendom’s Encounter with the Alien’ Historical Research 74 (186): 347–69. 216  Tanner, J (ed) (1957) The Cambridge Medieval History: The Victory of the Papacy, Vol VI (Cambridge, ­Cambridge University Press) 104–05, 468; Grant, R (2011) 1001 Battles (London, Penguin) 168. 217  Haw, S (2013) ‘The Deaths of Two Khaghans: A Comparison of Events in 1242 and 1260’ Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies 76 (3): 361–75.

150  The Thirteenth Century

C.  Guyuk and Mongke The unity of the Mongolian Empire fell apart on the death of Ogedei and it would never recover its former glory. Between 1241 and 1251, an intense fight for the future leadership of the Mongols was undertaken in the inner-court, with Ogedei’s preferred successor (his grandson, Torgene) being sidelined by Guyuk, the son of Ogedei, who secured the ultimate control of the Empire. It was Guyuk who replied to Pope Innocent IV who had taken it upon himself to write two letters to the ‘Emperor of the Tatars’ in 1245, to school him in the essentials of the Christian religion, chastising him for his invasions into Europe, and informing him that God had delegated all earthly power to the Pope in Rome, who was the only person authorised by God to speak for him. The new Khan, Guyuk replied: Great Pope, together with all the Princes, come in person to serve us. At that time I shall make known all the commands [laws and customs] of the [Mongols] … The prayers of yours I have not understood … [T]he eternal God has slain and annihilated the [Christian] lands and peoples because they have neither adhered to the [Mongol ruler] … How do you know whom God absolves in truth, to whom He shows mercy? How do you know that such words as you speak are with God’s sanction? From the rising of the sun to its setting, all the lands have been made subject to me. Who could do this contrary to the command of God?218

In the short period in which he held power, revenge was heaped upon all his enemies as he furthered his consolidation of power and elimination of foes. The same process then reignited upon Guyuk’s death, with Guyuk’s widow, masterminding the control and future of the dynasty, of which the fourth great Mongolian khan, Mongke, took power in 1251 following agreement at the quriltai. Mongke acted in the same way as his predecessor, purging the inner realm of anyone who was not loyal to his dynasty, and executing at least 77 people within or close to Ogedei’s lineage, as well as ­hundreds, if not thousands of others, in a purge which reached as far as both A ­ fghanistan and Iraq.219 In the following eight years, Mongke set about expanding the empire, via two massive campaigns, divided between about 1.5 million men under arms. It was these efforts which would take the Mongol Empire to its greatest extent. A large part of this expansion was due to the campaigns he ordered to be undertaken in Korea and China. The campaign against the Song began in 1258, under the leadership of his brother Kublai, when some 900,000 men attacked the Song enemy in Southern China, progressively swallowing territory until they came to the city of Hezhou in 1259. At this point, the Song agreed to pay 200,000 taels of silver and 200,000 bolts of silk, for the withdrawal

218  ‘Letter to Pope Innocent IV’, as reprinted in Rosenwein, B (ed) (2006) Reading the Middle Ages: Sources from Europe, Byzantium and the Islamic World (Ontario, Broadview) 417–18. Also, Ho, C (2012) ‘Thirteenth and Fourteenth Century European Mongol Relations’ History Compass 10 (12): 946–68. 219  Morgan, D (2009) ‘The Decline and Fall of the Mongol Empire’ Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society 19 (4): 427–37; Broadbridge, A (2008) Kingship and Ideology in the Islamic and Mongol Worlds (Cambridge, Cambridge UP) 8–9; Grousset, R (2010) The Empire of the Steppes (Atlantic City, Rutgers UP) 269–72, 281.

The Mongolian Empire 151

of the Mongol troops from Song territories, and a promise of non-aggression. This withdrawal suited Kublai, as the great Khan Mongke had died in the same year (1259) and in accordance with tradition, the Mongolians had to return to their homeland to select a new leader.220

D.  Kublai Khan and the Yuan Dynasty (i)  The End of the Song Kublai Khan was the fifth, and final, great Khan of the Mongolian Empire, ruling from 1264. This man oversaw the founding of one of the most important dynasties of China, the Yuan (which eclipsed the Song) and the effective dissolution of the ­Mongolian Empire. The dissolution occurred because of the civil war that followed the death of Mongke, as the three brothers he left behind, Kublai, Hulagu and Ariqboga, all wanted to rule the Empire. Hulagu, who since 1256 had been the Khan of the Ilkhanate of Persia, was too far away to press his claim to the succession. Ariq-boga, who was the ruler of Mongolia and more traditional in his ways, had the right to summon the quriltai. Ariq-boga was then proclaimed the great Khan, but without Kublai being present. Kublai’s absence was because he held his own assembly in 1260 within his own territory on the border between China and Mongolia, with rich and powerful Chinese subjects present, who proclaimed him as the Great Khan, after Kublai made them all lavish promises of autonomy. The two Mongolian sides, both claiming the status of Great Khan, then battled for the next four years until 1264, when Ariq-boke was finally defeated and surrendered to his brother. A short time afterwards, Ariq-boke was found dead, most probably poisoned. This ending was not acceptable to the other branches of the Mongol family which then became, in essence, independent.221 Once Kublai Khan was secure from the threat of his brother, he decided to solidify his territories in China and thereafter directed his attention towards complete domination. In so doing, he achieved the dream which all of the nomadic peoples’ before him had all possessed, namely the complete subjection of China. These first steps in this process were easy, as the war with the Song restarted quickly, when the earlier peace agreed between the Song and Kublai in 1259 broke. It failed because the Song could not stop themselves attacking the Mongols that had exited earlier from Song territories, in accordance with their earlier peace agreement, just prior to the Mongol civil war. Whilst Kublai may have ignored this if the Song were willing to accept vassal status, when the Song refused this invitation, and detained Kublai’s envoy who had been sent to negotiate with them, war was inevitable.222

220 

Turnbull, S (2003) Genghis Khan and the Mongol Conquests (London, Osprey) 16, 35; Waterson, J (2013) Defending Heaven: China’s Mongol Wars (London, Frontline) 6–7; 50–75. 221  Grousset, R (2010) The Empire of the Steppes (Atlantic City, Rutgers UP) 285–86. 222  Man, J (2007) Kublai Khan (NYC, Bantam) 187–88.

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The low grade conflict that existed between the Song and the Mongols, whilst ­Kublai was battling Ariq-boke to being the only Great Khan, exploded into full scale war by early 1265 when Kublai had secured his dominance. When the full war began, the Song found themselves progressively weakened by cities and/or conglomerations, as well as key ministers, swapping sides to support the Mongols. In addition there was a series of peasant uprisings, as the gap between the rich and the poor accelerated, and they (the peasants) became attracted to the promises the Mongols held out. U ­ nable to hold onto surrounding territory, the Song increasingly fell back to their stronghold cities of Xiangyang and Fancheng which sat at the gateway to the Yangzi valley. When Fancheng fell, the entire city was put to the sword and some 20,000 bodies were stacked outside the city’s walls, with perhaps 10,000 being executed in full sight of the bastions of Xiangyang. Fearing a similar fate, Xiangyang, surrounded by over 200,000 armed men, surrendered, offering complete submission in exchange for their lives. At this point in late 1272, Kublai Khan passed an edict establishing the Yuan (meaning, the movement behind the absolute origin of the universe, the power of spring, and of the east). It read: Great Yuan shall be the title of the dynasty … We alone have brought peace to the myriad lands. This is particularly in accord with the essential importance of embodying benevolence. In our endeavours there are continuities and discontinuities, but our Way is connected to Heaven and humanity.223

Despite this proclamation, the Song were not yet beaten. They still had some 700,000 men in the field and probably as many as 1,000 warships on the Yangzi and Han r­ ivers. They did, however, want to find peace with the Mongols, but the Mongols would not entertain the idea, telling them, ‘my emperor is very clear; we are set to extinguish the Song’.224 The Mongol actions matched their words, as they continued to achieve a series of absolute military victories over the enemy forces. By 1276, only two young members of the Song royal family remained, clinging to existence in the last strongholds on the southern coasts. To these remnants, Kublai directed all of his forces, with the obligation of total destruction of the enemy. This was achieved at the naval battle of Yamen in 1279, when some 100,000 Song are believed to have perished in the last battle of their empire. Included in these losses was the last emperor of the Song, Bing, who was only eight years old at the time his chief minister grabbed him, and jumped overboard with him, rather than let him fall into the hands of the Mongols.225

223  The 1272 Edict of Kublai Khan, as reprinted in Lorge, P (2005) War, Politics and Society in Early Modern China (Routledge, London) 78; Man, J (2007) Kublai Khan (NYC, Bantam) 190–95, 216, 226. 224  Reply to the Song envoy, as in Waterson, J (2013) Defending Heaven: China’s Mongol Wars (London, Frontline) 131. 225  Waterson, J (2013) Defending Heaven: China’s Mongol Wars (London, Frontline) 125–45; May, T (2012) The Mongol Conquests in World History (London, Reaktion) 62–65; Grant, R (2011) 1001 Battles (London, Penguin) 182.

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(ii)  The New Approach Having conquered the Song, Kublai justified his rule on the argument that the ­Mongols had earned the right to rule the subcontinent because they had reunified a realm that for centuries had been divided, and they now possessed the Mandate of Heaven. Kublai also recognised that if he wanted his new realm to remain unified, he had to have the support of the Chinese people, for which, adopting their traditions was the best method for many matters. In other instances, he opted for a brand new beginning, such as with the founding of a new capital city known in Chinese as Shangdu, and romanticised in English as Xanadu. However, when he was finally in complete control of China, he decided to move the capital to Beijing. Henceforth, with the exception of the first fifty years of the Ming, Beijing became the permanent capital of China.226 Although Kublai adopted a large number of Chinese practices, he also adopted three practices which were unique. First, his empire was very international in terms of economic outlook, with trade missions being sent and received as far as possible, from which Marco Polo appeared, and foreign trade spread Song coins from Japan to India. Chinese ceramics were exported to the Philippines, Borneo and even Africa.227 Second, although reserving the key positions for the Mongols, Kublai retained the Song neo-Confucian examination system, with the addition that now it encompassed, via quota, Mongols, central Asians, North Chinese and South Chinese. Kublai also introduced a new legal system, which was more lenient than the Song, reducing crimes punishable by death from 293 to 135.228 Finally, Kublai, like the Mongolian leaders before him, retained a very tolerant outlook on the question of religion, with Christians, Muslims, Taoists, Buddhists and ­Confucians, all having equal standing in the kingdom. Nonetheless, Kublai did favour the more egalitarian forms of Buddhism with its universal reach whereby salvation was available to all people, poor and rich, female and male, which also had the benefit of being able to counteract the entrenched influence of Chinese Confucianism and Taoism. Despite this preference, Kublai allowed state support to be available to any of them, so long as they could demonstrate the value of their teaching for bringing good fortune to the realm. He also encouraged public theological debates between the religions.229 (iii)  The Further Conquest of Asia After China was subdued, Kublai turned his attention to the surrounding areas. He sent envoys proclaiming his overlordship as far as Sumatra, Ceylon, Java and southern 226  Brooke, T (2010) The Troubled Empire: China in the Yuan and Ming Dynasties (Massachussetts, Harvard UP). 26–27, 162. 227 Sen, T (2006) ‘The Formation of Chinese Maritime Networks to Southern Asia’ Journal of the ­Economic and Social History of the Orient 49 (4): 421–53. 228  Man, J (2007) Kublai Khan (NYC, Bantam) 52–57, 110, 142–47, 177–78, 225, 284–86. 229 May, T (2012) The Mongol Conquests in World History (London, Reaktion) 180–94, 199; Mundy, J (1991) Europe in the High Middle Ages (London, Longman) 46, 269.

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India. However, it was only with Myanmar, Vietnam and Korea that he really pursued his ambitions. Korea suffered a full invasion in 1271 after they were slow in paying tribute and were lax in supplying troops when demanded. From this invasion, the Koreans had to accept full vassal status, with the royal family of Korea being married into the family of Kublai Khan. Tibet was also fully occupied when it became apparent that civil unrest was being stirred by other Mongolian factions who supported different Buddhist sects in Tibet. The entire country was then unified under this command.230 Military intervention into the two kingdoms of Vietnam, Annam in the north and Champa in the south, followed when these kings failed to turn up to the court of Kublai as demanded. Although Mongol attempts at subjection with armies of perhaps 100,000 men were defeated in 1284 and 1287 at great cost, the Annam agreed to accept the supremacy of Kublai Khan and pay tribute, in exchange for a large degree of autonomy, rather than face a repeat performance. With Myamar, Kublai’s intervention because their king refused to submit and pay tribute after executing Kublai’s envoys, resulted in a peace treaty in 1287, in which the suzerainty of the Mongol empire over Myamar was accepted and annual payments to the Yuan regime were agreed, in exchange for the withdrawal of Mongol troops. However, before the treaty could be honoured, the country fragmented, with multiple warlords coming to power, leaving only small patches of Yuan aligned areas in Myamar.231 (iv) Japan The one country Kublai wanted to conquer, but could not, was Japan. In part this was because Japan was more unified than at any point of its earlier history. The early thirteenth century found Japan calm after a period of unprecedented violence between clans that had culminated in their first national civil conflict, the Genpei war. The war was primarily rooted in private feuds, status and honour. It was concluded with the founding of the Minamoto, and then, Hojo, shogunate, or military dictatorship, who ultimately controlled the emperor of Japan. All military force, was at the direction of this one man, the shogunate, not the emperor.232 The new unified and powerful shogunate of Japan was aware of the threat of the Mongolians, and supported (in rhetoric, not men) both the Song and Koreo dynasties in their struggle against this enemy. The Mongols, having secured full control of both China and Korea, had no intention of allowing these relationships to continue,

230  Gabriel, R (2005) Empires at War (NYC, Greenwood) III: 874–75; Turnbull, S (2003) Genghis Khan and the Mongol Conquests (London, Osprey) 35–39; Schaik, S (2013) Tibet: A History (New Haven, Conn, Yale UP) 80–82. 231  Grousset, R (2010) The Empire of the Steppes (Atlantic City, Rutgers UP) 289–90; Man, J (2007) Kublai Khan (NYC, Bantam) 176–78, 350–58; Turnbull, S (2003) Genghis Khan and the Mongol Conquests (London, Osprey) 84–88. 232 Adolphson, M (2004) ‘Social Change and Contained Transformations: Warriors and Merchants in Japan, 1000–1300’ Medieval Encounters 10 (3): 309–22; Friday, K (2004) Samurai, Warfare and State in Early M ­ edieval Japan (London, Routledge) 25, 30–35; Huffman, J (2010) Japan in World History (Oxford, Oxford UP) 38–39.

The Three-Way Clash in the Middle East 155

and accordingly, in 1266, Kublai Khan demanded Japanese submission to the M ­ ongol power and their acceptance of tributary status. The Japanese, who had refused to accept any kind of tributary status to China since the seventh century, sent the envoys back to Kublai with no answer at all. This seems to have given the Japanese some time, as it was not until 1271 that another envoy arrived, bearing another request for them to submit. Again, there was no reply, but orders were sent out within Japan to prepare for an invasion of their shores. A third and final demand by a Mongol ambassador in 1272 for the Japanese to accept a vassal status was also denied an answer. With this final insult, in 1274, Kublai directed a combined Mongol-Chinese force of 20,000 soldiers reinforced with 8,000 Koreans to set sail for Japan. However, before they could land the force was destroyed by a typhoon, of which some 13,000 men are believed to have drowned. The Japanese courtier Kadenokoji Kanenaka recorded soon after this divine wind/kamikaze, ‘must have resulted as a result of the protection of the gods’.233 Kublai then sent further envoys to Japan in 1275 following the invasion, promising the emperor of Japan that if he submitted, Kublai would reappoint him, and guarantee his tenure. The shogunate, in a spirit of hardened resistance, ordered the Mongolian envoy executed. A further embassy in 1279 with the same request, met the same fate. With these deaths, a further attempted invasion of Japan was undertaken. However, the second invasion force in 1279 of some 50,000 Chinese and Mongol, and 10,000 Koreans, met a similar fate to the first attempted invasion. The difference the second time was that some of the force managed to land, only to be defeated at the battle of Kyushu where more than 2,000 Mongol and Korean heads were taken, in addition to 1,500 slaves. This battle was followed by another great kamikaze, of which between 60 to 90% of the Mongol fleet was destroyed. There were no further Mongol attempts to conquer Japan.234

10.  The Three-Way Clash in the Middle East

A.  The End of Christian Jerusalem The second half of the thirteenth century saw all three of the major civilisations of the age, Christianity, Islam and Mongolian, collide in the Middle East. The instability in the region for the Christians was already clear by the mid-1240s, when the alliance that Frederick II had made with Al-Kamil to protect Jerusalem dissolved after AlKamil’s death and the dynastic struggles within the Ayyubid regime. At this point, the Christian forces in Jerusalem allied themselves with local Muslim groups against the 233  Kanenaka, ‘Diary Entry, Nov 6, 1274’, as reprinted in Conlan, T (2001) (ed) Ín Little Need of Divine Intervention: Scrolls of the Mongolian Invasion of Japan (Ithaca, Cornell UP) 266. 234  Gabriel, R (2005) Empires at War (NYC, Greenwood,) III: 860–70; Brooke, T (2010) The Troubled Empire: China in the Yuan and Ming Dynasties (Massachussetts, Harvard UP) 26; Man, J (2007) Kublai Khan (NYC, Bantam) 247, 305–20.

156  The Thirteenth Century

Ayyubid powers in Egypt. They opted for the local, as opposed to Egyptian based ­Muslim p ­ owers because they felt the need to have dependable local allies who could help defend themselves against the Mongol forces which had seized the Seljuk ­Sultanate of Rum in 1243 and then made raids into Syria and threatened Antioch. Antioch, following the lead of Armenia, Georgia and Byzantium, began to make alliances with the ­Mongols. The Mongols also launched raids against Baghdad and continued to pursue the Khwarazmians, who after being pursued by the Mongols for nearly two decades, were stateless, migratory and in search of paymasters.235 The Christians on the ground in Jerusalem were frantically trying to work out which way to turn. Despite Frederick’s imploring them not to break faith with the Ayyubid dynasty in Egypt, as this would destroy the foundations upon which the 1229 Treaty had been built, they did. As a result, at the 1244 Battle of Harbiyah, 6,000 Christian soldiers fought with 5,000 Muslims (from the local emirs of Homs and Damascus). The Egyptian force prevailed, leaving over 7,000 of its enemies dead on the field. When the forces of Jerusalem were requested to help resist another Muslim group—comprising the remnants of the Khwarazmian Empire—the following year in 1245, they turned out again. The Khwarazmian’s were now marching towards Egypt, in search of their new paymaster Al-Malik as-Salih. On their way, they swept through Syria and Palestine, attacking fellow Sunni Muslims and Christians alike. At the Battle of La Forbie, where Christians from Jerusalem fought with Muslims from Damascus and Homs, over 5,000 Christian fighters were killed before Jerusalem was stormed and lost. Al-Malik as-Salih then went on to capture Damascus. To make matters worse for Christendom, when the pope tried to make peace with the sultan of Egypt, the sultan replied that he would only deal with Frederick II, as he was the only Christian leader he trusted.236

B.  The Seventh Crusade and the Rise of the Mamluks What was clear by this point was that the real power of the Muslim world in the Middle East lay in Egypt. Accordingly, if the goal was to reclaim Jerusalem, it had to be done through destroying the governing body in Egypt, which would lead to the fragmentation of the region, allowing independent Christian communities to exist. Pope Innocent IV acted accordingly, and prepared the ground for a new crusade. He explained: Infidels who do not recognise the power of the Roman Church … we judge unworthy of kingdom, principate, jurisdiction and all dominion, and those who occupy the Holy Land or other [once-Christian] regions are to be attacked by the authority of the Church.237

235 Luttwak, E (2009) The Grand Strategy of the Byzantine Empire (London, Harvard University Press) 140–44; Grousset, R (2010) The Empire of the Steppes (Atlantic City, Rutgers University Press) 260–65, 281–83. 236  Grant, R (2011) 1001 Battles (Penguin, London) 87, 172; Addison, C (2012) The History of the Knights Templar (NYC, Skyhorse) 117–19; Abulafia, D (1988) Frederick II: A Medieval Emperor (Oxford, Oxford ­University Press) 180. 237  Pope Innocent, as noted in Mundy, J (1991) Europe in the High Middle Ages (London, Longman) 44.

The Three-Way Clash in the Middle East 157

This time, responsibility for leading the military effort fell on Louis IX, the King of France. For five years, Louis planned to attack the Egyptian Sultan, Al-Malik as-Salih, but he was away fighting his uncle in Syria at the time of Louis’ invasion. This absence allowed the King of France to land in 1249 and advance towards Cairo at the head of an army of perhaps 3,000 cavalry, 20,000 infantry, and 30,000 assorted pilgrims and camp followers, pursuing a policy of both warfare and conversion of non-Christians. Although Louis’ forces managed to take Damietta, the expedition as a whole was a disaster and he had to withdraw. During the retreat, the lack of fresh water and suitable food caused epidemics of scurvy and dysentery which decimated his army, which was also being harried without mercy. This meant that Louis was forced to surrender the entire army after the Battle of Al Mansurah in 1250. The Christian forces were in such pitiful condition that 7,000 of those captured were deemed so sick they were executed. Although Louis himself was made a prisoner, and was threatened with torture, he would not cede to the sultan any of the Syrian strongholds the Christian forces still held. He (along with the other wealthy prisoners) was released upon the return of Damietta and the payment of a massive ransom of 400,000 pieces of gold.238

C.  Halting the Mongol Juggernaut The real significance of Louis’ failed invasion was that it gave the Mamluk soldiers (highly educated, trained and specialised military slaves), who had defeated the French king, the chance to topple the existing Ayyubid dynasty that had employed them. The Mamluks established a new Sunni Mamluk dynasty that would last for nearly three centuries. Uniquely, unlike other Sunni regimes, the Mamluk sultan of Egypt were chosen not by kinship but by election, with the sultan taking his position by agreement of the electors, the ‘ulama, and the great officials, the consent of the emirs, and the armies’.239 For the Muslim world, the most important Mamluk achievement was their halting the Mongol advance. The Mongols were now under their fourth great Khan, Mongke, who took power in 1251. His campaigns into the Middle East were led by his nephew, Hulegu Khan, who within the space of 10 years would preside over the loss of about 800,000 lives in the region. Mongke Khan’s instructions to his nephew were: Establish the usages, customs and laws of Genghis Khan from the banks of the Amu Darya to the ends of the lands of Egypt. Treat with kindness and good will every man who submits and is obedient to your orders. Whoever resists you, plunge him into humiliation.240 238  Power, A (2010) ‘Going Among the Infidels: Louis IX’s First Mediterranean Campaign’ Mediterranean Historical Review 25 (2): 187–202; Hodgson, M (1974) The Venture of Islam, Vol II (Chicago, Ill, Chicago ­University Press) 265–68; Grant, R (2011) 1001 Battles (London, Penguin) 173. 239  Black, A (2011) The History of Islamic Political Thought (Edinburgh, Edinburgh University Press) 146. 240  The Order to Hulegu Khan, as reprinted in Grousset, R (2010) The Empire of the Steppes (Atlantic City, Rutgers University Press) 353. For the numbers, see May, T (2012) The Mongol Conquests in World History (London, Reaktion) 50–52; White, M (2011) Atrocitolology: Humanity’s 100 Deadliest Achievements (Melbourne, Text Publishing) 130–32.

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The first group destroyed by Hulegu Khan were the Shia Nizari. The Nizari made two mistakes: first, they allied themselves to the Kwarazmian Empire; second, they tried to assassinate Hulegu Khan. The Nizari and their dozens of castles on the way to Baghdad were destroyed relatively quickly, with their imam surrendering in 1256, after which he was taken away and killed by being trampled to death, whilst a further 12,000 of the Nizari elite were executed. All of the written works of this sect were then collected and burnt.241 Hulegu Khan then turned his attention to his main prize, the Abbasid Caliphate of Baghdad, which was, in theory, the theological core of Islam where the Caliph Al-Musta’sim Billah resided. The justification for the attack was the failure of the caliph to accept full vassal status. This vassal status was divided into two parts. First, significant amounts of tribute (1,200,000 Byzantine coins, 500 pieces of woven silk and gold, 500 horses, 500 camels and 5,000 sheep and goats) had to be produced for the Mongolian overlords every year. Second, soldiers had to be given over for use in Mongolian campaigns. However, when soldiers were requested to join the fight against the Nizari, they were not supplied. Mongke Khan then instructed Hulegu Khan that ‘if the caliph of Baghdad hastens to offer service and obedience, do not trouble him in any way, but if he shows pride and if his heart and tongue do not accord, treat him as you treat the others’.242 The caliph did not back down. However, he did little to defend the city, beyond warning Hulegu Khan that the Muslim world would not permit the independence of the caliph to be compromised, nor would they permit an infidel nation to occupy the Arab capital, Baghdad. He warned, ‘Oh young man, do you not know that from the East to the Maghreb, all the worshippers of Allah, whether kings or beggars, are slaves to this court of mine?’243 Hulegu Khan tested the assertion by attacking Baghdad with an estimated 150,000 men, including sizeable contingents from the vassal States of Christian Georgia and Armenia. Conversely, of all the caliph’s ‘slaves’, not a beggar, let alone a king, came to help him. The resulting sack of Baghdad was monumental, with perhaps 100,000 being killed and five centuries of orthodox Islam, coming to an end when Al-Musta’sim was wrapped in a carpet and trampled to death by Mongol horses. Only the sect of Nestorian Christians who lived in Baghdad were allowed to live. Most of the surrounding countryside surrendered soon after. Those areas that did not surrender, suffered the same fate as Baghdad.244

241  May, T (2004) ‘Thoughts on the Mongols and the Assassins’ Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society 14 (3): 231–239; Hodgson, M (1974) The Venture of Islam, Vol II (Chicago, Ill, Chicago University Press) 262–64, 279–80; Bartlett, W (2007) The Assassins (London, Sutton) 130–39, 150–51. 242  As noted from ‘the Coming of the Mongols’, reprinted in Lewis, B (ed) (1987) Islam: From the Prophet to the Capture of Constantinople, Vol I (Oxford, Oxford University Press) 77–79. Rossabi, M (ed) (2011) The Mongols and Global History (NYC, Norton) 106–07; Grousset, R (2010) The Empire of the Steppes (Atlantic City, Rutgers University Press) 350. 243  Al-Musta’sim, as noted in Man, J (2007) Kublai Khan (NYC, Bantam) 77. See also pages 264–68. 244  Bartlett, W (2007) The Assassins (London, Sutton) 209–11, 229; Grant, R (2011) 1001 Battles (London, Penguin) 175; Weatherford, J (2004) Genghis Khan and the Making of the Modern World (NYC, Three Rivers Press) 168–69, 180–81.

The Three-Way Clash in the Middle East 159

The Mongol forces and their allies took Aleppo next, in early 1260, which fell after a siege of six days, followed by an unrestrained sack of five more days. The city was then granted to the Christian King Bohemond VI of Antioch, who had directly assisted the Mongols in the attack. Two months later, the Mongols took Damascus, which preferred submission to being sacked. This invasion effectively destroyed the Ayyubid dynasty, with the last Ayyubid Emir, An-Nasir Yusuf, and the grandson of Saladin, being captured and executed.245 Hulegu Khan then decided to try to knock out the last major Muslim power, namely Cairo, since Baghdad and Damascus had now fallen. Cairo was now ruled by Mazaffar Qutuz, who had come to power on the Mamluk throne in Egypt in 1259. The Mongol envoy who arrived in Cairo warned Qutuz: We are the army of God on his Earth. He created us from His wrath and urged us against those who incurred His anger. In all lands there are examples to admonish you and to deter you from challenging our resolve. Be warned by the fate of others and hand over your power to us before the veil is torn and you are sorry and your errors rebound upon you … those who seek our protection are safe. If you submit to our orders and conditions, then your rights and your duties are the same as ours. … You are convinced that we are infidels, and we are convinced that you are evil-doers.246

Qutuz then heard that Hulegu Khan was returning to Mongolia to deal with a succession issue as Mongke Khan had died. Hulegu Khan took much of his force with him, leaving only 20,000 soldiers behind, albeit well supplemented with Christian allies in the form of Georgia and Armenia, as well as the Principality of Antioch, all under the charge of Kitbuqa Noyan, a Nestorian Christian. It is quite possible that the distraction over the succession saved Islam. Qutuz gambled everything, committing the Mamluks to war by executing the Mongol ambassadors and having their heads nailed to one of the gates of Cairo.247 This act by Qutuz might have been a calculated gamble, as his ultimate fear—a full-blown and cooperative alliance between the Mongolians and the Christians—had not come to pass, any more than it had when Louis IX invaded Egypt a decade earlier. Thus, when the Mongols approached the authorities in Acre, the offer of an alliance between the Christian powers in Europe and the Mongols was rejected. This rejection was partly due to difficult relations on some of the borders, but more particularly because Pope Alexander IV forbade it, threatening excommunication upon anyone who cooperated with the Mongols (as the Count of Antioch did), as they (the Mongols) were deemed a greater threat to Christendom than Islam since they had just, in a different theatre, rampaged through eastern Europe and occupied large parts of Russia. This directive from Rome regarding non-cooperation with the Mongols was fundamental as it led to the Christian forces in Acre accepting the Mamluk request for free 245 

Drory, J (2003) ‘Al-Nasir Dawud: A Much Frustrated Ayyubid Prince’ Al-Masaq 15 (2): 161–87. Envoy letter’, as reprinted in Lewis, B (ed) (1987) Islam: From the Prophet to the Capture of ­Constantinople, Vol I (Oxford, Oxford University Press) 84–85. 247  Broadbridge, A (2008) Kingship and Ideology in the Islamic and Mongol Worlds (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press) 30–31. 246  ‘Mongol

160  The Thirteenth Century

passage through their territory and provision of supplies, so that the Muslims could strike the Mongols from the rear. Some 120,000 Muslim soldiers did exactly this, with success at the Battle of Ain Julut in 1260, halting the Mongolian juggernaut.248 This Mamluk victory over the Mongols was one of the most significant in world history. While the Muslims endured heavy losses to their 20,000 men, the Mongol army was almost completely destroyed. This victory destroyed to the myth of Mongol invincibility, stopped the momentum of their conquests and marked the day when Islam returned from the brink of oblivion. The Sultan Qutuz made his triumphant entry into Damascus at the end of 1260, the Christians of the city paying a heavy price for their pro-Mongol support. The whole of Muslim Syria, as far as the Euphrates, was annexed to the Mamluk Sultanate of Egypt. Although Qutuz fell victim to a coup led by Baybars, who then became the fourth Mamluk sultan, the Mamluk expansion continued. The Abbasid Caliphate in Baghdad was reactivated in 1261, after the Mamluks retook the city, and the Caliphate actively supported the Mamluks and their vision of Holy War against Christians, Mongols and Muslim heretics. The caliph’s titles were stamped on Mamluk coins, his black banners accompanied the yellow ones of the s­ ultan, and the caliph himself appeared at Mamluk coronations. In this setting, religion and State power became closely intertwined, as the Mamluks, despite having ignoble backgrounds, being slave-soldiers, came to portray themselves as the military guardians of Islam, the holy cities of Mecca, Medina and Jerusalem, and the values of Islamic society.249

D.  The End of the Latin Christian Areas in the Middle East The Mamluk Sultan Baybars I was aware of the power at his fingertips. Not only had he been at the forefront of stopping the Mongol advance, he was now in control in a regime much more under sole direction of both Egypt and Syria than at any point since the death of Saladin. He believed that these results were directly attributable to divine intervention. Thus: God has preserved the protection of Islam from decline … Thy sword has made incurable wounds in the hearts of the unbelievers … in the Holy War against the enemies of God be a leader, not a follower. Support the creed of unity.250

Baybars recognised that the way he could surpass the achievements of Saladin was to unite all of the Sunni Muslim communities, eject all of the independent Christian communities from the area, and defeat the Mongol threat that had now appeared on 248  Rashba, G (2014) ‘When the Mongols Met Their Match’ Military History March: 60–70; Masson, J (1984) ‘Ain Julut: Mamluk Victory or Mongol Failure?’ Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies 44 (2): 307–45. 249  Broadbridge, A (2008) Kingship and Ideology in the Islamic and Mongol Worlds (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press) 12–16. 250  Baybars I, as noted in Black, A (2011). The History of Islamic Political Thought (Edinburgh, Edinburgh University Press) 146.

The Three-Way Clash in the Middle East 161

his borders as the Ilkhanate of Persia. In 1263 Baybars formed an alliance with the Khan of Kipchak/the Golden Horde. This was a natural alliance, as these Mongols had converted to Islam and Hulegu Khan was now waging war against them, as they strongly disagreed with his sack of Baghdad and execution of the caliph. The interMongol war that followed consolidated Hulegu Khan’s grip on the region that dominated modern-day Iran, Iraq, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia and much of Turkey. Although he won these battles, a resurgent Byzantine Empire added to the opposing forces via an alliance with the Khanate of Kipchak and the Mamluks. This represented a very real Triple Alliance in opposition to both Hulegu Khan and the Latins remaining in the Middle East.251 Hulegu Khan realised that if his regime was to prosper, he needed greater allies, for which he looked towards Christian Europe, and the kings of France and England in particular. He also tried to work with the new Pope, Urban IV, who appeared much more receptive to a military alliance than his predecessor, as Hulegu signaled his intention to capture Jerusalem for the benefit of the pope. These ideas then reappeared with the successor (and son) of Hulegu, Abaqa Khan, who ruled from 1265 and undertook a productive period of diplomacy with the goal of establishing a Christian–Mongol coalition to fight the growing Mamluk led alliance including Byzantium, the K ­ hanate of Kipchak/the Golden Horde.252 The Christian communities in the Middle East were profoundly aware of the risk that the Mamluk Baybars posed. This was despite the acts of good faith made by the Christians in the Middle East not to align with the Mongols, and to allow the Mamluk forces safe conduct through Christian lands to fight the Mongols in 1260. Baybars, who had been part of this march, and who had dined with the Christian leaders at Acre, believed that the good faith extended only to the Mamluk Sultan at the time, Qutuz, and did not necessarily extend to him, the successor. Baybars preferred a pattern of treaty or warfare. The town of Caesarea, was taken by force in 1265, as opposed to a truce with another Christian community in 1267. Antioch was hated by Baybars as it had allied with the Mongols. It was sacked in 1268 by Baybars, killing or enslaving nearly the entire population. Conversely, a truce for another different Christian area was offered in 1269 by Baybars, as he pursued Prince Bohemond VI who had escaped Antioch to the county of Tripoli, and again found himself under siege by Baybars in 1271. Although he survived the siege, Baybars threatened him with total annihilation, and taunted him for his alliance with the Mongols: Our yellow flags have repelled your red flags, and the sound of the bells has been replaced by the call ‘Allah Akbar !’ … Warn your walls and your churches that soon our siege machinery

251  Giebfried, J (2013) ‘The Mongol Invasions and the Aegean World’ Mediterranean Historical Review 28 (2): 129–39; Grousset, R (2010) The Empire of the Steppes (Atlantic City, Rutgers University Press) 369, 395–97, 399–402. 252  Broadbridge, A (2008) Kingship and Ideology in the Islamic and Mongol Worlds (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press) 31–34.

162  The Thirteenth Century will deal with them, your knights that soon our swords will invite themselves in their homes … We will see then what use will be your alliance with Abaqa [the Mongol leader].253

Fearing that the remaining independent Christian communities in the Middle East were about to be extinguished, two European kings made a last-ditch attempt to turn the tide. First, the French King Louis IX, again, went on crusade. Louis was going to reattack Egypt, but then decided against it. Rather, he opted to attack the Hafsid dynasty in Tunisia in 1270, under the (mistaken) belief that the local emir was willing to convert to Christianity, and given the fact that Tunis had been paying tribute to Sicily since the eleventh century but had stopped when the new leader of Sicily—and brother of Louis—Charles of Anjou had come to power. The fact that the regime had given sanctuary to exiled supporters of opponents of Charles of Anjou’s rule in S ­ icily did not help. The invasion was a disaster, the Christian soldiers being worn down more by disease than the enemy, with very little to show for the military effort. Louis IX was among the dead killed by disease. A negotiated outcome saw the continuation of ­tribute, a release of prisoners, free trade in Tunis and an agreement that all of the political refugees were to be banished.254 Second, King Edward I of England, arriving too late to help in Tunisia, went on to Palestine in 1271. The situation here was dire. Baybars had captured Antioch and overwhelmed the last remnants of this independent principality, and was now beneath the walls of Crac des Chevaliers, the greatest of all the Crusader castles (in modern-day Syria, just above the northern tip of modern-day Israel). Baybars had retreated from this siege when he heard of Louis’ invasion of Tunisia, but returned on hearing of Louis’ death. Crac des Chavaliers fell after a prolonged siege. It was soon after this loss that Edward I arrived in the area. Edward tried to form an alliance with the Mongol Abaqa Khan. However, the Mongol leader sent only one band of troops, as he was heavily engaged on his other borders. The result was that although Edward secured the Principality of Acre, he realised that the overall effort to recapture the Holy Land was both pointless and dangerous. Furthermore, a Nizari assassin had tried to kill him. Accordingly, Edward negotiated a 10-year truce with Baybars, and returned home in 1272.255 Despite the failure to form a meaningful alliance with the English king, Abaqa Khan tried to find other Christian allies, sending ambassadors to Europe, who addressed the Fourteenth Ecumenical Council at Lyons in 1274. This was fortunate timing, as the

253  Letter from Baibars to Bohemond VI, 1271. This is noted in Holt, P (1995) Early Mamluk Diplomacy (1260–1290): Treaties of Baybars and Qalawin with Christian Rulers (Leiden, Brill) 8; and see the 1267 Treaty of Al-Zahir Baybars with the Hospitallers, in the same volume, at 32–40, as is the 1269 Treaty of Al-Zahir Baybars with the Lady of Beirut, at 42. 254  Gaposchin, M (2008) ‘Louis IX, Crusade and the Promise of Joshua in the Holy Land’ Journal of Medieval History 34: 245–74; Lower, M (2007) ‘Conversion and St Louis’s Last Crusade’ Journal of Ecclesiastical History 58 (2): 211–31. 255  Morris, M (2009) Edward I: A Great and Terrible King (Croydon, Windmill) 98–102; Jones, D (2012) The Plantagenets: The Kings Who Made England (London, Harper) 291–94; Gabriel, R (2005) Empires at War, Vol III (London, Greenwood) 830–34, 918; Gibbon, E (1926 edn) The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, Vol VI (London, Methuen) 375–80.

The Three-Way Clash in the Middle East 163

new Pope Gregory X, who had earlier accompanied Edward I when he was in Acre, was enthusiastic about a lasting military relationship with the Mongols. Accordingly, the request made by Abaqa Khan’s ambassadors for a military alliance between the Mongol forces and Christendom, against their common Muslim enemies, was favourably received. However, although this was agreed to at Lyons, and a new crusade was preached against the Mamluks to begin in 1278, it was too late to get substantive help from Europe. Thereafter, the money that had been gathered for this planned crusade was instead distributed in Italy. The end result was that it fell to Abaqa Khan and his traditional allies in this area (Christian Georgia and Armenia) to fight alone. Baybars sent troops to devastate the Armenian kingdom, plundering all of its main cities. He then personally led ­Mamluk troops to victory over a combined Anatolian–Mongolian force at the Battle of E ­ lbistan in early 1277. After the battle, more Anatolian leaders joined Baybars. Even very sacrosanct Christian areas that Baybars had initially promised to protect, such as the Monastery of the Holy Cross in Jerusalem, had their property expropriated and their abbot killed.256 When Baybars died soon afterwards in mid-1277, the Mamluk regime wobbled, as the dynasty that Baybars had hoped to establish through his two sons failed to evolve. This meant that in 1280, taking advantage of a dynastic dispute amongst the Mamluks, the Mongols struck back and successfully took Aleppo. However, the following year, when Abaqa Khan attacked Damascus with an army of 50,000 Mongols supported by 30,000 Georgian and Armenians, he failed to take the city, as he was now facing a much greater leader of substance, the Mamluk Sultan Al-Mansur Qalawun. When the opposing armies next met at Homs in western Syria in 1281, again the Mongols were defeated. Part of this failure was because the Mamluks had again been practicing smart diplomacy, making treaties around the region, such as with the Orthodox Christians in Constantinople and the Latin Christians in Tripoli that guaranteed the neutrality of these groups. The resulting victory made all of the Mamluk-held territory west of the Euphrates secure.257 Shortly after the Mongol retreat across the Euphrates in 1282, Abaqa Khan died. Seeing this as a great opportunity, a sequence of 10-year truces for the price of neutrality with the Templars in 1282, Acre in 1283 (which allowed safe pilgrimage to the holy sites), and Lesser Armenia and Tyre in 1285, were all agreed between the Mamluks and the Christian communities, thus allowing the Mamluks to concentrate their military efforts on the Ilkhanate. As these truces were being concluded, the new leader of the Ilkhanate, Arghun, was busy writing to Pope Honorius IV, as well as to the kings of France and England, explaining that the grand Khan (Kublai) had charged him to deliver and take under his protection ‘the land of the Christians’. He then asked that a crusading army be landed, while he himself would strike at Syria, ‘and together we

256 

Muller, C (2004) ‘Sultan Baybars I and the Georgians’ Arabica July: 258–90. Korobeinikov, D (2004) ‘Diplomatic Correspondence Between Byzantium and the Mamluk S ­ ultanate in the Fourteenth Century’ Al Masaq: Islam and the Medieval Mediterranean 16 (1): 53–74. 257 

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will surround and strangle it … we will drive out the Saracens with the help of God, the pope and the Great Khan’.258 The pleas of Arghun were received politely, but no military response followed from Europe. Meanwhile, within the Middle East, the web of treaties and truces concluded by the remaining Christian communities were coming to an end, so, when the time was right, the Muslim forces struck. In 1289, Christian Tripoli fell to the Mamluks, leaving only Acre in the Christian hands of the Latins. Although a 10-year truce had been signed with Acre in the same year that Tripoli was attacked, a dispute arose the following year involving a brawl between Christian pilgrims of Acre and Muslim merchants, of which some of the merchants were killed. The failure of compensation for the dead merchants resulted in a declaration of war by Al-Ashraf, the eighth Mamluk sultan, who declared the truce void. To ensure there was no influx of Christian soldiers, the Mamluks agreed treaties of neutrality with Aragon, Genoa and Byzantium, each of which was given commercial and pilgrimage privileges. This meant that the most meaningful help to arrive from Europe was that given by the papacy, but Pope Nicolas IV could only manage to send 20 galleys, carrying some 1,600 men, to help defend Acre. This was not enough. The triple-walled citadel of Acre fell after a sixweek siege in mid-1291. It was stormed by a Mamluk army of over 200,000 men, after which over 60,000 Christians were killed or enslaved. Of the Crusader soldiers, 17,000 of the 18,500 defenders were killed. This heralded nothing less than the total destruction of Crusader power in the Holy Land. Thereafter, it was a question of the Mamluks mopping up the last Christian settlements and forts in the Levant. The fortress of Raud, near the northern city of Tartus (modern-day north-west Syria), was the last to fall. There were no survivors among the 1,000 or so Christian soldiers who tried to defend it.259 The fall of Acre and Raud made Armenia the last Christian area in the wider region. This country, which had been aligned with the Mongols for the last eight decades, found itself in a very precarious position as the power of the Mongols declined. Any lingering hopes were completely eclipsed by the succession of the seventh ruler of the Ilkhanate Empire, Mahmud Ghazan, who converted both himself and his realm to Islam in 1295. Ghazan abandoned all of the Mongol policies on religious tolerance and gave orders for the destruction of Christian churches, Jewish synagogues, Zoroastrian fire temples and Buddhist pagodas, whenever he captured new territory that was not Muslim. From here, it was only a matter of time until Christian Armenia, also, disappeared.260 258  The letter from Arghun to the Pope, as reprinted in Grousset, R (2010) The Empire of the Steppes (­Atlantic City, Rutgers University Press) 374; Holt, P (1995) Early Mamluk Diplomacy (1260–1290): Treaties of Baybars and Qalawin with Christian Rulers (Leiden, Brill) 48–50. 259  Stewart, A (2002) ‘The Logic of Conquest: Tripoli 1289; Acre 1291; Why Not Sis, 1293?’ Al Masaq: Journal of the Medieval Mediterranean 14 (1): 7–16; Holt, P (1995) Early Mamluk Diplomacy (1260–1290): Treaties of Baybars and Qalawin With Christian Rulers (Leiden, Brill) 58, 66, 85, 101, 116, 122, 134 and 150; Grant, R (2011) 1001 Battles (London, Penguin) 185; Runiciman, S (1951) A History of the Crusades, Vol III (Oxford, Oxford University Press) 398–402; Tanner, J (ed) (1957) The Cambridge Medieval History: The Victory of the Papacy, Vol VI (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press) 104, 191–92, 357–61. 260  Grousset, R (2010) The Empire of the Steppes (Atlantic City, Rutgers University Press) 378–79.

Conclusion 165 11.  Conclusion

The thirteenth century was very violent, both within and between countries. First, within Europe, the fight against heresy intensified as the papacy felt increasingly confident that it was the sole source of truth. Attacks on communities that disagreed with the centralised and increasingly intolerant approach of the papacy were unprecedented. Witches were burnt, Jewish communities fleeced and ejected from countries, and the Albigensian crusade in France saw the complete subjugation of large areas after soldiers fought for remission of sins and of the property of the defeated (fellow Christian) heretics. Religious concerns were also of considerable importance when the fellow-Christian, but Orthodox Byzantium, was toppled for over half a century, as the outcome of the Fourth Crusade. The outcome of this Crusade, without the official blessing of the pope before the event, was due to a combination of distrust between the east and west over the earlier Crusades, and a belief that Constantinople was duplicitous. When the Byzantine relations with Venice soured, the Venetians saw an opportunity to utilise the Crusaders they were meant to transport to the Holy Land for other ends. The specific opportunity to intervene in Constantinople arose via a dynastic dispute. When the promises made to the Venetians and Crusaders by the successor in this dynastic dispute were not kept, the city was sacked, divided and the religion changed from Orthodox to Catholic. The survivors of Byzantium then fled to a small corner of the Aegean. In terms of the Holy Roman Empire, the wars of Frederick II dominated the first fifty years of the thirteenth century. Frederick II came to power in the wake of a civil war that had morphed into an international conflict via a collection of overlapping defensive alliances following a disputed election in Germany. When the candidate that the papacy originally supported did not keep his promises, he was excommunicated by the pope and the electors then deposed him, after which Frederick (who promised loyalty to the papacy) was offered the throne of both Germany and the crown of emperor. Despite this initial mutual support, Frederick II’s greatest battles ended up being against the papacy and their associated forces. The first excommunication of Frederick followed his attempt to unite southern Italy to the Empire and his not going on Crusade when directed. Despite eventually winning back Jerusalem via diplomacy (involving a promise of non-aggression against the Muslim sultan, and protection of Muslim interests in the city) and not war, the pope, excommunicated again and organised military actions against him. The wars against Frederick II as directed by the pope were done via stirring up rebellion in Germany (by removing the requirement of feudal loyalty to the king) and with the cities of the Lombard League in north Italy (by supporting their quests for full autonomy from the king). Although attempts were made to arbitrate the differences, especially over the Lombard obligations via earlier treaties, there was no peace between the emperor and the pope. This war continued after F ­ rederick’s death, and onto his sons Conrad, Manfred and finally, grandson, ­Conradin. At each point, excommunications followed the successors of the ­Hohenstaufen line, until it was extinct, and all of their attempts to rule over southern Italy, were extinguished.

166  The Thirteenth Century

After the end of the Hohenstaufen dynasty, the papacy proceeded, in essence, to auction off southern Italy and Sicily (as papal fiefs) to other monarchs in Europe who it hoped would be more compliant. The winner of this process was Henri of Anjou, who the pope also hoped would, in time, reconquer Orthodox Byzantium (which by this point had re-established itself and broken free from the Roman church). Although Henri went on to acquire vast tracts of other territory, he and his descendants found southern Italy and Sicily very difficult to govern as the area devolved into three decades of fighting. They fought over whether descendants of the original Norman settlers were best to rule them or dynasties from the house of Aragon; and then fratricidal struggle within the house spilled over into the mix. A multitude of papal excommunications and support for preferred candidates, followed, but ultimately achieved nothing. Peace only arrived when the disputed lands were clearly divided, and succession plans agreed. The chaos in southern Italy and Sicily was also replicated in Germany, which took decades to recover from the ending of the Hohenstaufen line. The country was largely fragmented, comprising both semi-independent regions and rising urban groupings, and only began to be put back together by Rudolf Habsburg, from whose line one of the most famous dynasties in history arose. However, despite Rudolf winning the electoral process, he had to face the very powerful king of Bohemia, who refused to accept him as the ruler of Germany. After succeeding, Rudolf did two radical things. First, he allowed a semi-independent Switzerland to start to emerge, in which uniquely, a new political force, of free peasants working with a type of democracy, came to the fore. Second, realising that Italy had been the graveyard of many German kings and the cause of endless wars, he divested his country of any interests in the area. When Rudolf died, the electors did not want his son to rule them, opting for another candidate, Adolf of Nassau. However, due to his poor management of Germany and his seeking of unpalatable foreign alliances, they subsequently deporsed Adolf. This was a radical act, as this was the first time in German history that a ruler was deposed by the electors, without having a papal excommunication first. Following this deposition, Albert, Rudolf ’s son, came to power in Germany, only to become entangled in dynastic spiders-webs in Bohemia, before being assassinated by his own nephew, who wanted greater lands under his control. Wars in England in the thirteenth century were predominantly internal. King John was lucky to become the uncontested king of England. However, his heavy-handed methods, from taxation to confiscations, and his military losses in France, provoked discontent amongst his barons that ultimately forced him to accept a form of peace treaty in the Magna Carta. This document prevented the arbitrary rule of the king and set down clear constitutional and civil rules as a counterweight to the king’s power. When John failed to uphold these terms, war broke out, and deepened as the French intervened on the side of the barons, seeking an opportunity to take the English crown for themselves. Peace was only achieved when John died, the French went home and the English crown agreed to abide by the terms of the Magna Carta. It was the failure to abide by the same terms in letter and spirit, that went on to cause future wars in England when the son of John, Henry III, had come fully to power. Henry’s nemesis came in the form of Simon de Montfort and a further sequence of

Conclusion 167

barons, who believed that the Magna Carta was not being upheld and that they had the right to topple tyrannical kings. They were particularly encouraged by what they interpreted by the more open approach of the French. A military alliance with the rebels and Wales forced Henry III to agree to further constitutional reforms. However, these were short-lived, and Henry, and his son, the future Edward I, threw them off. However, realising that any quests for absolute authority of the monarchy would only cause further wars, the Welsh were allowed to retain an unprecedented degree of independence, and the essence of the Magna Carta maintained. Edward I learnt from the mistakes of his father. When he became king, he implemented many of the earlier reforms, and went even further than de Montfort could have imagined, in establishing the English Parliament and introducing the third estate into the management of the country. Although Edward I ensured peace within ­England, he engaged in battle after battle in Wales, removing most of the independent power his father had handed to the Welsh princes, and placing his military footprint firmly onto the area. He also took the opportunity to intervene in a succession crisis in Scotland, in which he chose the successor, who then pledged allegiance to the English crown. However, this relationship could not hold, and soon the Scots were reaching out for their first, and enduring, alliance with the French. War followed quickly, built upon the cause that Scotland should be independent, and their king, not subservient to the English monarch. The relationship between France and England always remained tense during the thirteenth century. The theory was that homage was owed by the English king to the French king for all the lands the English held in France. However, the trend throughout this century was that much of the territory in question became French (even that which was nominally English and/or independent) either by battle, such as with Normandy, or by treaty and feudal obligations, such as with Aquitaine. Where the English retained the right to govern regionally, they were, in theory, vassals to the French crown, to which loyalty was owed to the ultimate overlord, the king of France. Despite continual flare-ups, especially by disgruntled local nobles who tried to play both crowns against each other, peace was achieved by clarifying the rules and clear boundary setting, and by inter-marriage between the two monarchies. The problem was that this inter-marriage­that sought to bring peace to one generation, laid the seeds for a conflict that would dominate Anglo-French relations for the next 150 years. Warfare in the Middle East in the thirteenth century was spectacular, as not only were the Christians largely forced out of the region, the Muslims managed to survive, but were very nearly wiped out by the Mongols. Before this point, in Spain, the Christian advances began with such force, that the Almohads left the country to its fate, retreating back to North Africa. Building on the momentum, a Fifth Crusade, was called for in 1215, which arrived at the new target of Egypt in 1218, hoping to capitalise on the fragmentation of the Ayyubid dynasty of Saladin. Their goal, to accelerate the fragmentation and thus free the Middle East and reclaim Jerusalem, failed miserably with nothing being achieved beyond an eight year truce, and a full withdrawal of Christian forces from Egypt. However, within eleven years, Frederick II had entered Jerusalem, without bloodshed, and was proclaimed to be its overlord, following a treaty with the

168  The Thirteenth Century

same, sultan of Egypt who had been the target of the Fifth Crusade. By this agreement, Muslim spiritual, cultural and economic interests in the city were preserved, and Frederick was pledged to not support any other Muslim’s against the sultan. Although this pact was denounced by both the pope and many Muslims, the agreement held. Further to the east, the real threat to the Muslim world arrived in the form of the Mongols. The Mongolian Empire, as solidified by Genghis Khan, was the most dominant catalyst for war in the thirteenth century. Genghis fought his way to the top of these migratory people, and lead them against external enemies. Their original targets were other migratory peoples’ who would not accept submission. Their wars with the Song of China began when a military alliance against a shared enemy, went bad. Specifically, when the Mongols destroyed the Jin, some of the Sixteen Prefectures were returned to the Song. But the Song then attempted to wrest the remaining Sixteen ­Prefectures from the Mongols, leading to war. This intensified when the Song refused to pay the Mongols the same tribute they used to give to the Jin. The Mongol wars with Islam, and the Khwarizm empire in particular, began when the Mongolian merchants were executed and recompense was not offered. In the conflict that followed, after a series of significant losses, the Khwarizmians tried to flee to north India, but were refused sanctuary. For anyone who offered sanctuary, war would follow. It was the same thinking, of allowing sanctuary to enemies fleeing from the Mongols that also brought the Mongols into Russia and eastern Europe. At each point, once war was started, survival could only be achieved by either good luck, such as when a Khan died and the Mongols retreated to their homelands to choose a new leader, or complete submission to the Mongols. Here, despite their enlightened position on religious tolerance, their views on political dissent, were absolute. Once an area was settled, submission was total. In the case of the Mongols and the Muslims, the decision of the Ghurid Muslims not to give the Khwarizmians sanctuary, allowed their regime (which had also evolved to learn the importance of tolerance and suzerainty, as opposed to intolerance and full sovereignty) in north India. However, for the rest of the regions in the Middle East, it was a disaster as the Khwarizmians searched for new paymasters and the M ­ ongols pursued them, and anyone who gave them sanctuary. It was this movement, as they progressed through the Middle East in search of their new paymaster of Egypt that Christendom in the Middle East came to an end. The problem was that the Christian forces, in siding with local Muslim forces against the migratory Khwarizmians, picked the wrong side. The Christians, despite the urgings of Frederick II had already proceeded down this path, siding with other non-Ayyubid Muslim forces against Egyptian interests. This meant that when they came out against the Khwarizmians, the sultan of Egypt was not going to stand in the way of their extinction as rulers of Jerusalem. In China, the survival of the Song was only due to the breathing-space created by the death of Ogedei Khan and the fact that the Mongols were embroiled in their own civil war. When this was settled, following further warfare with the Song, peace was found for the price of silver and silk. When Kublai Khan came to power after a further Mongol civil war, the full and final conquest of the Song (who had attacked Kublai’s forces as they had exited China) was so successful that a new dynasty, the Yuan, and a

Conclusion 169

China unified for the first time in hundreds of years came into being, the Song being ground to dust by military defeat and desertion. The new regime, exhibiting religious tolerance, externally focused and much more cosmopolitan than any previous regime, was unique. Control was also consolidated over Tibet, Myanmar, Korea and Vietnam. Those who were not directly controlled accepted vassal status and provided tribute. The only Asian country to avoid subjugation, after being invited to be a vassal to the Mongols was Japan. Japan, which had recently emerged as a unified state under its shogun was saved, primarily, by the weather. Back in the Middle East, the response to the loss of Jerusalem, was the Seventh ­Crusade. Again, the target was Egypt, and again, the attempt failed hopelessly. This time, the price for the exit of those who lived to tell the tale, was the surrender of all of the territory they had captured, and hundreds of thousands of pieces of gold. However, the bigger long term loss for Christendom, but savior for Islam, was that the ­Crusade provided the spark for the rise of the Sunni based Mamluks. It was the M ­ amluks, who through the knowledge that they were not facing a full Mongol force, and that the Mongols and Christians were not united (as the pope, fearing the ­Mongols more than the Muslims, refused any suggestion of cooperation) who halted the M ­ ongolian advances. They did this after receiving positive helps of neutrality of some of the Christian forces, to cross through Acre and attack the Mongols from behind. With the Mongols halted, the Mamluks struck outwards, pushing them back, and systematically taking out both non-allied Muslim, and/or Christian communities through a policy of divide (with truces) and conquer (with war) as they pursued their greater enemy. When half of the Mongolian forces turned Muslim (the khan of Kipchak/the Golden Horde) and declared war on their former Mongolian allies, the balance of power shifted, with the Ilkhanate of Hulegu being left on the limb. Hulegu responded by making alliances with the local Christian communities, and trying to form wider ranging alliances with the Christian authorities in Europe. This time, although the new pope was sympathetic, and Louis IX and Edward I even went to fight, they could not stop the momentum of the Mamluks. Antioch and the county of Tripoli, were lost as the front line between the Ikhanate and Mamluks went back and forth before Acre, the last significant Christian outpost, was lost in 1291. The remaining Christian countries in the region, Armenia and Georgia, were subsumed over the following decades. Sunni based Islam, was now absolutely dominant throughout the region. Only with the reconquest of Spain, and follow-through actions into north Africa following the fragmentation of Almohad power throughout the region, into three, Sunni based, dynastic states, did Christian interests advance, as the Christian kings learnt to divide and rule, with the support various dynastic contenders within the Sunni based Muslim dynasties, to the self-interest of some and detriment to other contenders.

V The Fourteenth Century 1. Introduction

M

ANY OF THE causes of war in the fourteenth century were a direct result of the cataclysmic conflicts that had occurred in the century beforehand, and the counter-swings and vortexes that emerged in the wake of the collapse of the Mongols. For example, in China, the Ming dynasty eclipsed the Mongolian Yuan dynasty in the middle of the fourteenth century. The warfare that accompanied this eclipse was because all of the territorial integrity and central control of the Yuan had dissolved into powerful local warlords in an era of corruption, runaway inflation and economic exploitation. The Ming, who sought to reinvigorate the policies of the Song, were initially anti-foreigners and focused upon social policies which improved the lot of the poorest in society. They were, also, initially, strongly Buddhist in outlook. However, once the Yuan had been pushed from China, the interest in Buddhism faded, and the successive emperors began to keep control by purging their own State and battling their own relatives who began to take an undue influence in the throne. This pattern of purges, feud and fratricide then became the pattern for the Ming. The end of the Yuan also had reverberations across the region. The Choson arose in Korea and became closely aligned to the Ming, whilst in Vietnam, the Dai Vet created a unified country, in which north and south were reunited and Chinese influence forced out. Tibet degenerated into civil war and fragmentation for the following two centuries. The dominant feature of the Muslim world in the fourteenth century which will be shown in this chapter was the rise of two massive Sunni forces, the more structured Ottomans and the more chaotic Timur and his migratory forces of Mongol descent. Of the first, from being refugees from the Mongols, the Ottomans emerged to consume both the Seljuk of Rum and neighbouring, isolated and disenchanted, Byzantine communities alike, offering promises of greater security and religious tolerance. When Byzantium degenerated in a series of succession disputes, multiplied by the quests for independence of Bulgaria, Serbia and Greece, and overlaid with a theological contest between Orthodox and Catholic Christians (in the breakaway provinces), the Ottomans received their real boost. This occurred when multiple contenders for the throne of Constantinople invited the Ottoman forces into Europe to secure their military skills. For second half of the fourteenth century, the Ottomans would go from strength to strength, subsuming each piece of the breakaway Balkans, whilst progressively ­turning Constantinople from the master, into a vassal state.

The Contest between Empire and Papacy 171

The demise of the Byzantium empire would have arrived five decades earlier had Timur not arrived on the scene in the last decades of the fourteenth century. Timur was nominally Muslim but he fought all opposition, irrespective of creed, if local authorities either refused to be his vassal, or behaved wrongfully in his eyes (and were therefore deemed unfit to govern), including both established Sunni and emergent Shia. He destroyed the Muslim forces in Central Asia and northern India, and the Mamluks of Egypt. This meant that by the end of the fourteenth century, the only real Muslim opposition to Timur was the Ottomans, who were nearly wiped out by Timur at the beginning of the next century. The beginning of the fourteenth century in Europe saw warfare continue to spark around the principle of papal power, as it had for the three centuries beforehand. The difference to be shown in this chapter, was that in this century the papacy was no longer the dominant power. As the French king began to assert his primacy he founded the accompanying authority of the Estates General in which the seeds of the constitutional structure of France were laid. The papacy lost this round as the scholarship of the Renaissance began to challenge the absolute nature of the temporal power that the popes were trying to claim. By the end of the century it was clear that the temporal rulers had been victorious in removing many of the papal levers that gave the papacy power over their kingdoms. The other traditional causes for conflict in Europe, such as those related to dynastic claims to territory, such as those between England and France, continued to burn for the first fifty years of the Hundred Years War. This dynastic conflict expanded during this period, becoming entangled with the dynasties of their neighbours, from Scotland to Spain, all of which got pulled into overlapping conflicts, based around who was best to rule. The final cause of war in Europe in the fourteenth century that is important to note in this chapter was that as the popes were losing their power, challenges to monarchs were becoming more common, with a number of sovereigns being deposed for following bad counsel, running rough-shod over the rights of others and/or causing deteriorating international relations. In each instance, whether in England or in Germany, the precedent became clear in the fourteenth century that a king did not have an absolute right to rule, and substantial deviance from their obligations and responsibilities could give cause for war. Moreover, when the new rulers came to power, the emphasis was on a much greater sharing of that power than on more autocratic rule. However, in other regions, such as in France, revolts were defeated; whilst in Moscow, increased autocracy of the ruler, as opposed to more republican types of government, was the pattern. 2.  The Contest between Empire and Papacy

A.  Pope Boniface VIII In 1300, Pope Boniface VIII had been in power for six years. He declared the year 1300 a Holy Year, the first in Christian history. Attracted by the promise of a

172  The Fourteenth Century

‘full and copious’ pardon for all sins for those who visited the Church of Saint Peter in Rome after making their confession, some 200,000 pilgrims converged on the city, much to the financial benefit of both Rome and the papacy. The Renaissance scholar Dante Alighieri was among those who visited. He was so impressed, he decided to set his great work, The Divine Comedy, in the Holiest of Weeks of that Holy Year, with Boniface as a central character. Boniface was an obvious target to ridicule, as here was a man who saw himself as the supreme power as regards all such matters within Christendom.1 As Pope Boniface asked rhetorically: [A]m I not the Sovereign Pontiff ? Is not this the throne of Saint Peter? Am I not able to safeguard the throne for the Empire? It is I, it is I, whom am Emperor.2

The difficulty was that not everyone in western Europe agreed with the view that Boniface VIII had of the world. To deal with dissent, he excommunicated cardinals who repeated rumours that his election had been fraudulent, and then sent military forces to the areas where they resided in what was cast as a holy war. When independent communes in Italy refused to follow his instructions, he placed them under interdict. Similarly, when Philip IV of France and Edward I of England taxed the clergy like everyone else in their kingdoms, Boniface VIII objected, telling both kings specifically, and all kings in general, that secular laymen, even rulers, had ‘no control over the clergy’, and calling on clerics not to give in to royal demands. In his papal bull, Clericis Laicos, he forbade rulers to exact, or clerics to pay, extraordinary taxes without papal authorisation. To bolster this call he warned, ‘[c]ommunities, which shall be guilty in these matters, we subject to ecclesiastical interdict’.3 Both sovereigns took up the gauntlet. Philip prohibited any gold or silver from leaving France, thus depriving the pope of a major source of revenue. For his part, Edward demanded a tax of one-fifth of Church income on its temporal property. When the English clergy refused, Edward declared them ‘outlaw’, that is, outside of the protection of the law. Undeterred by this resistance, Boniface rained down bulls from Rome. Ausculta fili (‘Listen, my son’), addressed directly to Philip, enumerated his wrongdoings and repeated the familiar claims of the supremacy of the papacy. Super Petri solio threatened the French king with excommunication and releasing his subjects from their allegiance to him if he did not change his ways. Finally, Salvator mundi withdrew all previous papal grants and favours. Pope Boniface also told Edward to leave Scotland

1  The ‘Announcement of Jubilee Year’, 1300, as reprinted in Thatcher, O (ed) (1905) A Sourcebook for Medieval History (NYC, Scribner) 313; Heppner, J (2004) ‘Dante and the Jubilee of Boniface VIII’. Dante Studies 122: 1–26; Altinan, R (1967) ‘Dante’s Parody of Boniface VIII’ Dante Studies 85: 71–74. 2  Boniface, as noted in Bozeman, A (1994) Politics and Culture in International History (NYC, Transaction) 263; Dickson, G (1999) ‘The Crowd at the Feet of Pope Boniface VIII: Pilgrimage, Crusade and the First Roman Jubilee’ Journal of Medieval History 25 (4): 279–307; Powicke, F (1934) ‘Pope Boniface VIII’ History 18: 307–29; Eppstein, J (1935) The Catholic Tradition of the Law of Nations (London, Burns and Oats) 162, 190–96, 464–74; Carlyle, A (1906) A History of Medieval Political Theory in the West (London, Blackwood) Vol II 219, Vol VI, 123–27. 3 The Clericis Laicos Bull of Pope Boniface VIII, as reprinted in Laffan, R (ed) (1929) Select Historical ­Documents: 800–1492 (NYC, Holt) 114–15; Denton, J (1997) ‘Taxation and the Conflict Between Philip the Fair and Boniace VIII’ French History 11 (3): 241–64; Waley, D (1950) ‘Pope Boniface VIII and the ­Commune of Orvieto’ Transactions of the Royal Historical Society 32: 121–39.

The Contest between Empire and Papacy 173

alone,4 as this was an independent papal fief. However, realising that the political powers of England and France combined were greater than his influence, Pope Boniface decided to climb down in his battle with England, empowering the king to tax clergy without consulting Rome in certain cases. With France, following Philip IV being endorsed by the Estates General as answerable to God alone and not the pope, the French king had a bishop who was defying him charged with treason, as he had been appointed to the post without royal approval. Like Thomas Becket some 130 years earlier in England,5 Pope Boniface demanded that the bishop be tried in a church court, not in a civil court. Subsequently, in his bull Unam Sanctam, Boniface set out the most absolute proclamation of theocratic doctrine of the Middle Ages, claiming total papal supremacy over all temporal rulers. He explained that it was necessary for King Philip to do as he was told by the pope, as his personal salvation required that he be subject to the Roman pontiff. ‘He that is spiritual’, Pope Boniface quoted from Corinthians, ‘judgeth all things, yet he himself is judged of no man’.6 He added: Both … the spiritual and material swords are in the power of the Church, the latter … to be used for the Church, the former by the Church, the one by the priest, the other by the hand of kings and soldiers, but by the will and sufferance of the priest. It is fitting, moreover, that one sword should be under the other, and the temporal authority subject to spiritual power … if the earthly power shall err, it shall be judged by the spiritual power … we proclaim, declare and pronounce that it is necessary to the salvation for every human being to be subject to the Roman Pontiff.7

The French king responded by bringing charges of heresy against the pope and indulging in character assassination, suggested that Boniface was a sodomite who kept concubines, killed his clerks and, inter alia, had lost the Holy Land because of his sins. Only days before Boniface could depose Philip as he intended, a force of 1,600 men, sent by Philip to capture the pope, attempted to take him hostage. Although this attempt failed Boniface, an old man, succumbed to the shock he had experienced and died in October 1303.8 Pope Boniface VIII was succeeded by Benedict XI and then by Clement V. Pope Benedict began by undoing all of the acts that Boniface had directed against Philip of France. As part of a plan to prevent Philip from creating a council to condemn the dead pope posthumously, Benedict published a bull granting unconditional absolution

4 

For Edward’s control over Scotland at this point, see pages 135–138. See pages 50–51. 6  As noted in Hay, D (1996) Europe in the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Centuries (London, Longman) 83; Carlyle, A (1906) A History of Medieval Political Theory in the e West, Vol V (London, Blackwood) 375–83, 385–94. 7  Unam Sanctam, as in Rosenwein, B (ed) (2006) Reading the Middle Ages: Sources from Europe, Byzantium and the Islamic World (Ontario, Broadview) 456. Fawtier, R (1974) The Capetian Kings of France (London, Macmillan) 90–93. 8  The ‘Charges of Heresy Against Boniface VIII’, as reprinted in Rosenwein, B (ed) (2006) Reading the Middle Ages: Sources from Europe, Byzantium and the Islamic World (Ontario, Broadview) 458; Norwich, J (2011) Absolute Monarchs: A History of the Papacy (London, Random) 201; Cheyney, E (1962) The Dawn of a New Era (NYC, Harper) 178–79. 5 

174  The Fourteenth Century

to Philip and his family. Clement, who became pope in 1305, continued this deference to the French king, declaring in 1311 that Philip had only been moved throughout his dispute with Boniface by his zeal for justice. Moreover, his actions against Boniface were declared to be ‘good, sincere and just’. Accordingly, the French king was declared to be ‘absolutely innocent and without fault’.9 To show how sincere the feelings of the pope were towards the French crown, and rather than deal with continual tumult in Rome, Clement V agreed to move the entire papal court to Avignon, France, where it resided from 1309, under seven successive popes, until 1377.

B.  The End of Albert As Pope Boniface was challenging the French and English kings for supremacy, King Albert of Germany kept out of such matters as he had other considerations to attend within his own realm. His century began with a period of uncertainty on his borders to the east, as the connections between Poland, Hungary and Bohemia all began to blur when the Hungarian line of the Arpads died out in 1301 with the death of their king, Andrew III. Wenceslaus III of Bohemia was invited by the Hungarian nobles to take the throne. He then went on to acquire the crowns of Bohemia (after his father) and Poland. The Polish crown was, at this point, considered part of the imperial fief of the Holy Roman Empire. Wenceslaus renounced his crown in Hungary in 1304 after failing to subdue the nobles, and was murdered in Poland in 1306 after running into similar difficulties over disputed land grants there. Upon the death of Wenceslaus, Albert tried to seize Bohemia’s crown for his son, who campaigned in Bohemia and deposed the preferred candidate, Heinrich of Bohemia. However, his son died soon-after, and the crown reverted to Heinrich. Before Albert could go any further in weaving these dynastic spiders’ webs, he was assassinated in 1308 by his own nephew, Johann, due in part to the exclusion of Johann’s rights that his grandfather had agreed, in the earlier 1283 Treaty of Rheinfelden.10

C.  Heinrich VII The next ruler of Europe-wide significance was Heinrich VII. He originated from the relatively neutral house of Luxembourg, with his wife Margaret, who was the 9 The Bull, Rex Gloriae, as printed in Fawtier, R (1974) The Capetian Kings of France (London, Macmillan) 95. 10  See pages 118–119. Also, see Johnson, L (1996) Central Europe: Enemies, Neighbours, Friends (Oxford, Oxford University Press) 37–39, 42; Tanner, J (ed) (1957) The Cambridge Medieval History: The Victory of the Papacy, Vol VI (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press) 97, 460–65, 709; Tanner, J (ed) (1957) The Cambridge Medieval History: Contest of Empire and Papacy, Vol V (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press) 150–54, 314; Stubbs, P (1908) Germany in the Later Middle Ages (London, Longman) 87–93, 127.

The Contest between Empire and Papacy 175

daughter of the Duke of Flanders. In addition to being the Count of Luxembourg, he became King of Germany in 1308, King of Italy in 1311 and Holy Roman Emperor in 1312. In the heart of his realm, relations were largely peaceful. He even improved relations with Bohemia, by ensuring that his son, John the Blind, was made king, after his predecessor in Bohemia proved incompetent. John was then married to Elizabeth of Bohemia, who was the daughter of former king of Bohemia, Wenceslaus II. As far as Poland was concerned, tensions were eased by the 1309 Treaty of Soldin, through which the city of Danzig was sold to the Teutonic Knights, thus ensuring that transit to Germany did not have to be through volatile areas of either Poland or Pomerelia. Moreover, the papal indulgence of the period, ‘for the defence of the Catholic faith in war or battle in the kingdom of Poland or in any other Christian land adjacent to the abovementioned kingdom or near to it inhabited or possessed by schismatics, Tatars, or any mixture of pagan nations’, ensured that there was a continual outlet for Teutonic adventurers.11 (i) Dante Had Heinrich VII stayed in central Europe, his reign might have been longer and more prosperous, but as it was, he refused to accept either the logic or the legality of King Rudolf I’s abandonment of Italy,12 and marched into the country in 1311. His reason to enter Italy was because the country was in turmoil, with everyone fighting each other. Republics were fighting not just papal and/or imperial enemies, but also other communes, over both serious and frivolous matters. One conflict between the ­Guelphs (of Florence) and Ghibellines at Campaldino in 1289, had seen a youthful Dante Alighieri drawn to take up arms (for the Guelphs) amongst 20,000 other combatants. A later conflict, at Curzola in 1298, took the lives of over 10,000 men. Upon victory, the Guelphs of Florence splintered into different factions, from which their republican constitution was subsumed beneath the strong rule of a single signore for which Dante was exiled from Florence on charges of corruption. ‘All of the cities of Italy’ Dante argued in reply, had become ‘full of tyranny’.13 At the same point, Dante identified the Papacyas the equal source of the problems and warfare in Italy. He derided Pope Boniface VIII as ‘the prince of the new Pharisees, whose every enemy was Christian, waging war near the Lateran, not with Saracens or Jews, only with Christians’.14 Dante was confident in his views as this was a period when the papacy was directly involved in creating wars in Italy. For example, following a dispute over papal rights in Ferrara, Pope Clement V deprived Venice of

11  The Indulgence, which was given to the Catholic king, is printed in Urban, W (2003) The Teutonic Knights (London, Greenhill) 119. See also Davies, N (2005) God’s Playground: A History of Poland, Vol I (Oxford, Oxford University Press) 74–76. 12  See page 117. 13 Dante, The Divine Comedy trans, Sayers, L (1949) (Harmondsworth, Penguin) II: 6; Robinson, P (2006) Military Honour and the Conduct of War (London, Routledge) 64–69. 14  Dante, as noted in Norwich, J (2011) Absolute Monarchs: A History of the Papacy (London, Random) 199.

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all the privileges of a Christian state, empowering the seizure of its property (for the papacy) and with all the opposition to be made into slaves. Appeals were then made by the pope to all European powers for troops, who poured into Italy in what became a vicious conflict. When Tedaldo fell, some 6,000 Venetian men perished in the storm, save for a few who were sent back to Venice after their eyes had been gouged out. Venice sued for peace in 1310.15 Although some commentators such as Ptolemy of Lucca and Bartolus of ­Saxoferrato, argued that democracy gave the best hope for surviving the difficulties, others, such as Egidius Colonna, argued that only a monarch with absolute power could solve the current problems. Further scholars like Pierre Dubios, argued for the total abolition of papal power in temporal affairs, replacing it with a revolutionary structure comprising a confederation of Christian sovereigns who would arbitrate their differences through law, not religion.16 Dante agreed that the only solution to the chaos and bloodshed in Italy was an allpowerful monarch (whom he identified as Heinrich VII) who was superior to the pope, derive his power from God alone (and not the papacy), who could move the territories in Italy away from ‘the madness of rebellion’17 and bring peace for the good of all.18 Despite such rousing justifications, Heinrich VII could not bring peace to Italy. Although he subdued many areas and eventually made his way to Rome in 1312 where he was crowned emperor (by three Ghibelline cardinals who had joined Heinrich, not by Pope Clement V who had by now moved the papacy to Avignon due to the chaos of Rome), he could not bring peace to the region. Every area he pacified exploded back into rebellion as soon as he left, denouncing both Heinrich and/or the papacy, in an attempt to be independent and/or seeking to expand at the expense of its neighbours. The Republics of Florence and Pisa, and the Kingdom of Naples, would lock horns, throwing 60,000 men onto the battlefield of Montecatini, from which the Florentines were routed and their goal of territorial expansion defeated. Moreover, Emperor ­Heinrich VII’s principal aim, to recover southern Italy so that all of the Empire might be reunited, was not achieved, with the pope threatening him with excommunication if he proceeded further south than Rome. Before he could decide what his next steps

15  Tanner, J (ed) (1958) The Cambridge Medieval History: Decline of Empire and Papacy, Vol VII (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press) 29–30, 48–60. 16  Cesar, F (2004) ‘Popular Autonomy and Imperial Power in Bartolus of Saxoferrato: An Intrinsic ­Connecction’ Journal of the History of Ideas 65 (3) 369–81; Carlyle, AJ (1910) A History of Medieval Political Theory in the West (London, Blackwood) Vol V, 71–76, 88, 95 and Vol VI, 10; Pierre Dubois, (2005 edn) The Recovery of the Holy Land trans Brandt, W (NYC, Columbia University Press) 27–30. 17 Dante, Monarchy trans Shaw, W (1998) (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press) 10–11. Also Dante’s Letters, as reprinted in Webster, D (ed) Documents in Renaissance and Reformation History (1969) (Sydney, Cassell) 119. 18 Dante, Monarchy trans Shaw, P (1998) (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press) 86, 91; Honess, C (2013) ‘Henry VII and Dante’s Ideal of Peace’ The Italianist 33 (3): 484–504; Russo, F (2010) ‘Henry VII and Dante’s Dream of a New Golden Age’ Forum Italicum: A Journal of Italian Studies 34: 267–86; Silverstein, T (1939) ‘The Throne of the Emperor Henry in Dante’s Paradise and the Medieval Conception of Christian Kingship’ The Harvard Theological Review 32 (2): 115–29; Skinner, Q (1980) The Foundations of Modern Political Thought, Vol I (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press) 12, 23–26.

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would be, Heinrich VII died. Pope Clement then published his bull, Pastoralis cura, asserting the superiority of the Church over the Empire and underlined that all power came from the papacy– even if it was now living in France.19

D.  Louis the Bavarian Louis, the Duke of Bavaria, was married first to Beatrice of Silesia, a Polish princess from the House of Piast. His second wife, Margaret II, was Countess of Hainaut and Holland. Louis’s rise to power was far from certain, as although the electors did not want the son of Heinrich VII, John the Blind (the king of Bohemia), to succeed him for fear of a concentration of power, they chose to elect Frederick the Fair, the son of Albert of Habsburg,20 on 19 October 1314. Louis the Bavarian (who was also Frederick’s cousin) contested this result and upon a repeated election the following day, 20 October, Louis was shown to be holding the majority of the votes. Louis was then crowned as Louis IV, but in the wrong city. The usual place of coronation was Aachen, but this was in Frederick’s possession, as were the imperial robes and the crown. These differences would lead the two sides to try to kill each other in a civil war that would ravage Germany and associated parts of the realm for eight years.21 As the civil war ground on, the emerging territory of Switzerland became much more prominent. In this period the legend of William Tell found currency, the tale of an independent and proud man of Switzerland, who came to stand against the tyranny of the Habsburgs. In reality, the conflict that did break out was sparked by a dispute over the use of some pasture, which was followed by some Swiss peasants expressing their support for Louis and then looting Habsburg possessions. In response, the brother of Frederick the Fair, Duke Leopold of Austria, assembled an army of perhaps 8,000 men, including 2,500 armored cavalry. The Austrians were destroyed on the battlefield at Morgarten in 1315, by the peasant army who lost 1,500 of their own men, in what was, in essence, the first battle for Swiss independence. The winners then came together into a collective core that provided for concerted action, to ‘defend our liberty’.22 The civil war in Germany only came to an end in 1322 at the Battle of M ­ uhldorf, where Louis’ forces slaughtered at least 1,000 nobles from Austria, in what was ­probably the last major battle fought on German soil without firearms. Frederick was captured, but obtained his release in the Treaty of Trausnitz of 1325, by which

19  Tanner, J (ed) (1958) The Cambridge Medieval History: Decline of Empire and Papacy, Vol VII (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press) 16, 25–28, 37–38, 40–41, 98–100; Holmes G (2000) Europe: Hierarchy and Revolt (London, Blackwell) 35, 70–80; Mundy, J (1991) Europe in the High Middle Ages (London, Longman) 36–37, 265, 268, 290–92, 301. 20  See page 118. 21  Curtis, B (2013) The Habsburgs (London, Bloomsbury) 21–23; Stubbs, P (1908) Germany in the Later ­Middle Ages (London, Longman) 98, 104, 127. 22  The ‘Law of 1323’, as reprinted in MacKinnon, J (1906) A History of Modern Liberty, Vol I ­(London, Longman) 215, see also at 190–95; Grant, R (2005) Battle: 5000 Years of Combat (London, Dorling Kindersley).

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he p ­ romised to be supportive of Louis’ reign and renounced his right to be the elected king of Germany. Breakaway areas like Switzerland, were granted substantial autonomy, on condition that they affirmed ‘the obligations, which we are accustomed by ancient and good usage to discharge … to the king, and to the Holy Roman Empire’.23 (i)  Popes, Philosophers and Kings Despite the conclusion of the civil war between Louis and Frederick, Pope John XXII forbade Louis from trying to claim the crown to the Holy Roman Empire and exercise imperial authority until he, as pope, had settled the dispute. When Louis stated the obvious, that this was no longer necessary, Pope John XXII deposed and excommunicated Louis, as well as placing his realm under interdict. One of the foremost reasons given for his excommunication was that Louis was harboring heretics. As it was, Pope John XXII was at the forefront of many challenges to his authority. These began almost as soon as he had come to power in 1316 and followed the path of his predecessor, centralising both the power and the income of the papacy, while living a privileged life in Avignon. In terms of wealth, Pope John XXII was at the forefront of opposing those groups (especially Franciscans) within the Church who had embraced a life of poverty, mendicancy and itinerancy, whom he excommunicated in 1318 with his bull Gloriosam ecclesiam. The pope then issued his bull Cum Inter Non-nullos of 1323, which declared that it was heretical to deny Christ the right of property. The following year, those who defied his ruling on this matter had their teachings denounced as heresy in the papal bull Quia quorundam, as the Church had ordered that there should be no more discussion on this topic. Death by burning was the penalty for disobeying this order, as a number of men found out.24 The problem for Pope John XXII was that a large number of members of the Church refused to stay quiet. The foremost of these was the Franciscan, William of Ockham. He argued that the papacy had become obsessed with profit, honour and control of the temporal realm—all matters which were the antithesis of the examples set out in the Gospels. In his essay, Errors of the Pope, he charged John XXII with 70 errors and seven heresies, including an obsession with simony, private property and wealth. Specifically, ‘it belongs not to Christ’s vicar nor to priests of the holy church to have rents here on earth’.25 Ockham added that the idea of papal absolutism was contrary

23  See, eg, the 1351 ‘Alliance of Zurich and the Forest Cantons’, as reprinted in Laffan, R (ed) (1929) Select Historical Documents: 800–1492 (NYC, Holt) 149; Tanner, J (ed) (1958) The Cambridge Medieval History: Decline of Empire and Papacy, Vol VII (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press) 190–91, 303, 500–01; Grant, R (2011) 1001 Battles (London Penguin) 190. 24  See Bruner, M (2012) ‘Poverty and Charity: Pope John XXII’ Franciscan Studies 69 (1): 231–56; Havely, N (1997) ‘The Blood of the Apostles: Dante, the Franciscans and Pope John XXII’ Italian Studies 52 (1): 37–50; Norwich, J (2011) Absolute Monarchs: A History of the Papacy (London, Random) 209–11. 25  William of Ockham, A Letter to the Friars Minor and Other Writings trans Kilcullen, J (2001) (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press) xiii–xiv. Also Tornay, S (1935) ‘William Ockham’s Political Philosophy’ Church History: Studies in Christianity and Culture 4 (3) 172–93.

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to the Gospels as it led to tyranny, making all people, from the king to the peasant, ‘the pope’s slaves’.26 He added that the Holy Roman Empire was not dependent upon the papacy for legitimacy, and that the practice of Christ had been one of obeying the authorities, not trying to seize their power. Accordingly, the idea that the pope was either absolute in his power and/or above either the emperor or kings in temporal matters was a fundamental mistake. Pope John XXII responded by excommunicating Ockham.27 Ockham’s writings were supported by Marsilius of Padua. Marsilius argued that no property rights, at all, should be vested in the Church. He added that no pope, nor any priest, should judge upon temporal matters. Moreover, the attempts of the popes to ‘set themselves up as princes and legislators so that they might reduce kings and people to servitude to them’28 had to be abandoned, as they had led to nothing but war and conflict. Rather, they should give up their worldly pursuits, opt for poverty, work locally and not seek universal objectives, which had, until that point, only created ‘unjust despotism’. Pope John XXII treated these writings with the same contempt that he had showed Ockham. Accordingly, these too were condemned, it being added that to go against the pope’s views on the matter would make someone a ‘notorious heretic’.29 Marsilius of Padua was actively supported by Louis IV. For this support, in addition to the failure of Louis to appear when summoned by the pope to justify his presumptuous actions in calling himself king of the Romans before he had received confirmation of the title from the pope, his kingdoms were placed under interdict. In 1327, charges of heresy were added to the complaints against Louis. Louis replied with the Sachsenhausen Appellation. This stated: [C]ertain persons, blinded by avarice and ambition, and totally ignorant of the Scriptures, have distorted the meaning of certain passages by false and wicked interpretations, and on this basis have attacked the imperial authority and the rights of the emperors, electors and other princes and subjects of the empire. For they wrongfully assert that the emperor derives his position and authority from the Pope, and that the emperor elect is not the real emperor until his election is confirmed and approved, and he is crowned by the pope. These false and dangerous assertions are clearly the work of the ancient enemy of mankind, attempting to stir up strife and discord … We now declare … that the emperor holds his authority and position from God alone … he has full power … without the approval, confirmation, authorisation or consent of the pope or any other person.30

26  William

of Ockham, A Short Discourse on Tyrannical Government trans Kilcullen, J (2001) (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press) 23, See also pages 27, 43, 129. 27  Chambers, C (1969) ‘William Ockham, Theologian: Convicted for Lack of Evidence’ Journal of the History of Philosophy 7 (4) 134–53. 28  Marsilius of Padua, The Defender of the Peace trans, Brett, A (2005) (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press) 442–43, see also at 176–208, 249–62, 367–76, 432–41; Lee, A (2009) ‘Roman Law and Human Liberty: Marsilius of Padua’ Journal of the History of Ideas 70 (1): 23–44; Wellborn, C (1962) ‘Marsilius of Padua on Church and State’ A Journal of Church and State 4 (2): 303–24. 29  The 1327 ‘Condemnation of Marsilius of Padua’, as reprinted in Thatcher, O (ed) (1905) A Sourcebook for Medieval History (NYC, Scribner) 324. 30  The 1338 Sachsenhausen Appellation, as reprinted in Thatcher, O (ed) (1905) A Sourcebook for Medieval ­History (NYC, Scribner) 279–80.

180  The Fourteenth Century

Louis directly denied papal authority over imperial elections and went on to advance through Italy. After being crowned King of Italy in 1327 in Milan, he was crowned Holy Roman Emperor in Rome in 1328, not by the pope but by the Senate, after which Louis placed his own antipope in the Vatican. However, Louis could not reside in Rome for long, retreating to Germany with his antipope, as the military forces of King Robert of Naples thundered towards him, in support of Pope John XXII. When Rome was secure once more, Louis was promptly excommunicated by Pope John.31 (ii)  Clement VI The next Pope to have to deal with Louis IV was Clement VI, who ascended the papal throne in 1342. The influence of Pope Clement on history was monumental. Of particular note were the following three acts. First, he tried to protect the Jewish communities, who were being blamed for the Black Death and became scapegoats for this plague, as a result of which some 350 different massacres took place in over 200 communities throughout Europe. Second, he laid the stepping-stones towards the conquest and colonisation of the New World, by authorising the colonisation of the Canaries off Africa, despite the fact that indigenous people were already present, on the grounds that he wished to Christianise the islands. Finally, he passed the papal bull Unigentas in 1343. This declared that ‘Christ acquired a treasure for the Church’.32 Christ did this by sacrificing himself, but as he was perfect, the merit he possessed was even greater than that needed to redeem the entire human race. The bull went on to proclaim that the Church had the power to dispense this extra merit by selling indulgences (that is, remissions for penance) to those who confessed their sins. The financial benefits of this decision to the Church were massive.33 Although it was his rulings on the Canaries and indulgences that would echo through history, in Clement VI’s time, his bigger concern was the continuing papal battle with the Emperor Louis IV. Pope Clement continued the conflict against Louis IV, excommunicating him again and keeping in place the interdict that John XXII had established. The excommunications had followed the diet held by Louis in 1338 at Frankfurt, which promulgated the celebrated manifesto Fidem Catholicam. This declared: [T]he imperial dignity and power are derived immediately from God alone; and that, by the law and ancient approved custom of the Empire, when anyone is elected emperor or king 31 

The Coronation of Louis IV’, as reprinted in Laffan, R (ed) (1929) Select Historical Documents: 800–1492 (NYC, Holt) 135; Holmes, G (2000) Europe: Hierarchy and Revolt (London, Blackwell) 35–36, 70, 74–75, 120–21, 203–04; Curtis, B (2013) The Habsburgs (London, Bloomsbury) 19–24; Stubbs, P (1908) Germany in the Later Middle Ages (London, Longmans) 104–10; McKisack, M (1985) The Fourteenth Century (Oxford, Clarendon Press) 45. 32 Clement VI, as noted in Elton, R (ed) The New Cambridge Modern History: The Reformation, Vol II ­(Cambridge, Cambridge University Press) 75–76; Wood, D (1989) Clement VI (Cambridge, Cambridge ­University Press) 99–107, 119–35, 150, 187–203 Skinner, Q (1978) The Foundations of Modern Political Thought, Vol II (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press) 13–15. 33  Shaffern, R (2006) ‘The Pardoner’s Promises: Preaching and Policing Indulgences in the Fourteenth Century’ The Historian 68 (1): 23–43; Minnis, A (2003) ‘Reclaiming the Pardoners’ Journal of Medieval and Early Modern Studies 33 (2): 111–23.

The Contest between Empire and Papacy 181 by the imperial Electors, unanimously or by majority … he does not need the approbation, confirmation, authority or consent of the pope or the Apostolic See or of any other person.34

Louis then published the imperial law Licet iuris, which declared that imperial rank and power lawfully belonged to he who had been duly chosen by the electors. The confirmation or consent of the Holy See was not required. The papacy responded with the excommunications and interdicts noted above, followed by orders for the archbishops and other electors in Germany to find themselves a new king. This order from the pope was followed, from which Charles of Bohemia, of the Luxembourg dynasty, who was married to Blanche of Valois (the daughter of the French king), emerged.

E.  Charles IV Despite Louis threatening war if Charles attempted to be crowned as the king of Germany, Charles, with the support of some of the prince-electors, proceeded with his plans and was crowned as Charles IV, King of Germany, in 1346. This was done with the full support of pope Clement VI. In exchange for this support, Charles promised full submission to the papacy in terms of autonomy of the Church, respect for papal lands in Italy and to uphold the authority of the pope. Louis then prepared to crush Charles. In theory, this should have been an easy victory for Louis, as Charles had helped the French fight the English without success at Crecy, losing many of his soldiers, his father and nearly his life. However, before battle could be joined in Germany, Louis died.35 Although Louis the Bavarian was now dead, a number of electors refused to accept Charles as the de facto winner of the contest for the German crown, and after trying to offer it to Edward III of England, gave it to another candidate, Gunther of ­Schwartzburg, in 1349. Before battle could be joined between Charles and Gunther, Gunther was poisoned. This allowed Charles to claim the throne without further opposition. In 1355, the next pope, Innocent VI, invited Charles to Rome, where he placed the ­imperial crown on Charles’s head.36 (i)  The Golden Bull Once enjoying absolute power, Charles IV attempted to make Germany a much more stable realm, issuing his famous Golden Bull of 1356, so named because it carried a golden seal to stress its importance. This instrument, designed to improve the processes for electing future emperors, was immensely important to the formation of the core of 34  ‘The Declaration of Imperial Independence’, as reprinted in Laffan, R (ed) (1929) Select Historical Documents: 800–1492 (NYC, Holt) 149. 35  Holmes G (2000) Europe: Hierarchy and Revolt (London, Blackwell) 74–75, 203–04; Curtis, B (2013) The Habsburgs (London, Bloomsbury) 19–24. 36  Johnson, L (1996) Central Europe: Enemies, Neighbours, Friends (Oxford, Oxford University Press) 37.

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Germany as it was, in essence, its first constitution. It set out procedures designed to stop private war, and put forward, clearly, the premise that Germany was not a unitary State but rather a type of Concert (as in, a union formed by mutual communication) where imperial elections could be safely and clearly managed via the carefully drafted rights of the electors. This settled the question of the electoral body, formalising the rules for what became the Reichstag for the remaining years of the Empire. This was not a parliament in the modern sense, but rather an assembly of the various imperial estates of the realm. The aim of the Bull was to avoid disputed imperial elections by defining exactly who the electors were, and by setting out the process by which elections would be contested. Seven electors were named, and the process of election was set down as one whereby a ‘majority’ (that is, there was no need for consensus) of those electors could ‘elect a just, good, and suitable man as king of the Romans and future Caesar for the welfare of the Christian people’.37 Most notably, the pope was not part of an electoral process. Bohemia was given a special status in the confederation, whilst the Habsburgs were excluded from the exalted ranks of the prince-electors. It was a strictly German affair. In addition, each of the princes was given a series of rights over such matters as tax and the administration of justice. In essence, this made the electors sovereign within their dominions over most issues, but not war.38 (ii)  The Fragmentation of Empire and Church The problem for Charles was that from the mid-1370s, independent cities began to form themselves into leagues, of which the Hanseatic and Swabian Leagues were the most notable, which refused to accept that the seven electors held all the power ­exclusively between them, preferring to act independently, creating their own flags, diplomats, and treaty- and war-making abilities.39 Whilst the Hanseatic League did not oppose the king of Germany, the Swabian League of south-western Germany did. This League, comprising of 14 ­Swabian towns, resisted the emperor’s plans to tax it, which Charles saw as a declaration of war.

37  Art 2 of the Golden Bull of Emperor Charles IV, 1356, as reprinted in Webster, D (ed) (1969) ­ ocuments in Renaissance and Reformation History (Sydney, Cassell) 57. The seven electors were the Margrave D of Brandenburg, the Duke of Saxony, the King of Bohemia, the Count of Palatine and the Rhine, and the Archbishops of Mainz, Trier and Cologne. For discussion, see Stubbs, P (1908) Germany in the Later Middle Ages (London, Longmans) 128–32. 38  Tanner, J (ed) (1958) The Cambridge Medieval History: Decline of Empire and Papacy, Vol VII (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press) 43, 114–17, 144–46, 164–65, 196; Curtis, B (2013) The Habsburgs (London, Bloomsbury) 23–25. 39  The ‘Decrees of the Hanseatic League’ are reprinted in Laffan, R (ed) (1929) Select Historical Documents: 800–1492 (NYC, Holt) 132–33. For an example of their wars with their neighbours, see ‘The Peace of Stralsund, 1370’, from the 1367 war with Denmark, reprinted in the same volume at 158–59. For commentary, see Cheyney, E (1962) The Dawn of a New Era (NYC, Harper) 82–85; Gilmore, M (1952) The World of Humanism (NYC, Harper) 120–21; Holmes, G (2000). Europe: Hierarchy and Revolt (London, Blackwell) 6–7; Brooke, C (1987) Europe in the Central Middle Ages (London, Longview) 151–52; Mundy, J (1991) Europe in the High Middle Ages (London, Longman) 286–89.

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When battle occurred at Reutlingen in 1377, the Swabians were victorious. The Swabian League was then joined in its opposition to Charles IV by Franconia and Bavaria. The Swiss also began to fight for even greater independence from overlapping Austrian interests, clashing at the Battle of Sempach in 1386, at which an Austrian-Habsburg army of around 4,000 men was defeated, losing close to 1,000 men. A similar defeat occurred in 1388, when the Swiss forces destroyed a further 6,000 men under Habsburg command.40 (iii)  The Western Schism Pope Gregory XI decided to bring the papacy back from Avignon to Rome in 1377. Before this could be achieved, he realised that he had to return a semblance of stability to Italy, in pursuit of which interdicts, excommunications and Crusades were preached against Milan, Venice, Florence and even the senate of Rome, which for different reasons, all rejected the power and influence of the pope, arguing for their independence in terms of liberty and a resistance to tyranny.41 Although Gregory achieved many of his goals by threat or warfare, when he died in 1378, the Holy See fractured after the cardinals, who were not all present, elected an Italian pope, Urban VI. This pontiff alienated people to such an extent that a number of the French cardinals in Rome declared his election invalid, ‘as having being made, not freely, but under fear’42 of violence. In his place they voted again, and this time elected Clement VII, who promptly rewarded his supporters and took his supporters back to Avignon in France. Urban responded by appointing 27 new cardinals from all over Europe, thus destroying the wealth of the members of the existing college, who had moved back to Avignon.43 Antipopes were nothing new, but the present rivals had both been elected by the same cardinals, and though Pope Urban’s election had been unquestionably canonical, the manner of the challenge to his authority had been unprecedented, raising the critical question: Could popes be unmade by those who made them? Before this could be answered, religious communities in each country in western Europe, and ­European governments were left to choose between two popes, two colleges and all of their

40 

Curtis, B (2013) The Habsburgs (London, Bloomsbury) 26–27; Gabriel, R (2005) Empires at War, Vol III (NYC, Greenwood) 934–37; Stubbs, P (1908) Germany in the Later Middle Ages (London, Longmans) 84–85, 118–20, 150–51, 222–23. 41  Skinner, Q (1980) The Foundations of Modern Political Thought, Vol I (Cambridge, Cambridge ­University Press) 77–78, and note also at 6–7 and 100–08; Bouwsma, W (1984) Venice and the Defence of Republican Liberty (London, California University Press) 47–50, 78; Holmes, G (1997) Art and Politics in Renaissance Italy ­(London, British Academy) 25–29. 42 See the 1378 ‘Manifesto of the Revolting Cardinals’, as reprinted in Thatcher, O (ed) (1905) A ­Sourcebook for Medieval History (NYC, Scribner) 325. Also, Kelly, J (2010) The Oxford Dictionary of Popes (Oxford, Oxford University Press) 229. 43  Williman, D (2008) ‘Schism Within the Curia: The Twin Papal Elections of 1378’ The Journal of Ecclesiastical History 59 (1): 17–34.

184  The Fourteenth Century

respective successors. France, Burgundy, Naples and Scotland opted for Pope Clement; England, Germany, most of Italy and the countries of central Europe supported Pope Urban.44 ‘Crusades’ of a sort were declared against each other, although these had little significance outside of Italy. More significant bloodshed occurred in Rome, where opposing armies of mercenaries fought each other, following which Pope Clement had to flee to Naples. Due to her granting sanctuary to Clement, Queen Joanna of Naples was deposed by Pope Urban and assassinated. The next pope following Urban, Boniface IX, established full control over Rome in 1398, declaring himself undisputed master of the city and abolishing its republican independence by establishing the nomination of senators to be his right alone. He then found the money to fund a mercenary army to enter Naples in 1400, restoring the kingdom in obedience to Rome. Nonetheless, despite Pope Boniface’s military victory over Rome and Naples, the Antipope continued to reign in Avignon, and the Church was, without doubt, divided into two parts, in full schism.45

F.  Wenceslaus IV Following Charles IV’s death in 1378, the next ruler in Germany was Wenceslaus IV of Bohemia, Charles’s eldest son. He inherited all his father’s battles and the full schism of the Church. He waged war against Bavaria (despite both his wives being members of the Bavarian nobility), the Swabian League and the Swiss. He also oversaw the drafting of the 1379 Treaty of Neuberg, dividing up the Austrian hereditary lands of the ­Habsburgs. Despite his attempts to create a legal system applicable throughout Germany, to help bring peace to the region via agreed rulings on clear principles, all of his conflicts were indicative of a core that was failing. Despite his attempts to bring stability to Germany, it was his conflict with his own nobles in Bohemia that eventually led to his being dethroned, in 1400, due to his inability to end the continual fighting within Germany, the ongoing religious schism and his failure to appear before the Imperial Diet, which now clearly held all of the political power in Germany. For these failures, Wenceslaus IV was declared deposed on account of ‘futility, idleness, negligence and ignobility’.46

44  Blasi, J (1989) ‘Sociological Implications of the Great Western Schism’ Social Compass 36 (3) 311–27; Palmer, J (1968) ‘England and the Great Western Schism’ The English Historical Review 83 (123) 541–59. 45  Norwich, J (2011) Absolute Monarchs: A History of the Papacy (London, Random) 229; Holmes, G (2000) Europe: Hierarchy and Revolt (London, Blackwell) 130–40; Cheyney, E (1962) The Dawn of a New Era (NYC, Harper) 192–93; McKisack, M (1985) The Fourteenth Century (Oxford, Clarendon Press) 251, 282–83, 430; Jacob, E (1987) The Fifteenth Century (Oxford, Clarendon Press) 90–95, 236–38; Tanner, J (ed) (1958) The Cambridge Medieval History: Decline of Empire and Papacy, Vol VII (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press) 397–400, 451. 46  As quoted in Hay, D (1996) Europe in the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Centuries (London, Longman) 200. Also pages 63–64, 83–86, 137, 170–71, 221, 226–227, 300; The 1389 ‘Peace of Eger’ is reprinted in Thatcher, O (ed) (1905) A Sourcebook for Medieval History (NYC, Scribner) 399.

Central and Eastern Europe 185 3.  Central and Eastern Europe

A. Negotiated, Elected and Absolute Monarchy and Rising Superpowers One of the most important constitutional events in central Europe in the fourteenth century was the development of systems in which monarchs were not only elected but achieved power via a negotiated outcome. Although this was most obvious with the Golden Bull in Germany, it was also obvious in Poland, under the rule of Casimir III. Casimir III was most known for the treaties that had been signed with the Teutonic Order in 1347, in the Peace of Kalish, when, following eight years of conflict, of which Pomerania was confirmed as belonging to the Teutonic Order in return for the restoration of the province of Kujawia to the Polish crown. Any dynastic claims upon the Polish crown and territories, and similarly as regards Bohemia, were renounced.47 Despite creating such stability for Poland, Casimir III failed to produce a legitimate male heir. On his death, the nobles of Poland decided to offer the Polish throne to Louis, the son of Charles of Anjou, as Charles had been married to Elizabeth, a Polish noblewoman, thus making their son half Polish. This was agreed only after Louis promised the Polish nobles (as he had in Hungary, of which he was also king) greater degrees of autonomy, the protection of their traditional rights and the restoration of lands wrongfully taken by previous monarchs. However, like Casimir, Louis also produced no male heirs, although he did have a number of daughters by his second wife, also Elizabeth, a member of the Bosnian nobility. It was his youngest daughter, Jadwiga, who the Polish nobles decided should be elected queen of Poland, at the age of 10, on condition that the union with Hungary was abandoned.48 (i)  The Polish-Lithuanian Union After Jadwiga’s coronation in 1384, the next task was to find her a suitable husband, of which the Polish nobles settled upon the Lithuanian pagan, Jogalia. This marriage was the first link that joined the Kingdom of Poland and the Grand Duchy of Lithuania for the next 186 years. The choice of a partnership with Lithuania was partly based on the fact that Lithuania was becoming very powerful. In the west, Lithuanian princes had launched an attack on Poland, of which King Casimir of Poland and King Louis of Hungary responded with the backing of a Crusade, which lead to a decisive defeat for the Lithuanians in 1354. To the east, the Lithuanians continued to expand their territory, sequestrating lands previously occupied by the Mongols but which were originally Rus, pushing forward to the shores of the Black Sea and Red Ruthenia. In 1362,

47  Davies, N (2005) God’s Playground: A History of Poland, Vol I (Oxford, Oxford University Press) 60, 77–78, 83, 88, 90–92; Urban, W (2003) The Teutonic Knights (London, Greenhill) 95–100, 108–10, 113–19. 48  Johnson, L (1996) Central Europe: Enemies, Neighbours, Friends (Oxford, Oxford University Press) 46–47.

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at the Battle of the Blue Water, at the bend of the River Dnieper, Mongolian power in the region was broken for good. This allowed the Lithuanian armies to occupy the principality of Kiev and much of the western Pontic Steppe. At this point, there was no autonomous Russia to contend with. Although Novgorod possessed a fair degree of autonomy, it still paid tribute to the Mongols. This was different to Moscow, which had only limited autonomy, being more under the yoke of Mongols. Nonetheless, Moscow had tripled in size over the 12th and 13th centuries, and that trajectory was continuing under its rising star, Dmitry Donskoy, who was slowly conquering his smaller Rus neighbours. Nonetheless, Moscow’s power was less than both the Mongols or Lithuania, with the latter, advancing as far as Moscow in 1371. The Lithuanian retreat from Moscow was only guaranteed through the 1372 Treaty of Lyubutsk, which suited the Lithuanians, who had lost momentum due to their own dynastic and civil war, in which both the Rus and the Mongols had intervened. In the end, Jogalia triumphed over his brother. Despite the victories, Jogalia could see the building waves of Catholicism on his western borders with the Teutonic powers, who were making great inroads into Lithuania after being invited into the country by one side or the other during the civil wars, via treaties in exchange for both territory and conversions, in 1380 and 1384. Facing these concerns, Jogalia opted to accept the marriage to Jadwiga, hoping to control the process of change rather than have it forced upon him, and to find peace and a very strong union to their mutual advantage at the same time.49 The contract for the wedding of Jogalia of Lithuania and Jadwiga of Poland contained many terms. In terms of political power, the Lithuanian dukes were in charge of Lithuanian affairs, whilst Poland reserved rights as overlord. Thousands of slaves who were of Polish citizenship were repatriated. As regards religion, Jogalia had to accept baptism before the wedding, ensure the conversion of all of his subjects, and agree that he would ‘support the Catholic faith of the Holy Roman church and seek and desire to extend it’.50 With this change of faith, peace and support for Jogalia by the Teutonic Order followed, as attested to by the peace treaties of 1398 and 1404. (ii) Moscow The peace between Lithuania and Moscow had implications for both parties. For Moscow, it allowed Dmitry Donskoy to focus on the greater enemy that had subdued Russia for the previous 190 years—the Mongols. This made Dmitry unique, the first Prince of Moscow to directly challenge Mongol authority in Russia when, in 1380,

49  Rowell, S (1996) ‘Lithuanians at Western Courts: 1316–1400’ The English Historical Review 111 (442): 557–577; Davies, N (2005) God’s Playground: A History of Poland, Vol I (Oxford, Oxford University Press) 135; Sawyer, P (1997) Medieval Scandinavia (London, Minnesota University Press) 66–67; Moss, W (2005) A History of Russia (London, Anthem) 65; Urban, W (2003) The Teutonic Knights (London, Greenhill) 184–90. 50  The 1385 ‘Declaration Concerning the Union of Poland and Lithuania’, as reprinted in Vernadsky, G (ed) (1972) A Sourcebook for Russian History, Vol I (London, Yale University Press) 91; Johnson, L (1996) Central Europe: Enemies, Neighbours, Friends (Oxford, Oxford University Press) 43, 49–50, 283.

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he fought the Mongol Khan, Mamai, who wished to punish Dmitry for becoming too powerful. Dmitry, infused with a view that his power was provided directly from God, at the head of 55,000 men from all over Russia (except Novgorod and Tver), addressed his army with the following rousing words: ‘Let us go against this accursed, godless, impious, and dastardly eater of uncooked flesh, for the Orthodox Christian faith, and the holy churches and for all Christians.’51 Dmitry then found victory on the field against a numerically superior force of 70,000 men. When the Mongol Khan was toppled via an internal coup, Dmitry pledged his loyalty to the new Khan of the Golden Horde, Tokhtamysh. Dmitry then resumed payments of tribute, yielded hostages and stamped coins with the name of the Khan and the prayer, ‘long may he live’. Unsatisfied with these acts, in 1382 Tokhtamysh advanced on Moscow, besieging and then sacking the city, killing over 20,000, to demonstrate that his power was still supreme. Despite this cost, Dmitry had shown that the Mongols could be beaten. Moreover, although he went back to being their vassal, he decided that he would bequeath his patrimony without the oversight or agreement of others, to one son, Vasili I ­Dmitriyevich, as opposed to fragmenting it between many of his sons.52 Vasili I Dmitriyevich made peace with Lithuania in 1392. Vasili, who had recently defeated Novgorod and made Moscow the dominant power amongst the Rus, married Sophia, the daughter of Vytautas (the ruler of Lithuania, under the lordship of Jogalia). This relationship meant that when Timur/Tamerlane appeared on the horizon in 1395, a combined force of Rus, Poles, Lithuanians and Hungarians, and even some of the Golden Horde (who were Timur’s principal target), who were now all at peace with one other, advanced to meet him—and all were destroyed by Timur in the process.53

4. England and her Neighbours

A.  The Last Years of Edward I and Philip IV Philip IV had 14 years of life left in the fourteenth century. Edward, had just seven. The two men had similar struggles in these years. Both men had troubles with the papacy, areas on their borders (Scotland for Edward, and Flanders for Philip), and both men decided it was better to make peace between themselves, so they could concentrate

51  Dmitry, from the 1380 Voskresensk Chronicle, as reprinted in Vernadsky, G (ed) (1972) A Sourcebook for ­Russian History, Vol I (London, Yale University Press) 55. 52  The 1389 ‘Will of Dimitri’, as as reprinted in Vernadsky, G (ed). A Sourcebook for Russian History, Vol I (London, Yale University Press) 57; Kaiser, D (ed) (1994) Reinterpreting Russian History (Oxford, Oxford University Press) 87, 103; Pavlov, A (2003) Ivan the Terrible (London, Pearson) 18; Cheyney, E (1962) The Dawn of a New Era (NYC, Harper) 305; Grant, R (2005) Battle: 5000 Years of Combat (London, Dorling Kindersley) 121. 53  See pages 224–227. Grousset, R (2010) The Empire of the Steppes (Atlantic City, Rutgers U ­ niversity Press) 407, 468–71; Tanner, J (ed) (1958) The Cambridge Medieval History: Decline of Empire and Papacy, Vol VI ­(Cambridge, Cambridge University Press) 266, 629; Urban W (2003) The Teutonic Knights (London, ­Greenhill) 160–65, 185–94.

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on their other enemies, and in the case of the Templars and Philip, take advantage of ­situations which could benefit them directly. (i)  The Estates General Of the two kings, it had been Philip who went head-to-head with Pope Boniface.54 The foremost constitutional development that evolved out of this competition for France was the formation of the Estates General. This occurred after Philip IV imprisoned a bishop whom Boniface had appointed without consulting the king. Realising the storm that was facing him, Philip had his own French theologians examine the issues, whilst also calling together the first meeting of the Estates General (all three Estates) of France in 1302. Prior to this call, although the French crown consulted with the First Estate (clergy) and sometimes, the Second Estate (nobility) ­representatives of the communes or commons had only been listened to rarely. Philip’s battle with Boniface changed history by calling for a meeting with the First, Second and Third Estate, with the latter made up of two or three of their ‘more substantial and experienced’ representatives from some 228 towns. The Estates General were then all brought together in Paris, ‘to treat and deliberate concerning several difficult matters … with the prelates, barons and other lieges and subjects of his realm’.55 The foremost matter they had to discuss was whether the king of France was subject to the pope, or God. This first Estates General agreed that the king was subject to God alone.56 (ii)  Scotland and Flanders After a prolonged period of negotiation and conflict, Edward III entered into the new century with a one-year truce with Scotland.57 This was only partially effective, as a number of Scots refused to accept it and skirmishing continued in some areas. This was a completely different scale to what Philip IV had to deal with in his war in Flanders. Flanders was part of a disputed piece of territory between France and the Holy Roman Empire. It was doubly complicated by a type of class-conflict in which farmers refused to pay the tithe required by the nobles, and the local gentry and artisans rallied in defence of a type of local democracy and displayed a spirit of nationalism. The ensuing struggles were very violent, beginning in 1302, when an attack by the Flemish militia in Bruges left over 1,000 Frenchmen dead. Philip IV swore

54 

See pages 171–174. the ‘Grand Chronicles of France’, as reprinted in Rosenwein, B (ed) (2006) Reading the Middle Ages: Sources from Europe, Byzantium and the Islamic World (Ontario, Broadview) 459; Tanner, J (ed) (1958) The ­Cambridge Medieval History: Decline of Empire and Papacy, Vol VII (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press) 11, 90, 315–16, 326–27, 407–08, 684–86. 56  Cheyney, E (1962) The Dawn of a New Era (NYC, Harper) 84–85, 118–20, 178–79; Bisson, T (1973) Medieval Representative Institutions (Chicago, Dryden Press) 54–57, 64–69, 105–111; MacKinnon, J (1906) A History of Modern Liberty, Vol I (London, Longmans) 104–05. 57  See pages 137–138. 55  See

England and her Neighbours 189

vengeance on this ‘rabble of artisans’, but at the Battle of Courtrai that followed, a French army of some 8,000 men was defeated by an army of 9,000 Flemings, leaving at least 1,000 Frenchmen dead.58 (iii)  The Treaty of Paris With war in Flanders occupying all his time and resources, Philip IV had no wish to deal with the simmering conflict with England. A new peace was found in the Treaty of Paris of 1303. With this, Gascony, Ponthieu and Aquitaine were restored to Edward I, with homage owed to the French crown. The glue of the Treaty of Paris was found in bringing the two crowns together, with the marriage (in 1308) of Edward’s son (later Edward II) to Philip’s daughter (Isabella). This marriage would make King Edward II son-in-law to Philip IV and brother-in-law to the next three kings of France. It would also mean that following the death of Philip IV, with three of his sons who ruled for short periods on the throne of France, and each failing to produce a male heir who survived, that the two male children Isabella and Edward II produced had a great interest in their rights to the French crown, and thus the seeds for the Hundred Years War were sown.59 (iv)  Scotland and Flanders Again Following the Treaty of Paris, Philip and Edward could get back to their other business of subduing unruly neighbours. In the case of Flanders, in 1304, Philip defeated a numerically superior army at Mons-en-Pevele. The resultant Treaty of Athis-sur-Orge of 1305 recognised a pseudo-Flemish independence, but at a huge cost. The cities of Lille, Douai and Bethune were transferred to France, a massive fine was made payable to Philip and the Flemish fortifications were destroyed.60 In the case of Scotland for Edward, the most obvious concern for the Scots now that their truce with the English had ended, was the omission of any mention of them in the peace treaty between France with England, despite their being allies with the French. This allowed Edward to pursue the Scots, after which, Stirling Castle fell to Edward in 1304. The following year, William Wallace was captured (possibly whilst under safe conduct) by the English, taken to London, and then hanged, drawn and quartered as a traitor. A further understanding was then agreed with England, in which, although a

58 Cohn, M (2012) ‘The Modernity of Medieval Popular Revolt’ History Compass 10 (10): 731–741; ­ olmes, G (2000) Europe: Hierarchy and Revolt (London, Blackwell) 8–9, 17; Grant, R (2005) Battle: 5000 Years H of Combat (London, Dorling Kindersley) 118. 59 Brown, E (1988). ‘The Political Repercussions of Family Ties in the Early Fourteenth Century: The Marriage of Edward II of England and Isabelle of France’ Speculum 63 (3): 124–38; Brown, E (1989) ‘The Marriage of Edward II of England and Isabelle of France’ Speculum 64 (2): 77–85. 60  Dumolyn, J (2000) ‘The Legal Repression of Revolts in Late Medieval Flanders’ Journal of Legal ­History 68 (4); 479–518; Tanner, J (ed) (1958) The Cambridge Medieval History: Decline of Empire and Papacy, Vol VII (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press) 86–87, 305–06, 428–29; Grant, R (2005) Battle: 5000 Years of Combat (London, Dorling Kindersley) 118.

190  The Fourteenth Century

Scottish council was to rule, Scotland was to remain a subject, not independent, land. However, matters could not settle, as the following year Robert the Bruce, grandson of the Robert Bruce who had contended for the throne of Scotland with John Balliol in 1290, killed his primary rival for the Scottish throne, John Comyn (for which he was excommunicated). Edward saw this as a blatant act of treason, especially as R ­ obert the Bruce had started to wage guerilla warfare against the English crown and the Scottish nobles who opposed him. When, in 1306, Robert the Bruce had himself crowned Robert I of Scotland, Edward I set out to put an end to this latest upstart, yet he never reached his goal. In July 1307, Edward died whilst on his way north.61 (v)  The End of the Templars The last act of note in the time of these two kings, was the destruction of the Templars, although this was much more at the direction of Philip than Edward. The Knights Templar had been formed independently of any sovereign powers, soon after the conquest of Jerusalem in 1099, with the purpose of protecting pilgrims on their way to the Holy Land and living within their pledges of chastity, obedience and poverty. Within 30 years, they were an institution, supported by kings and the papacy alike, who granted the Templars privileges and immunities, such as not having to pay tax, whilst nobles and the public bequeathed large amounts of property and resources to them. They were known for their exceptional bravery in the Holy Land over a 200-year period, as well as for their exceptional wealth. By 1250, they were thought to possess some 9,000 landed properties in Paris and London alone, and provided loans to kings all over Europe.62 Despite their proud history and the Templars’ contemporary economic importance, when Western forces were ejected from the Holy Land at the end of the thirteenth century, a number of kings, particularly in England and France, began to eye their assets and question why the Order was still required. Philip IV was in particular need of funds, having already run into trouble with Italian and Jewish bankers (and which the French kings following him would worsen, with further expulsions from France of Jewish communities).63 Philip persuaded Pope Clement V to agree to an inquisition in 1306, to examine accusations of heresy made against the Order. Clement, who was still busy trying to rebuild positive relations with France after the problems Pope Boniface had caused,64 obliged, and the following year, with his bull Pastoralis praeminentiae, ordered all Christian 61  Morris, M (2009) Edward I: A Great and Terrible King (Croydon, Windmill) 109–10, 228, 265–66, 344; Stones, E (1965) ‘An Undelivered Letter from Paris to Scotland’. The English Historical Review 80 (314) 86–88; Powicke, M (1962) The Thirteenth Century (Oxford, Clarendon) 128, 695–703. 62 See the 1119, ‘Origin of the Templars’, as reprinted in Thatcher, O (ed) (1905) A Sourcebook for Medieval History (NYC, Scribner) 492–95; Addison, C (2012) The History of the Knights Templar (NYC, Skyhorse) 3–10; Menache, S (1993) ‘The Templar Order: A Failed Ideal?’ The Catholic Historical Review 79 (1): 1–21. 63  See Brown, E (1991) ‘Philip V, Charles IV and the Jews of France: The Alleged Expulsion of 1322’ Speculum 66 (2): 294–329. 64  See pages 171–173.

England and her Neighbours 191

monarchs in Europe to arrest all Knights Templar and seize their assets, threatening excommunication to anyone who helped them. The inquisition procedure, set out in the bull Faciens miscericordiam (‘granting forgiveness’), was carried out most strongly in France, where some 15,000 members of the Order were arrested. It was applied to a lesser degree in England, although, to assist the process, torture of the members of the Order was permitted in both countries. Under such duress, a large number of Templars confessed to, inter alia, insulting Jesus on the cross, sacrificing to idols, trampling on the cross, homosexuality and ‘worshipping a cat which was placed in the midst of the congregation’.65 When the Templars who had been tortured recanted their confessions in France, they were tried as relapsed heretics and burned at the stake. One hundred and thirteen men were incinerated in Paris alone, with more being slaughtered in other French cities. In England, the worst offenders died in jail. The Order was abolished by Pope Clement V in 1312 at the Council of Vienne, with his bull, Vox in excelso (‘a voice from on high’). Although the Order was found innocent in Aragon, Portugal and Germany, Templar property, via three separate bulls, was distributed to the Knights Hospitallers. The same process occurred in England. In France, most of the Templar property was absorbed into the Royal coffers.66

B.  Edward II (i)  Piers Gaveston Edward II was the son of Edward I and Eleanor of Castile. He reigned from 1308 until he was deposed in early 1327. As noted above, as part of the 1303 Treaty of Paris, he was married to Isabella, the daughter of the French king, Philip IV. When he was crowned king of England, Edward II promised to uphold the ‘laws, customs, and liberties granted to the clergy and people’ by his father, Edward I.67 The problem was that Edward II was under the strong influence of others, namely Piers Gaveston who was either a friend and/or lover in the first decades of the fourteenth century, and later the Despensers (the elder and the younger) in the second decade, who were his advisors. Whilst Edward I was alive, he was highly critical of his son, after he (Prince Edward) had sought the earldom of the County of Ponthieu, for

65  Addison, C (2012) The History of the Knights Templar (NYC, Skyhorse) 43, 138, 146–47, 163, 182–87 148; Gilmour, A (2000) ‘The Templar Trials: Did the System Work?’ The Medieval History Journal 3 (1): 41–65. 66  For the exact charges, see ‘The Suppression of the Templars of 1312’ as reprinted in Laffan, R (ed) (1929) Select Historical Documents: 800–1492 (NYC, Holt) 185–87. For England, see the 1324 ‘Statute ­Concerning the Lands of the Templars’, as reprinted in Adams, G (ed) (1947) Select Documents of English Constitutional History (London, Macmillan) 98; Thery, J (2013) ‘Philip the Fair, the Trial of the “Perfidious Templars” and the Pontification of the French Monarchy’ Journal of Medieval Religious Cultures 39 (2): 117–48. 67 Coronation of Edward II, as in Baker, D (ed) (1982) England in the Later Middle Ages (London, Academica) 28.

192  The Fourteenth Century

his favourite, Gaveston. Infuriated, Edward I demanded, ‘You baseborn whoreson, do you want to give away lands now, you who never gained any?’68 Although Gaveston had been banished by Edward I in 1307, within five months of the death of Edward I, Gaveston returned, to be made the Earl of Cornwall. At this point, because of Gaveston’s continuing undue influence over the young king, a group of English magnates signed the Boulogne Agreement in 1308 (before Edward II was crowned) and then proclaimed the Declaration of 1308 (after he was crowned). These documents asserted the duty of the signatories to guard the rights of the crown (as opposed to the person of the king). As part of this process, Gaveston had to be exiled again, to which Edward agreed.69 Two years later, in 1310, these increasingly pressing concerns found their way into Parliament, which demanded that ‘twelve discreet and powerful men of good reputation should be elected, by whose judgment and decree the situation should be reformed and settled’. The reform agreed upon was set out in the Ordinances of 1311. This document recorded that, due to the English held lands in France, Ireland and Scotland being close to being lost, and large parts of the realm of England being on the ‘verge of rebellion’, the king should commit himself to full respect for the Magna Carta and ‘the king shall neither go out of the kingdom nor undertake an act of war against anyone without the common assent of his … parliament’. Parliament was to be held once or, if needed, twice per year, in a convenient spot, so that cases might be heard in which the king was involved, and petitions considered. These petitions, which could be based on appeals from citizens, could become the law of the land if accepted by Parliament and the king. Lastly, it was added that the ‘evil counsellor’ Gaveston (who had reappeared in England, and was now blamed for much of the discord in the realm of Edward II) was to be removed from England once more. When Gaveston, responding to a call from Edward II to secretly return to England, was captured by the Earl of Warwick, he was executed in 1312 under the authority of the Earl of Lancaster—the king’s cousin. Gaveston was killed for breaching the terms of the Ordinances, although his arrogance and ill-concealed contempt for the nobility undoubtedly played their part in his demise.70 (ii)  Robert the Bruce To the north, the Scots were consolidating their resistance to the English rule that Edward I had imposed upon them. In 1309, Robert the Bruce held his first parliament at St Andrews, and the following year the Scots clergy recognised him as king in 68  Edward I to the future Edward II, as noted in Cohen, M (ed) (2004) History in Quotations (London, Cassell) 244. 69 Hamilton, D (1992) ‘Piers Gaveston’ The English Historical Review 107 (423) 447–62; Hamilton, D (1991) ‘Piers Gaveston and the Royal Treasure’ Albion: A Quarterly Journal Concerned with British Studies 23 (2): 201–07. 70  The Ordinances of 1311, as reprinted in Baker, D (ed) (1982) England in the Later Middle Ages (London, Academica) 30–37; McKisack, M (1985) The Fourteenth Century (Oxford, Clarendon Press) 6–7; Phillips, J (1972) Aymer de Valence, Earl of Pembroke 1307–1324 (Oxford, Oxford University Press) 316.

England and her Neighbours 193

defiance of his papal excommunication, as a ‘faithful leader, with divine sanction … [who has] saved Scotland from the brink of total ruin’.71 The following year, he began to use military force to push the English forces out of Scotland, resulting in the fall of the English-held castle at Linlithgow in 1311. The Scots then took Roxburgh and Edinburgh in 1313. When they turned their attention to Stirling in 1314, Edward tried to raise an army to save the besieged castle. With the begrudging consent of his Parliament, Edward crossed the border with about 50,000 men. The Scottish army, led by Bruce, probably half the size of that dispatched by Edward but twice as motivated and with better tactics, met the English at Bannockburn. King Robert warned his soldiers that the English were ‘bent on destroying me and obliterating … our whole nation’.72 This motivation of Robert the Bruce at Bannockburn was successful. The English were routed and Edward II fled the field after seeing 11,000 men killed before his eyes. The Scots pursued him all the way back over the border, and then advanced down through the north of England, into the heart of Yorkshire and Lancashire. The following year, the Scottish Parliament created a problem that would later come back to haunt them, when it ‘disinherited’ all those Scotsmen who had not come ‘in faith and peace’ to support the Scottish king, preferring to fight for Edward. These men were ‘deprived of all hereditable right or any other right for themselves, or their heirs, forever’.73 As Robert the Bruce was securing his grip within Scotland, and following his second marriage to Elizabeth de Burgh, the daughter of one of most powerful Irish nobles of the period, he sent his brother Edward the Bruce and 6,000 men into Ireland, hoping to form a united front, through a shared Gaelic heritage, against English rule there. The Bruces’ promised to remove the English and restore the ancient Irish kingdoms. These promises were made at a time when English control over Ireland was tenuous. When the forces of Edward the Bruce landed, they found success in Ulster (his wife’s homeland) and marched through the Irish midlands as far as Limerick, gathering up local support as they progressed. In 1317 a contingent of Irish princes made a remonstrance to Pope John XXII, explaining why they were rebelling against the English king. Thus: From the time when in consequence of that grant [for the rule of Ireland from Pope Adrian to Henry] the English iniquitously but with some show of religion entered within the limits of our kingdom, they have striven with all their might and with every treacherous artifice in their power, to wipe our nation out entirely and utterly to extirpate it. … they have driven us

71  The 1309 ‘Declaration of the Clergy in Favour of Robert the Bruce’, as reprinted in Dickinson, W (ed) (1958) A Sourcebook of Scottish History, Vol I (London, Nelson) 124. 72  Robert the Bruce, ‘Speech to his Followers Before Bannockburn’, as reprinted in Cohen, M (ed) (2004) History in Quotations (London, Cassell) 247; Cornell, D (2008) ‘A Kingdom Cleared of Castles: The ­Campaigns of Robert Bruce’ The Scottish Historical Review 87 (224): 237–58. 73  The 1314 ‘Statute of Cambuskenneth’, as reprinted in Dickinson, W (ed) (1958) A Sourcebook of S ­ cottish History, Vol I (London, Nelson) 126–27; Tout, T (1920) ‘The Battle of Bannockburn’ History 5: 37–40; Grant, R (2005) Battle: 5000 Years of Combat (London, Dorling Kindersley) 111.

194  The Fourteenth Century by force from the spacious places where we dwelt and from the inheritance of our fathers … [they have] … departed altogether from the terms of the grant … we are striving to save our lives and defending as we can the rights of our law and liberty against cruel tyrants and usurpers … the king of England and his predecessors have wholly failed to exhibit orderly government … for this reason we are forced to attack that king … we do nothing unlawful … As it is free to anyone to renounce his right and transfer it to another, … [and] the king of England has utterly failed, we have unanimously established Edward Bruce as our king and lord.74

Despite such rhetoric, the Scots and their Irish supporters could not take well-defended areas like Dublin, and in 1318 Edward the Bruce was slain at the Battle of Faughart and his army of 10,000 men was broken, allowing the English nobles who were still loyal to Edward II to reclaim much of what Edward Bruce had acquired in Ireland.75 Despite Bruce’s defeats in Ireland, Edward II realised that he needed time and space to consolidate his position. Although the Scots and the English agreed to a three-year truce at the end of 1318, the English began a diplomatic campaign in Europe against the legitimacy of the regime of the excommunicated Scottish king.76 The Scots responded with the Declaration of Arbroath, a copy of which was sent to the pope in 1320. The Declaration was a firm response, intended to show that Scottish defiance of the claims of Edward II represented the united will of an entire people and not just the work of an excommunicated leader. The Declaration of Arbroath began by recounting Scotland’s history as a free and peaceful kingdom, which the English king had attacked with ‘deeds of cruelty, massacre, violence, pillage, arson, imprisoning prelates, burning down monasteries, robbing and killing monks and nuns, and yet other outrages without number which he committed against our people, sparing neither age nor sex, religion nor rank’. It then noted that the Scots had been ‘set free’ by Robert the Bruce, who had driven out the enemy and would continue to do so. Most famously, the Declaration emphasised, ‘it is in truth not for glory, nor riches, nor honors that we are fighting, but for freedom—for that alone, which no honest man gives up but with life itself ’. Accordingly, it requested the pope to ‘admonish and exhort the king of the English … to leave us Scots in peace’.77 Peace was not found, as when the truce came to an end, the Scots swarmed over the border and ravaged north-west England down to Preston. Edward attempted to retaliate, but the Scots refused to give battle, evading his forces and advancing into Yorkshire. It was obvious to all that the only option available for Edward was to obtain another truce, this time for 13 years, as agreed at Bishopthorpe in 1323.

74  The 1317, ‘Remonstrance of the Irish Princes to Pope John XXII’, as reprinted in Curtis, E (ed) (1943) Irish Historical Documents 1172–1922 (London, Methuen) 38–46. 75  Hartland, B (2007) ‘English Lords in the Late Thirteenth and Early Fourteenth Century in Ireland’ The English Historical Review 122 (496) 318–48. 76  Bombi, B (2012) ‘The Roman Rolls of Edward II as a Source of Administrative and Diplomatic Practice of the Early Fourteenth Century’ Historical Research 85 (230): 597–620. 77 The 1320 ‘Letter of the Scottish Barons to the Pope/Declaration of Arbroath’, as reprinted in ­Dickinson, W (ed) (1958) A Sourcebook of Scottish History, Vol I (London, Nelson) 131–33; Brown, M (2006) ‘The Declaration of Arbroath: History, Significance and Setting’ The Scottish Historical Review 85(1): 76.

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(iii)  The Salic Law The other part of his realm that Edward II had trouble in was France where some particularly troublesome nobles under his authority skirmished with the French locals on their border. Edward II then failed to appear in Paris, as demanded by the French king, Philip V, to explain the situation, consistent with the practice of homage set down in the Treaty of Paris for these areas under Edward’s control. Philip V, the brother-in-law of Edward, responded to this failure by declaring Guyenne and Ponthieu confiscate, leading to them being quickly overrun by French soldiers in 1318. This confiscation followed the third national assembly in French history in 1317, at which the Estates General, established the principle that women would be excluded from succession to the French throne. Claude de Seyssel would later explain that this law, known as ‘salic law’, was designed to protect France: [F]or falling into the female line, it comes into the hands and powers of men of foreign nations which is a pernicious and dangerous thing, considering that he who comes from a foreign nation is of other nurture, custom and language … he comes to dominate.78

Despite this set back, in 1321 Edward II finally crossed the Channel to pay homage to Philip V, his brother-in-law, for Gascony and Aquitaine. When Philip V died and was replaced by his brother, Charles IV, Edward returned to France, again swearing allegiance to the king of France for these territories he held on the Continent. What Edward did not know, was that Charles, under the Treaty of Corbeil of 1326, had reinvigorated the French alliance with the Scots, whereby on matters of peace and war against England, ‘the kings of France will aid and counsel the kings of Scotland to the best of their power as loyal allies’.79 (iv)  Edward II Assumes Absolute Power Edward II had ended up in the situation with Scotland and France, in part, because his attention was diverted over the threat of civil war in England. A potential conflict was only avoided in 1318 with the Treaty of Leake, with the establishment of a permanent royal council of 16 (eight bishops, four earls and four barons) without whose advice the king could not exercise authority—if Parliament could not be assembled in time. Edward, once again, promised to observe the Ordinances of 1311. Pardon for the Earl of Lancaster and his friends for all trespasses against the king was also agreed, as was an apology by them, to the king, for their behaviour, which had involved the execution of Gaveston.80 78  Claude de Seyssel, On the French Monarchy, as reprinted in Webster, D (ed) (1969) Documents in R ­ enaissance and Reformation History (Sydney, Cassell) 92; Lyon, A (2006) ‘The Place of Women in European Royal ­Succession in the Middle Ages’ Liverpool Law Review 27: 361–93. 79  The 1326 ‘Treaty of Corbeuil’, as reprinted in Dickinson, W (ed) (1958) A Sourcebook of Scottish History Vol I (London, Nelson) 135. 80  McKisack, M (1985) The Fourteenth Century (Oxford, Clarendon Press) 24–29, 85, 92–96; Tanner, J (ed) The Cambridge Medieval History: Decline of Empire and Papacy, Vol VII (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1958) 414–19.

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The peace hoped for with the 1318 Treaty of Leake did not hold. A new favourite of Edward II, Hugh Despenser, had worked his way into the Royal household, and found his efforts rewarded from Edward, including, the gifting of some lands from others. The lands in question belonged to Roger Mortimer, for which Mortimer and some of the nobles such as the Earl of Lancaster rose up against Edward in 1321 by invading the lands gifted to the Despenser, after the king tried to stop meetings of barons and forbade them to discuss certain issues. Some of the barons responded by invading the Despenser estates, tipping England into a civil war. For the sake of peace, Edward II, agreed that the Despensers should be exiled and that Parliament should be superior in decision making. This commitment by the king to the superiority of Parliament satisfied some of the rebels, and their alliance against the king began to fragment. Roger Mortimer swapped sides to fight for the king, and the Earl of Lancaster was captured after losing the battle of Boroughbridge in 1322, when his 1,000 men were defeated by a royal force that was at least four times larger. The Earl of Lancaster was then executed for rebellion, after being brought to trial but not being allowed to speak in his own defence. He was the greatest nobleman to have been executed in England since the Norman invasion.81 Thereafter, Edward took power, with no intention of honouring his earlier promises. He ordered the Ordinances to be revoked as these were ‘blemishing his royal sovereignty’ and had been the cause of much ‘trouble and wars’. They were declared to have lost all ‘name, force and virtue’.82 Edward then ensured the return of the Despensers, ­executing the remaining leading rebels and confiscating their lands. The king was now absolute in his ruling, riding roughshod over Parliaments and councils alike, causing many, including Roger Mortimer, to flee to France.83 (v)  The End of Edward II Charles IV, the king of France, gave sanctuary to Roger Mortimer. He also welcomed his sister, Isabella, the queen of England who had left her husband Edward II on the other side of the Channel in 1325 to spend time in France with her brother, Charles IV. She refused to return to Edward’s court as long as Hugh Despenser was there. Roger Mortimer and Isabella became romantically involved when they were both in Paris. Charles, seeing the chance to help his sister and further his own ambitions, allowed Isabella and Mortimer to build a small army. This force of perhaps 700 men arrived in England in 1326. Isabella defined the goal of the invasion as the protection of the realm and the removal of Hugh Despenser. The English king could not raise adequate forces to counter Isabella’s army, so he and the younger Despenser attempted to flee to

81  Saul, N (1984) ‘The Despensers and the Downfall of Edward II’ The English Historical Review 99 (390): 1–33. 82 ‘Revocation of the Ordinances of 1322’, as reprinted in Adams, G (ed) (1947) Select Documents of  ­English Constitutional History (London, Macmillan) 96–97; Mackinnon J (1906) A History of Modern Liberty, Vol I (London, Longmans) 280–81. 83  Martyn, L (2008) ‘Edward II and the Earldom of Winchester’ Historical Research 81 (214): 732–40.

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Ireland, after his father, the elder Despenser was captured and immediately beheaded. Isabella used Edward’s attempt to flee as an excuse for saying that, since the king had tried to exit the realm, their son—the future Edward III—should take control of the government. After recognising the losses of power of Edward II in Scotland, Ireland and France, the Articles of Accusation from the revolutionary Parliament against the king of England of 1327 stated: First, because the king is incompetent to govern in person. For throughout his reign he has been controlled and governed by others who have given him evil council … without his being willing to see or understand what is good or evil … Two, … he has not been willing to listen to good counsel … Three, through the lack of good government he has lost the realm of Scotland and other territories and lordships in Gascony and Ireland … and he has lost the friendship of the king of France … Six, he has stripped his realm, and done all that he could to ruin his realm and his people.84

Although the charges were clear, the solution was not. The constitution had no rule for deposing a worthless king. The Parliament acted with the best legality it could imagine, with both Parliament and the Archbishop of Canterbury agreeing that it would be best to place the power of Edward II into the hands of his son, Prince Edward, a 14-yearold boy whilst Queen Isabella acted as his regent. Whilst this was happening, Mortimer rose in power as the de-facto ruler of England, and Hugh Despenser was charged with robbery, treason (including breaching the Magna Carta and the Ordinances of 1311) and crimes against the Church. For this, he was hanged, drawn, quartered and beheaded. Meanwhile, Edward II was imprisoned. When he tried to escape, he was recaptured, and within two weeks it was announced that he was dead.85 (vi)  Isabella and Mortimer With Edward II out of the way, Isabella, in the name of her son, the future Edward III, concluded two matters to the direct benefit of their supporters. First, the army of Robert the Bruce attacked against Norwich in 1327, almost as soon as Isabella and Mortimer had taken power. Although breaching the truce agreed in 1323, the Bruce saw this as his chance to win a definitive peace treaty with the English. This goal was achieved with the Treaty of Edinburgh-Northampton in 1328. In this treaty, the claim of English overlordship over Scotland was given up for £20,000. In return for this, the English promised to leave Scotland: [W]hole, free and undisturbed in perpetuity, without any kind of subjection, service claim or demand. … [W]e cancel wholly and utterly all obligations, conventions and compacts 84  The Articles of Accusation Against Edward II, as reprinted in Baker, D (ed) (1982) England in the Later Middle Ages (London, Academica) 38; King, A (2015) ‘False Traitors or Worthy Knights? Treason and Rebellion Against Edward II’ Historical Research 88 (239) 34–47 85  Hamilton, J (2008) ‘The Uncertain Death of Edward II? ‘History Compass 6 (5): 1264–78; Mortimer, I (2005) ‘The Death of Edward II in Berkeley Castle’ The English Historical Review 120 (489): 1175–1214; Westerhof, D (2007) ‘Deconstructing Identities on the Scaffold: The Execution of Hugh Dispenser, the Younger’ Journal of Medieval History 33 (1): 87–106.

198  The Fourteenth Century ­ ndertaken in whatsoever manner with our predecessors … concerning the subjection of the u realm of Scotland and its inhabitants.86

Thus Scotland was recognised as a sovereign kingdom, ruled over by Bruce and his heirs, and marked by the border as it had been agreed in the time of Alexander III. All obligations or treaties implying any subjection to England were cancelled, and the ­English lawsuits against the Bruce regime would be dropped. The ­‘Disinherited’—those Scots (especially the Balliol family) who had lost their lands and privileges to the Bruces—were also to be abandoned and not given political or military support by the English Crown. The younger sister of Edward III, Joan, was married to Robert the Bruce’s son, David. Finally, a defensive alliance against all enemies (except France) was agreed. Overlapping with such recognition, and with English acceptance, the excommunication of the Bruce was lifted soon after, thus ending the main diplomatic weapon that could be used against the Scottish king. A papal anointing and crowning of the Scottish king as an independent sovereign soon followed.87 The second matter that Isabella concluded in the name of the young Edward III pertained to the English relationship with France. First, the English lands in France were renegotiated, under which the English crown accepted all of the traditional feudal structures of being a vassal to the French crown, but for a reduced province of Gascony, consisting now of only Bordeaux and a strip of the coast of south-west France.88 Next, and most importantly, Isabella did not pursue the option of seeking the crown of France for her son, when her brother, the King of France, Charles IV, died without producing a male heir and the Capet house of 14 kings in a direct line for 341 years came to abrupt end in 1328. In theory, two options were open regarding how to deal with the French crown. The first was for the crown to pass, through Isabella, to her son Edward III (the grandson of King Philip IV). The alternative, if the female line was avoided, was for the crown to go to Charles’s cousin, Philip of Valois. When the matter was discussed by a number of peers and barons in Paris, it was concluded that ‘a woman does not succeed to the throne of France’.89 This decision was in accordance with the Salic Law, as decided by the Third Estate in 1317.90 Following such thinking, Charles’s cousin, Philip, ascended the French throne, from which the Valois line would

86  The 1328 ‘Treaty of Edinburgh-Northampton’, as reprinted in Dickinson, W (ed) (1958) A Sourcebook of Scottish History, Vol I (London, Nelson) 136–39; Stevenson, W (2007) ‘The Treaty of Northampton: A Scottish Charter of Liberties’ The Scottish Historical Review 86(1): 35–53; Nicholson, R (1962) ‘The Last Campaign of Robert Bruce’ The English Historical Review 77 (303): 233–246. 87  See the 1328, ‘Bull Authorising the Anointing of the King of Scotland’, as reprinted in Dickinson, W (ed) (1958) A Sourcebook of Scottish History, Vol I (London, Nelson) 140; McKisack, M (1985) The Fourteenth Century (Oxford, Clarendon Press) 99. 88  Holmes, G (2000) Europe: Hierarchy and Revolt (London, Blackwell) 16; Jones, D (2012) The Plantagenets: The Kings Who Made England (London, Harper) 395, 397–401, 415–21; Hay, D (1996) Europe in the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Centuries (London, Longman) 133–34. 89  As noted in Tanner, J (ed) (1958) The Cambridge Medieval History: Decline of Empire and Papacy, Vol VII (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press) 335. See also pages 430–32, 434–36. 90  See page 195.

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rule until 1589. Isabella did not object to this monumental decision, and duly sent her son, Edward III, for whom she was regent, to Paris in 1328 to perform homage to Philip of Valois, promising to be the liegeman of the French king for the territories Edward held in France, swearing his ‘loyalty and fidelity’.91

C.  Edward III King Edward III reigned England in person from 1330 until 1377. His legacy was one of restoring, then increasing, the military power of his realm. He was married to Philippa of Hainault, who was the daughter of the Count of Hainaut, Holland Zeeland, and later, Joan of Valois, the granddaughter of Philip III of France. (i)  Regaining Control of England The first difficulty for Edward III was that his mother and her lover, Mortimer, had taken control of the English throne and had his father killed. Mortimer, as an informal regent over the juvenile Edward III, and in a position of strong influence over Isabella, ruled England indirectly through the queen. His influence and his avarice made him deeply unpopular with the barons and the young king. The 17-year-old Edward then supported a coup, capturing Mortimer and his own mother at Nottingham Castle. Although Isabella was treated kindly, Mortimer was brought to trial in 1330. He was charged, inter alia, with having ‘usurped by himself royal power and the government of the realm concerning the estate of the king’.92 Mortimer was found guilty, and was hanged, drawn and quartered as a traitor.93 The young Edward III was determined to rebuild a strong England. He realised that Isabella and Mortimer had had no constitutional program. They triumphed not because of their adherence to principles of limited and reasoned monarchy, but because they were astute enough to take advantage of the fact that England had been fractured by the rule of Edward II, and Edward III was initially a vulnerable child. Edward III was determined not to make the same mistakes once he had power. Although he increased the penalties for treason (with even imagining the death of the king being

91  The 1329 ‘Homage of Edward III of England to Philip V of France’, as reprinted in Thatcher, O (ed) (1905) A Sourcebook for Medieval History (New York, Scribner) 365. Also the ‘Passing of the French Crown to the Valois in 1328’, as reprinted in Laffan, R (ed) (1929) Select Historical Documents: 800–1492 (New York, Holt) 161–62; Fawtier, R (1974) The Capetian Kings of France (London, Macmillan) 38–41; Johnstone, H (1936) ‘Isabella: The She-Wolf of France’. History 21: 208–220. 92  ‘The Parliamentary Record: The Fall of Mortimer’, as reprinted in Baker, D (ed) (1982) England in the Later Middle Ages (London, Academica) 41. 93  Jones, D (2012) The Plantagenets: The Kings Who Made England (London, Harper) 434–39, 471; ­McKisack, M (1985) The Fourteenth Century (Oxford, Clarendon) 97–99, 104, 251, 282–83; Tanner, J (ed) (1958) The Cambridge Medieval History: Decline of Empire and Papacy, Vol VII (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press) 436–37.

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punishable), on the whole, his recipe for a cooperative constitutional structure was quite different from what had gone before.94 Edward began by swearing the same coronation oath as his father, including the novel fourth vow that his father had failed to observe, that is, that he would ‘hold and preserve the laws and righteous customs which the community of the realm shall have chosen’.95 Edward then began an active engagement with Parliament, which by 1341 had crystallised into the two Houses—the Lords and the Commons. This body assembled some 48 times in the 50 years from 1327 to 1377. Edward’s commitment to ensuring that his ministers and officers possessed the highest degree of integrity possible was supplemented by Parliament’s recommendation that account should be made to Parliament for the conduct of offices at set intervals. Edward also allowed his advisers to be brought to trial when challenged, and agreed not to impose any new taxes without the consent of Parliament. As a result of such cooperation, Parliament came to support most of the initiatives of the king.96 As Edward embraced the support of Parliament, he backed away from requiring the support of the papacy, especially while it was resident at Avignon and closely linked to the French crown. Most notably, his Statute of Provisors (1351) and Statute of Premunire (1353) sought to restrict both the amounts of money going to the papacy and all appeals to them, and denied all sentences of excommunication and the entry of papal bulls into England, without the approval of the crown. Later, in 1366, Edward refused to pay tribute to the pope, clearly renouncing the idea that England was a papal fief due to the actions of earlier English kings. In doing so, Edward explained that the agreement of King John to gift the English realm was simply not possible ‘without the assent and accord … of his people in such subjection’.97 (ii) Scotland The first external target for Edward III was Scotland. Edward did not need to exert himself to regain influence in the north as the speed with which the Scots achieved

94 Bothwell, J (2000) ‘Guardianship, Upward Mobility and Political Reconciliation in the Reign of Edward III’ Canadian Journal of History 35 (2): 241–67; Verduyn, A (1993) ‘The Politics of Law and Order During the Early Years of Edward III’ The English Historical Review 108 (429): 842–67. 95  Edward III, Coronation Oath, in Carlyle, AJ (1910) A History of Medieval Political Theory in the West, Vol VI (London, Blackwood) 4. 96 See the 1330 ‘Statute Concerning Justices and Sheriffs’, and the 1340 ‘Statute on Unauthorised Charges and Taxes’, as reprinted in Adams, G (ed) (1947) Select Documents of English Constitutional History (London, Macmillan) 100–01, 104. The 1352 Statute of Treasons is in the same volume, at 121; MacKinnon, J (1906) A History of Modern Liberty, Vol I (London, Longmans) 298; Jacob, E (1987) The ­Fifteenth Century (Oxford, Clarendon Press) 236–38; Hay, D (1996) Europe in the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Centuries (London, Longman) 112–16, 137; Cheyney, E (1962) The Dawn of a New Era (NYC, Harper) 98–104. 97  ‘The Refusal of Tribute to the Pope’, as as reprinted in Adams, G (ed) (1947) Select Documents of English Constitutional History (London, Macmillan) 130; Menasche, S (1986) ‘The Failure of John XXII’s Policy Towards France and England’ Church History 55 (4): 423–37; Tanner, J (ed) (1958) The Cambridge Medieval History: Decline of Empire and Papacy, Vol VII (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1958) 148, 397–400, 451, 681.

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absolute independence was only matched by the speed with which they lost it. After Robert the Bruce died in 1329, it was only a few years before war broke out between his son, David II, and the Disinherited, who fought under Edward Balliol, the son of John Balliol.98 The Disinherited had already been received by the English court of Edward III. Accordingly, when Edward Balliol massed some 1,500 armed men on the English–Scottish border, it was overlooked by Edward III, despite the Treaty of Edinburgh-Northampton. Although they were outnumbered, Balliol’s forces won a stunning victory at Dupplin Moor, causing somewhere between 2,000 and 10,000 casualties, and severely rocking the Scottish confidence that David II’s army was invincible. Balliol was then proclaimed king of Scotland in 1332, at nearby Scone. However, Balliol did not have enough men to hold Scotland, and as the forces of David II rebuilt, he fled back to England. At this point, Edward III, seeing a clear opportunity, shattered the peace and reinvigorated the war for mastery of Scotland, sending an army north to help Balliol, after justifying the action by asserting that the Scots had attacked England first. The combined forces of Edward III and Edward Balliol then destroyed the opposing force of 13,000 men at Berwick in 1333, after which David II fled to safety in France. In appreciation for the English help, Balliol agreed to cede many of the southern counties of Scotland to the English king.99

D.  The Hundred Years War The Hundred Years War, which would ultimately consume perhaps 3.5 million people,100 began when David II fled from Scotland to seek sanctuary with the King of France. For Edward III, this French meddling constituted a serious grievance, to which he replied in kind. In 1328, King Philip VI of France had subdued, and then controlled, Flanders following a further failed attempt by Flemish nobles at Cassel to gain full independence from the French crown, leaving over 3,000 Flems dead on the field. Philip then allowed his troops to sack the city as retribution for their insolence. Although Edward, despite his marriage to Philippa of Hainault (which gave him a strong link to the region) did not intervene to help the Flemish when they fought, afterwards, when his relationship with Philip was deteriorating, he did offer asylum to some of those who had survived and fled from Philip. The French king viewed this support as a casus belli. Accordingly, when Edward refused to hand over the enemies of the French king, Philip declared Ponthieu and Gascony confiscated, on the grounds that

98 

See pages 135–136. The 1334 ‘Cession of the Southern Counties’, as reprinted in Dickinson, W (ed) (1958) A Sourcebook of Scottish History, Vol I (London, Nelson) 143; MacInnes, I (2012) ‘To Subject the North of the Country to his Rule: Edward III and the Chevauchee of 1336’ Northern Scotland 3 (1): 320–42. 100  The figure of 3.5 million is from White, M (2011) Atrocitolology: Humanity’s 100 Deadliest Achievements (Melbourne, Text Publishing) 132–39. 99 

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Edward was guilty of ‘excesses, rebellious and disobedient acts’ against ‘our Royal majesty’, and then claimed them for the throne of France. Edward responded by declaring himself to be king of all France, by right of his mother (Isabella) and his grandfather (Philip IV). Accordingly, ‘the realm of France is devolved to [the English king] as right heir’.101 The opposing sides then grew in size as both pulled in alliances and interests that implicated much of Europe. The conflict first made itself felt in Scotland, where the lowlands succumbed to the power of Edward III and Balliol. However, they were unable to advance further north, and as French assistance began to arrive, Edward and Balliol’s forces were again driven out of Scotland, with only Edinburgh and Roxburgh Castles remaining in English possession by 1340. The military actions in Scotland overlapped with the first substantive battle directly between the English and French (and their Genoese allies) at Sluys in 1340. In this naval engagement, between 16,000 and 18,000 French and Genoese fighters, on some 213 ships, were killed. Edward then pushed into Normandy with an invasion force of perhaps 10,000 men. Having burned Harfleur, Cherbourg and Montebourg, the English went on to sack Caen. The sack lasted for three days and took 3,000 French lives. Although the French suffered, they orchestrated David II’s return to Scotland to build on the momentum to the north of England. David achieved this, and in 1342 Roxburgh fell to him. Soon after, in early 1343, the English, French and Scottish kings agreed a three-year truce. Philip then introduced his truce with England at the fourth national assembly of France in 1345, at which point, trying to solidify his constitutional support, as Edward was doing in England with his Parliament, he introduced the name Cour de Parlement for his national body.102 (i)  The Battle of Crécy When the truce expired, the two sides, and most of their proxies collided in multiple locations involving Northern England, Artois, Brittany, Normandy and Glascony. Even the countries that did not involve actual fighting, but were in their own state of discord, sent troops to one side or the other. Thus, King Charles IV of Germany, the future Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire who was married to Philip’s sister, Blanche of Valois, sent troops to help the French king in addition to loyal vassals, such as John the Blind, the King of Bohemia, also going to fight with Philip. Conversely, the opponent of Charles IV, the excommunicated Louis the Bavarian, reached an alliance with Edward III. Edward’s forces were also joined by a number of territorial

101  The Statute of 1340, ‘England King as King of France’, as reprinted in Adams, G (ed) (1947) Select Documents of English Constitutional History (London, Macmillan) 105; ‘Acts of War of Edward III’, as reprinted in Barber, R (ed) (1979) The Life and Campaigns of the Black Prince: From Contemporary Accounts (London, Folio) 27; MacInnes, I (2012); Templeman, G (1992) ‘Edward III and the Beginning of the Hundred Year War’ Transactions of the Royal Historical Society 2: 68–88. 102  Knecht, R (2007) The Valois: Kings of France, 1328–1529 (London, Hambledon) 1–3; Hay, D (1996) Europe in the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Centuries (London, Longman) 143–45.

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rulers in the Low Countries, many rulers from the towns in Flanders, and the dukes of Austria.103 The most famous battle of 1346 occurred on 26 August on the field outside Crécy, in northern France. The French king opposed the English king with some 25,000 men, in a very determined attempt to push the English off the Continent. The English, despite fielding less than half the number of French soldiers, achieved military victory due to their superior tactics and advantage with the longbow, killing perhaps 14,000 of the enemy, including a duke, twelve counts, two archbishops and two kings of Majorca and Bohemia, of which John the Blind was the most famous loss. The English forces, then reinforced to number possibly 30,000 men, advanced to besiege, capture and hold Calais, turning it into an English possession for the next 200 years.104 Philip, desperate for some relief, then persuaded David II of Scotland to invade England from the north. David obliged, and on 17 October some 12,000 Scots advanced towards Edward’s forces of perhaps half that number at Neville’s Cross, to the west of Durham. This was a disaster for David. His forces were destroyed, and he himself was taken prisoner, in which position he would remain for 13 years until the Treaty of Berwick of 1357 secured his release for the then huge sum of 100,000 crowns.105 (ii)  John II of France and the Battle of Poiters When Philip VI of France died in 1350, Edward III found that new king, John II, viewed Edward’s claim to the throne of France with as much respect as had his Valois father. John immediately tried to secure the support of his greatest allies, marrying Bonne of Luxemburg, the daughter of John the Blind, who had died fighting with John’s father at Crecy. He then made a series of treaties with disgruntled nobles in areas under, or near, English occupation in France. Finally, John involved Castile in the war against England by making an agreement with Henry II of Castile after he had helped Henry defeat his brother Peter, when both were vying for the throne and possessions of their father, Alfonso XI. Once secure in Castile, Henry II dispatched a fleet to support the French and harass the English in the Channel. Edward III replied by pushing hard into French territory. By 1352, Edward controlled Brittany, Aquitaine and the wider area around Calais. Peace talks were elusive, and in 1356 the eldest son of Edward (Edward, Prince of Wales, also known as the ‘Black Prince’), with an army of 12,000, faced a French force of perhaps three times that number at Poitiers. Although the English lost 1,000 men, some

103  See Offler, H (1939) ‘England and Germany at the Beginning of the Hundred Year’s War’ The English Historical Review 54 (216): 608–31; Thatcher, O (ed) (1905) Source Book for Mediaeval History. Select Documents Illustrating the History of Europe in the Middle Age (NYC, Scribner) 282. 104 Harari, Y (1999) ‘Inter-frontal Cooperation in the Fourteenth Century and Edward III’s 1346 ­Campaign’ War in History 6 (4): 379–95; Gabriel, R (2005) Empires at War, Vol III (NYC, Greenwood) 957; McKisack, M (1985) The Fourteenth Century (Oxford, Clarendon Press) 112; Seward, D (2003) The Hundred Years War (London, Robinson) 35, 121–30, 135–42. 105  The 1357 ‘Treaty of Berwick’, as reprinted in Dickinson, W (ed) (1958) A Sourcebook of Scottish History, Vol I (London, Nelson) 146–47.

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2,500 French soldiers were killed and an equal number captured, including the French king, John II.106 (iii)  Chaos in France With the loss at Poitiers and the capture of the French king, France fractured internally as a social revolution of peasant unrest, against the local lords who had, it was felt, exposed the land to the horrors of war, raged across the country. Violence was recorded in more than 200 places. The aims of each incident are hard to discern due to the paucity of historical records, although details of the houses pillaged, lords killed and ladies raped were well noted. In Paris, an independent body was established one month after the capture of King John II. Etienne Marcel, provost to the Parisian merchants and delegate of the Third Estate, reasoned that since the king could not rule and the nobility could not fight, the commoners were best suited to govern. Now that the king was a prisoner, they were determined to take the power away from the administrators of the king and assume the mantle of government for themselves. What they demanded in their Great Ordinance of 61 articles was control over taxation and cooperation in government, via a complete overhaul of the king’s administration with a Council of elected people (four prelates, 12 nobles and 12 bourgeois). The Dauphin was to be placed under their tutelage.107 Although the French authorities initially agreed to these demands, the revolutionary forces in Paris fractured between those that were concerned to achieve real structural reform and those who were more interested in mob violence. In this chaos, the authorities of the crown quickly regained the upper hand. The Grand Ordinance was torn up and the monarchy once more became the supreme authority. A strong army of nobles, led by the duke of Normandy, rained terror on the heads of the peasants in all of the areas that had taken part in the revolt, of whom over 20,000 are believed to have been killed by the middle of 1358. Thereafter, the French Parlement remained ad hoc and weak, with the Estates only being called together on a very irregular basis.108 (iv) The Treaty of Bretigny The Avignon Papacy could not stop the fighting. This was because the English believed that the Avignon Papacy were puppets of the French crown. This was not an unreasonable conclusion given that Popes Benedict XII and Clement VI allowed the French king to tax the French Church to get funds to fight the English. When it became

106 MacKay, A (1977) Spain in the Middle Ages (London, Macmillan) 121–24; MacKinnon, J (1906) A History of Modern Liberty, Vol I (Longman, London) 245–47; Grant, R (2005) Battle: 5000 Years of Combat (London, Dorling Kindersley) 113. 107  MacKinnon, J (1906). A History of Modern Liberty, Vol I (London, Longman) 111–22. 108  Carlyle, A (1910) A History of Medieval Political Theory in the West, Vol VI (London, Blackwood) 210–20; Hay, D (1996) Europe in the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Centuries (London, Longman) 37.

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clear that no effective help could be expected from the papacy, the French authorities ­realised that they had to make peace with England.109 Although the French would not consent to the original demand from Edward III that they surrender one-third of the French kingdom, they would agree to a number of other demands, as contained in the 1360 Treaty of Bretigny. Specifically, a price of 3 million gold pieces for the return of the French king was agreed. In terms of territory, Edward III would continue to hold Gascony, as well as Aquitaine, Poitou, Saintonge and Angoumois in the south, and Ponthieu, Montreuil, Calais and Guines, ‘after the same manner that the king of France held his lands’.110 In other words, the English king was to hold these lands free and clear, without doing homage for them. On his side, Edward gave up the duchies of Touraine, Normandy, Maine, Brittany and Anjou. Critically for the French, Edward III renounced his claim to the French crown. Lastly, the French promised to put an end to their alliance with the Scots, and the English made the same promise with regard to their Flemish allies. The formalities for the return of the French king, and of the territories themselves, were to be concluded by the end of 1361.111 (v)  The Peace Breaks The Treaty of Bretigny did not bring a lasting peace. Although it gave Edward time to focus on some subsidiary issues, like bringing greater feudal order to Ireland, the breathing space granted was not great. This was because, from the outset, the English did not comply with the terms of the Treaty, as they did not believe that the French would keep their side of the bargain. Neither side acted with full integrity in fulfilling their commitments. First, Louis, the hostage left in the place of the French King John II absconded, and John II returned to England as a captive. Second, payment for the ransom was slow and incomplete. Third, the renunciation of sovereignty over the ceded territory by the king of France was in a separate document, and had not been acted upon. With such failures, when John died in 1364, his son, and successor, Charles V, was faced with a rapidly deteriorating situation in terms of mutual trust between England and France. In addition, Brittany had just ended a 20-year war of succession, as a result of which the English proxy had won the right to rule as duke of Brittany. Even more difficult, the Black Prince levied a tax from the estates of Aquitaine, and two Gascon noblemen (soon to be joined by hundreds of others) refused to pay, appealing first to Edward III and then to Charles V as ‘sovereign lord of the duke and the

109 

Aberth, J (2001) From the Brink of the Apocalypse (London, Routledge) 82–84. 1 of the Treaty of Bretigny, as reprinted in Laffan, R (ed) (1929) Select Historical Documents: ­800–1492 (NYC, Holt) 164. Also, Le Patourel, J (1896) ‘The Treaty of Bretigny’ Transactions of the Royal Historical Society 10: 19–39. 111 Gabriel, R (2005) Empires at War, Vol III (NYC, Greenwood) 968; Gruber, J (1993) ‘The Peace Negotiations of the Avignon Popes’ The Catholic Historical Review 19 (2): 190–99; Tanner, J (ed) (1958) The Cambridge Medieval History: Decline of Empire and Papacy, Vol VII (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press) 350–53, 355–58, 363–67. 110 Art

206  The Fourteenth Century

whole duchy of Aquitaine’.112 Legal experts assured King Charles that he could hear the appeals from the discontented Gascon nobles as he had not formally renounced his suzerainty as required in the 1360 Treaty of Bretigny. Soon after, the Black Prince was ordered to appear before the Parlement in Paris to help explain the issue. He agreed to do so, but only with a battle helmet on his head and escorted by an army. The Black Prince had levied the tax in Aquitaine to pay for his war in Castile, which the English and French were now both fighting, either directly or indirectly in support of opposing contenders for that throne. Specifically, Peter I, who had been ejected from Castile by his brother Henry II and his French supporters, now returned to Castile with an English army, which defeated Henry in 1367, in a battle in which the Anglo-Castile army (some 28,000 men) faced Franco-Castilian forces (60,000 men), with the latter losing the day and at least 7,000 soldiers. Although Peter was victorious, he did not honour his debts to the Black Prince, who left him to his fate. Henry II then quickly returned, took the land and killed his brother. The waters were further muddied by the dynastic struggles occurring in Portugal at the same time, following the death of the Portuguese king without a direct heir, leading to claimants from Castile, England and Portugal all making a bid for the throne.113 Charles V responded to the threat by the Black Prince by making a new military alliance with Castile, and then declared Aquitaine confiscated to the French crown. Edward III replied by reactivating his claim to the French crown, and promised total war. However, at the Battle of Pontvallain in 1370, the French destroyed the reputation that the English had for invincibility on the battlefield. The victory then turned into a rout, as large areas of the principality of Aquitaine in English hands were overrun, leaving only a narrow strip of English territory along the coast.114 To the north of England, the French reactivated their alliance with the Scots. The opportunity that arose came with the death of David II in 1371. David, who had grown fond of Edward III during his time in captivity, had come to the conclusion that the descendants of Edward III were more deserving of the Scottish throne than his own nephew, Robert Stewart. This preference overlapped with David’s signing a treaty of alliance with England, in which he promised that if he died without an heir, Scotland would pass to the English crown. The Scottish Parliament refused to contemplate the proposal, replying that they were ‘in no manner willing to concede, nor in any wise willing to assent to those points’.115

112  Jones, D (2012) The Plantagenets: The Kings Who Made England (London, Harper) 500, 514; For Edward III’s actions in Ireland at this point, see the 1368 ‘Act of Absentees’ and the 1355, ‘Statutes of Kilkenny’, as reprinted in Curtis, E (ed) (1943) Irish Historical Documents 1172–1922 (London, Methuen) 52 and 59. 113  Kagay, D (2005) ‘The Theory and Practice of Just War in the Late Medieval Crown of Aragon’. The Catholic Historical Review 91 (4): 591–610; Holmes, G (2000) Europe: Hierarchy and Revolt (London, ­Blackwell) 21, 41; Hay, D (1996) Europe in the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Centuries (London, Longman) 159; Grant, R (2011) 1001 Battles (London, Penguin) 202. 114 Seward, D (2003) The Hundred Years War (London, Robinson) 97–100; McKisack, M (1985) The Fourteenth Century (Oxford, Clarendon Press) 139–55. 115  The 1364, ‘Reply of the Scottish Parliament’, as reprinted in Dickinson, W (ed) (1958) A Sourcebook of Scottish History, Vol I (London, Nelson) 150–51.

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Upon David’s death in 1371, the Scottish Parliament placed Robert Stewart on the throne of Scotland as Robert II, thus establishing the Stewart dynasty. Upon his accession, Robert renewed the Auld Alliance with France. To make matters worse for Edward III, an English relief fleet was then destroyed off La Rochelle by Castilian forces in 1372. The French and Castilian fleets then proceeded to raid the coast of England. These attacks only stopped when a two-year truce was agreed in 1375 with the Treaty of Bruges. Whilst this was going on, Charles V granted the duchy of Burgundy to his younger brother, Philip, thus bringing this important region of eastern France under the immediate control of the royal family.116

E.  Richard II Richard of Bordeaux was a son of Edward, the Black Prince. He was born during the reign of his grandfather, Edward III. Richard succeeded to the throne of England in 1377 at the age of 10, following the deaths of, first, his elder brother and then his father, the Black Prince, who had died in the middle of 1376. As a child, Richard II’s reign was subject, first, to the regency of his uncle ( John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster, the third son of Edward III) and later to an influential group of aristocrats who largely ran the government.117 Although he lived for only 33 years, Richard II was involved in three major conflicts, the last leading to his death. (i)  The Peasants’ Revolt The first significant conflict with which Richard II had to engage was that with the ­peasants/serfs in England. Although peasants had existed for hundreds of years in Europe and had been known to revolt at various points, the upheavals tended to be isolated and based around a small set of locally dependent demands.118 With the Peasants’ Revolt at the end of the fourteenth century, the situation was different. The gap between the rich and the poor in Europe had reached unknown levels, at the same time that a political belief was emerging that they, the peasants/serfs, were free and no one had the right to own them. This led the peasants to increasingly try to challenge their position of absolute servitude. The tension was evident as early as 1250, when a large group, perhaps numbering tens of thousands of shepherds and rural laborers walked off the land in France to march to Jerusalem. The unique social movement led by Etienne Marcel also appeared in the wake of the French defeat by the English at Poitiers in 1356.119

116 

Jacob, E (1987) The Fifteenth Century (Oxford, Clarendon Press) 136–Cheltenham, Amberley) 124–28. Wedgwood, J (1930) ‘John of Gaunt and the Packing of Parliament’. The English Historical Review 45 (180): 623–28. 118  See Gowers, B (2013) ‘996 And All That: The Norman Peasants’ Revolt ­Reconsidered’ Early Medieval Europe 21 (1): 71–96. 119  See page 204. 117 

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There were further violent clashes in 1378 in Florence as the lesser guilds, r­epresenting 75 percent of the working population, struggled (without success) to get political inclusion. The Archbishop of Florence was to advise their ruling council a decade later, ‘If you want to rule and maintain power, then keep the people ­starving’.120 Peasant uprisings in rural settings were also recorded at Bruges, Ghent, Sicily and Paris between 1378 and 1380. In Castile, the peasantry tied to the land (about one-third of the population) began to clash violently with their landlords over the rule that the serf was obliged to purchase from his lord personal redemption from his status before he could leave his land, and the custom that a lord could take a portion of the serf ’s goods in certain circumstances, such as if a serf died intestate.121 Social discontent was also evident in England, with the additional difference, that in England critical scholars such as John Wycliffe were challenging the status quo. Specifically, Wycliffe adopted a unique pacifist position, adopting a literal approach to biblical admonitions against all killing, which thus made all war wrong. Wycliffe pointed to the uselessness of warfare, ‘Since both sides will be spoilers and despoiled, invaders and invaded, now scornful, now angry, and now avaricious as they both cause offence’. He then went on to condemn the English war in France as, ‘the sin of the kingdom’ that was due to avarice and lust for dominion. He added that although monarchy was the most suitable system of governance for England, kings should, ‘not strive to conquer two kingdoms’.122 Wycliffe accused the Church of bearing primary responsibility for the proliferation of war, going to far as to call clergymen the ‘enemies of peace’.123 He denounced, ‘the state and worldly goods’ of the pope and berating the entire clerical estate for acting as ‘the most greedy purchasers on earth’,124 and then called for the abolition of the papacy, as an act that would be ‘solicitously for the cause of God’.125 The Wycliffite preacher, William Swinderby would later add: For whereas Christ’s law bids us to love our enemies, the pope’s law gives us leave to hate them and kill them, and grants men pardon to war against heathen men and to kill them … Whereas Christ’s law teaches peace, the pope with his law assails men for money and gathers priests and others to fight for his cause.126

Although Wycliffe was not concerned with social change in England, over twenty of the leaders in the Peasants Revolt of 1381 were clergymen. Accordingly, Wycliffe’s teachings

120  The

archbishop of Florence, as noted in Cohn, M (2012) ‘The Modernity of Medieval Popular Revolt’ History Compass 10 (10): 731, 734. 121  Elliot, J (2002) Imperial Spain (London, Penguin) 38, 81; Hibbert, C (1980) The House of Medici (NYC, Morrow) 24. 122  Wycliffe, as noted in Cox, R (2010) ‘The Medieval Pacifist’. History Today 60 (8): 25–38. 123  Wycliffe, as in Aberth, J (2001) From the Brink of the Apocalypse (London, Routledge) 93. 124 Wycliffe, as in Skinner, Q (1980) The Foundations of Modern Political Thought, Vol II (Cambridge, ­Cambridge University Press) 35. 125  Wycliffe, as noted in Levy, I (2007) ‘Wycliffe on Papal Election, Correction and Deposition’ Mediaeval Studies 69: 277–93. 126  Swinderby, as noted in Lowe, (2004) ‘Teaching in the School of Christ, Law, Learning and Love in Early Lollard Pacifism’ The Catholic Historical Review 90 (3) 405–38.

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(which were condemned by the pope as heretical, and Richard II concurred) fed into an overall movement in which all authority, both social and religious, was being ­challenged.127 The chronicler, Jean Froissart, summed up the situation in 1380: These unhappy people … began to stir because they said there were kept in too great servitude, and in the beginning of the world, they said, there were no bondmen … [T]hey said they were treated like beasts, which they said they would no longer suffer, for they said … if they laboured or did anything for their lords, they wanted wages for it.128

In the minds of the decision makers of the time, these radical assertions had to be stopped. Laws were passed in England in 1377, 1379 and 1380, which imposed obligatory poll taxes on the peasants. The 1381 Ordinances on Laborers obliged people who were ‘bound to serve as required’ to act in accordance with specific labor laws, with rigid schedules for wages of every class of manual worker, albeit at deflated, pre-Black Death levels when there was an over-supply of laborers. In addition, reapers, mowers and other workmen were forbidden to leave their masters until their contracts had been fulfilled, and other masters were forbidden to take them on. Finally, no master was allowed to offer wages above the customary rates.129 The uprising that followed the 1381 legislation occurred in at least 75 places in England, was driven by the landless and the nearly landless alike. Although Wycliffe’s teachings were against the power of the Church, and did not concern an economic class, other preachers, such as John Ball, Wat Tyler and Jack Straw, took a different view. These men wanted a revolution beyond the reform of the Catholic Church, and called for the ‘punishment of traitors against the Crown, the abolition of serfdom, a mandatory rent of 4d per acre of land and freely negotiable contracts between masters and servants’.130 John Ball argued: Good people, things will never go well in England so long as goods be not in common, and so long as there be villeins and gentlemen. By what right are they, whom we call lords, greater folk than we? Why do they hold us in serfage? If we all come of the same father and mother, of Adam and Eve, how can they say or prove that they are better than we, if it be not that they make us gain for them by our toil? They are clothed in velvet, and warm in their furs, while we are covered in rags. They have wine and spices and fine bread, we oatcake and straw and water to drink. They have leisure and fine houses; we have pain and labour, the

127  MacKinnon, J (1906) A History of Modern Liberty, Vol I (London, Longmans) 309; Harvey, M (1998) ‘The Condemnation of John Wycliffe, 1377’ The English Historical Review 113 (451): 259–69; The 1382 ‘Act Against Heretical Preaching’, as reprinted in Adams, G (ed) (1947) Select Documents of English Constitutional History (London, Macmillan) 145. 128 Froissart, Chronicles, trans Brereton, G (1978) (London, Penguin) 117; Hay, D (1996) Europe in the ­Fourteenth and Fifteenth Centuries (London, Longman) 36–39, 209. 129  The quotation is from the ‘Poll Tax of 1380’. This is reprinted in Adams, G (ed) (1947) Select Documents of English Constitutional History (London, Macmillan) 140–44. The ‘Ordinance Concerning Labourers’ also in Adams, at 114–15. 130  As noted in Dunn, A (2002) The Great Uprising of 1381 (Bath, Tempus) 68–69. Also pages 23, 24, 25, 50–53, 60–61, 66–67, 77, 93.

210  The Fourteenth Century rain and wind in the fields. We are called slaves, and if we do not perform our services, we are beaten.131

Additional demands called for the restoration of common rights, the division of Church lands amongst the poor and repeal of oppressive legislation. In practice, people and places of authority were attacked, with judges, lawyers and foreigners being particularly vulnerable. However, although revolutionary, the rioters were not anti-royal. They had full faith in the young king, Richard II. Initially, Richard granted the rebels everything they asked, guaranteeing that there would be no return to serfdom, that labor market would be free and that every man could rent land for a maximum of four pence per acre. However, when rioting continued and the rebels did not disperse as promised, he decided to meet Wat Tyler in person. At this meeting, a fight broke out, as which Tyler tried to escape. He was captured and publically beheaded. Richard then prevented chaos from breaking out by confronting the rebels and dispersing them. Soon after, although he would allow no violence to the multitude and promised the majority an amnesty, Richard tore up all of the promises he had made to them. In so doing he stated: Villeins you are, and villeins you will remain; in permanent bondage, not as it was before, but incomparably harsher … While by God’s grace we rule over this kingdom, we shall strive … to keep you in subjugation, to such a degree that the suffering of your servitude may serve as an example to posterity.132

(ii)  The Hundred Years War Flares Again The second significant conflict of Richard’s reign was the reigniting of the Hundred Years War. This was largely a foreseeable event, as Richard II came to the throne in 1377, which was the same year in which the truce with the French ended. When Richard, as the new king of England, refused to pay homage to the king of France for the duchy of Aquitaine, war broke out. Almost immediately, Roxburgh was retaken by the Scots, and payment of the remnants of the ransom for David II was abandoned. At the same time, Rye and Hastings were attacked and burnt by the French. Charles V then attempted to incorporate Brittany into the French realm, after accusing the ­Bretons of plotting with the English, whose help they had requested, and being guilty of lèse-majesté.133 The English then earned a reprieve, as Charles V died, to be replaced by his son Charles VI, who ascended to the French throne at the age of 12 in 1380. Both France

131  John Ball, as printed in MacKinnon, J (1906) A History of Modern Liberty, Vol I (London, Longmans) 311–12. 132 Richard II, as noted in Jones, D (2012) The Plantagenets: The Kings Who Made England (London, Harper) 40. Lacey, H (2008) ‘Grace for the Rebels: The Role of the Royal Pardon in the Peasants’ Revolt of 1381’ Journal of Medieval History 34 (1): 36–63; McKisack, M (1985) The Fourteenth Century (Oxford, Clarendon Press) 335–42, 407–13. 133  Jones, D (2012) The Plantagenets: The Kings Who Made England (London, Harper) 516.

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and England then vied to obtain powerful allies in Germany. Charles was quickly ­married to Isabeau of Bavaria, as a counterweight to the first marriage of Richard II, to Anne of Bohemia, the daughter of Charles IV, the Holy Roman Emperor. The English went on to provide troops to Brittany, and tried to support the Flemish uprising in Ghent against their French overlords in a complex cause that was designed to protect local revenues and offshore markets (for wool), that ultimately required their independence from France. The Flemish, under the leadership of Philip van Artevelde, found their quests for autonomy snuffed out, again, at Roosebeke in 1382, after perhaps 30,000 men clashed on the battlefield, with the 14,000 rebel soldiers being beaten. Although the embers of the rebellion continued to burn, the English incursion to help Ghent the following year came to nothing. Accordingly, Ghent and Burgundy agreed the Peace of Tournai with France in 1385. This allowed Ghent to retain all of its privileges, and not be punished for aiding the latest English incursion. The price for this forgiveness was the giving up of all relations with England and recognition of the king of France as the Flemings’ lawful sovereign. Although the English interventions in both Brittany and Ghent came to nothing, and almost provoked a reply invasion of England from the Low Countries, they continued to hold Calais, Cherbourg, Brest and their possessions in Aquitaine.134 Richard II then decided to concentrate his efforts in the Iberian peninsula. Richard’s uncle, John of Gaunt was married to Constance, the daughter of Peter I, the King of Castile. Peter had left his kingdom to his son, Ferdinand I. Ferdinand made peace with Castile (with John I) in 1383, and an associated marriage alliance, had meant that as there were no more male heirs, upon the death of Ferdinand, Portugal was to go to Castile. However, John the Bastard, the illegitimate son of Peter I, the earlier King of Portugal and half brother of Ferdinand, with the support of the cities of Lisbon and Oporto, opposed this virtual annexation of Portugal by Castile, and in 1385 he was acclaimed king of Portugal.135 The English, who had an earlier mutual defence treaty with Portugal of 1373, also did not want Castile, with its strong French alliances, to annex Portugal. Accordingly, following the marriage of John the Bastard to an English noblewoman (Philippa of Lancaster, the daughter of John of Gaunt), the English provided John the Bastard with some 7,000 men to support his 6,000, under the leadership of John of Gaunt. The combined English and Portuguese force faced a force of 30,000 men, led by Castile but supported by France, at the Battle of Aljubarrota in 1385. This left about 6,000 men dead on the field, of whom 5,000 were from the Castilian-French side. The defence alliance between England and Portugal was reiterated in 1386, around the same time

134  Knecht, R (2007) The Valois (London, Hambledon) 34, 42, 48–49; Holmes, G (2000) Europe: Hierarchy and Revolt (London, Blackwell) 28–29; Crombie, L (2016) ‘A New Power in the Late Fourteenth Century Low Countries’ History 7: 5–19; Tanner, J (ed) (1958) The Cambridge Medieval History: Decline of Empire and Papacy, Vol VII (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press) 370–371; Hay, D (1996) Europe in the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Centuries (London, Longman) 152–55. 135  Kagay, D (2008) ‘The Dynastic Dimension of International Conflict in Fourteenth Century Iberia’ Mediterranean Studies 17 (1): 77–96.

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that Portugal and Castile also agreed to peace, under which the ­independence of Portugal was assured when the Castilians agreed to not pursue dynastic claims against the other.136 Charles VI of France now turned his attention to attacking England. He did this by renewing the Auld Alliance, and then, in 1385, provided an expeditionary force to help the Scots fight Richard II on his home soil. In response, Richard II rode out in person at the head of 14,000 soldiers which advanced into Scotland. Richard II ordered the sack of Dryburgh, Melrose and Newbattle Abbeys, and then razed Edinburgh, but failed to engage the Scottish and French forces. This failure to engage the Scots, coupled with an ongoing fear of a French invasion, led Richard to ask Parliament to raise more taxes. The request for additional money, coupled with bubbling concerns over Richard’s lack of respect for the established nobility, made Parliament very suspicious of Richard. Accordingly, in 1386, it presented Richard II with a list of grievances. This was a warning in the clearest terms to the 19-year-old king: If the king from any malignant design or foolish contumacy or contempt or wanton wilfulness or in any irregular way should alienate himself from his people, and should not be willing to be governed and regulated by the law, statutes and laudable ordinances of the realm with the wholesome advice of the lords and peers of the realm, but should headily and wantonly by his own mad designs work out his own private purpose, then it should be lawful for them with the common ascent and consent of the people of the realm to depose the king himself from the royal throne and to elevate to the royal throne in his place some near kinsman of the royal line.137

Richard took heed of this warning, and acted with greater circumspection within England over the following two years. However, externally, the threats continued to grow, such as when the Scots inflicted a crushing defeat on English at the Battle of Otterburn in 1388. Here, for the price of 500 men out of a force numbering close to 3,000, the Scots killed nearly 2,000, and captured a further 1,000, of an English force numbering 8,000. The following year, 1389, at Leulinghem, Richard’s diplomats convinced those of Charles VI that it was time for a truce, and both sides agreed that this should run for 13 years, as a stepping-stone towards a complete and full peace treaty. Although Richard was willing to concede on the primary cause of the war, that is, the question of homage by the king of England to the king of France for the Duchy of Aquitaine and associated areas, the English Parliament would not allow this submission. Accordingly, the proposed treaty could only ever become a truce, as substantive questions

136  Goodman, A (1987) ‘John of Gaunt: Paradigm of the Late Fourteenth Century Crisis’ Transactions of the Royal Historical Society 37: 133–50; MacKay, A (1977) Spain in the Middle Ages (London, Macmillan) 25; Brooke, C (1987) Europe in the Central Middle Ages (London, Longman) 289, 315; Holmes, G (2000) Europe: Hierarchy and Revolt (London, Blackwell) 41–42; McKisack, M (1985) The Fourteenth Century (Oxford, ­Clarendon Press) 174, 441–42, 475. 137  ‘The Threat to Depose Richard II’ as reprinted in Baker, D (ed) (1982) England in the Later Middle Ages. (London, Academica) 43.

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were avoided. Nevertheless, attempts were still made to secure the truce by working on ­cooperative projects, such as a joint crusade against the Ottomans; together trying to end the r­ eligious Schism; and Richard being betrothed to Charles VI’s sevenyear-old daughter, Isabella. This marriage was seen by contemporaries as the lynchpin that would hold the two countries together in peace, rather than violence, as Eustache ­Deschamps suggested: ‘Every peace comes by a holy marriage’.138 (iii)  The Toppling of the King The third significant war that Richard II had to endure was the one that ended his reign and, ultimately, his life. The background to this conflict was the challenges Richard faced in connection with the English Parliament and the Lords Appellant, who were a group of nobles who sought, through Parliament, to impeach some of the favourites of Richard II. Parliament duly held to account a number of Richard’s advisers who had been responsible for several of the recent debacles between 1386 and 1388, whilst also refusing Richard the right to make an absolute peace treaty with France. This meant that from the beginning of 1388 until the middle of 1389, Richard had to watch Parliament convict some of his advisors for treason and be executed and others expelled from the realm. Parliament then took control of the treasury, chancery and execution of the law. In effect, large sections of government were removed from the hands of the king.139 However, this attempt was short-lived, as John of Gaunt returned from his Spanish campaigns and slowly helped the king regain control, removing or exiling his enemies one at a time, and regulating the rhetoric that was critical of the king and his advisors. The leader of the Lords Appellant, Thomas of Woodstock, the Duke of Gloucester and uncle of Richard II was imprisoned and charged with treason, but murdered before he could stand trial.140 Richard also managed to rebuild the prestige of the Crown outside of England. He did this by regaining authority in both Scotland and Ireland. As regards the former, Richard made a truce with the new Scottish king, Robert III, in 1394. With peace on the northern border, Richard then led a successful seven-month expedition to Ireland in the same year, with a relatively large force of 7,000 men, for ‘the punishment of our rebels there and to establish good government and just rule over our faithful lieges’.141

138  Deschamps, as noted in Aberth, J (2001) From the Brink of the Apocalypse (London, Routledge) 98. Also, Phillpotts, C (1998) ‘The Fate of the Truce of Paris, 1396’ Journal of Medieval History 24 (1): 61–80; Palmer, N (1966) ‘The Anglo-French Peace Negotiations, 1390–1396’ Transactions of the Royal Historical Society 16: 81–94. 139  See the ‘Ordinance Concerning the King’s Council’ as reprinted in Baker, D (ed) (1982) England in the Later Middle Ages (London, Academica) 43; Tuck, J (1969) ‘The Cambridge Parliament, 1388’ The English Historical Review 84 (331): 225–43. 140  Hanrahan, M (2003) ‘Defamation as Political Contest During the Reign of Richard II’ Medium Aevum 72 (2): 259–79; Aberth, J (2001) From the Brink of the Apocalypse (London, Routledge) 98–101. 141 Richard II, noted in Jones, D (2012) The Plantagenets: The Kings Who Made England (London, Harper) 563.

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A sort of peace was then attempted, with a succession of individual treaties being signed between Richard and a number of Irish chiefs, who promised to be ‘faithful liegemen to Lord Richard, King of England and Lord of Ireland’.142 This was deemed particularly important, as the famous Irish princes (O’Neil, O’Brien, O’Donnel, MacMurrought, Burke and Dempsey in particular) gave little authority to the English king and ruled a mostly autonomous state comprising the majority of Ireland, known as the Gaidhealtachd. These and other Gaelic lords were largely independent rulers united by culture, language and a shared repudiation of centralised control. Each one of these clans could muster thousands of men if needed. The Anglo-Norman earls, Desmond, Kildare, Ulster, Ormond and Fitzgeralds were all intermarried with the Irish houses and settled. Nevertheless, they saw themselves as an integral part of the English political community, though not as much as the Pale (Dublin, Louth, Meath and, with some qualification, Kildare), which was the only part of Ireland, on its east coast, under the direct control of the English king, and where they clearly followed rules such as those governing the disposition of property through primogeniture.143 Following his successes in Scotland and Ireland, Richard’s prestige began to increase in England. Consequently, he began to explore ways in which he might reverse the work of Parliament. He began with the principle that anyone who attempted to reform the realm in Parliament, or regulate the royal household, would be guilty of treason. When he had enough support, he then compelled the Commons to issue an apology for complaining of the extravagance of his court. Next, he made Parliament agree that ‘our lord the king should be as free in his royal dignity as any of his predecessors, despite any statute to the contrary’.144 Parliament then abdicated its legislative power and deputed its authority to a legislative committee of 18 advisers, composed of the friends of the king. In short, Richard II had become absolute in his power.145 By 1397, appellants who had previously opposed the king once more found their ­relations with him to be very tense. For the next two years, England trembled under what many considered to be the tyranny of Richard II. With the help of a cloak of ­legality bestowed by a terrified Parliament, unprecedented level of taxes were collected. At the same time, Richard’s opponents were imprisoned without trial and denied access to the courts, under a new law on treason. Opponents vanished, being either killed or driven into exile, and their lands and castles were redistributed to Richard’s supporters. Of particular note, Henry Bolingbroke, the son of John of Gaunt, Richard II’s cousin and future King Henry IV of England, was banished from the kingdom in 1398. When Richard’s uncle and former regent of the king, John of Gaunt, died in 1399, 142  The 1395 ‘Treaties with Irish Chiefs’, as reprinted in Curtis, E (ed) (1943) Irish Historical Documents 1172–1922 (London, Methuen) 64–65. 143  Connolly, S (2012) Contested Island: Ireland 1460–1630 (Oxford, Oxford University Press) 4–5, 13–16, 37, 42–43; Mackie, J (1985) The Early Tudors (Oxford, Clarendon) 79–80, 126–29. 144  Tanner, J (ed) (1958) The Cambridge Medieval History: Decline of Empire and Papacy, Vol VII (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press) 474. The ‘New Definition of Treason’ is reprinted in Adams, G (ed) (1947) Select Documents of English Constitutional History (London, Macmillan) 159. 145 Figgis, N (1972) The Divine Rights of Kings (NYC, Harper) 58–62, 75–79; MacKinnon, J (1906) A History of Modern Liberty, Vol I (London, Longmans, London) 303.

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Richard confiscated the inheritance of John of Gaunt disinheriting his son Henry of Bolingbroke because Henry was living in exile in Brittany.146 Henry of Bolingbroke returned from France in 1399 with a small invasion force that quickly grew in number. Henry found that the primary reason for his armed invasion, namely his disinheritance by the English king, found widespread political support. Richard’s kingdom, long bullied and blackmailed, simply melted. Within a few months, Bolingbroke had amassed an army of over 40,000 men to which castles surrendered to them, rather than offering any opposition. Bolingbroke, who promised he was not seeking the throne for himself, told Richard he had returned to England because ‘you have not ruled well … and therefore with the consent of the commons, I will help you govern it’.147 Meeting little resistance, Bolingbroke captured Richard II and took him to the Tower of London, following which Richard abdicated. After releasing everyone from their oaths of obedience, he acknowledged he had been ‘wholly insufficient and useless and because of my notorious deserts am not unworthy to be deposed’.148 When Parliament received this act of abdication there was some protest that it was not the king’s free act and that he was entitled to a hearing, but this was overruled by the Lancastrian majority. To remove suspicion, a list of 33 counts of indictment were read against him. The articles were a litany of Richard’s failings, from the start of his reign until the end, which all suggested that he had broken his coronation oath. They included, inter alia, denial of justice, extortion, deception, breaches of the Magna Carta and a general, withering clause stating that ‘the king was so variable and dissimulating in his words and writings, especially to popes and rulers outside the realm, that no-one could trust him’.149 Richard then abdicated his position in favour of his cousin Henry. The former king was then incarcerated.150 Whilst the wife of Richard II, Isabella, was sent back to live out her days in France the former king of England died, probably of starvation, in early 1400. This death, as Shakespeare would suggest in his drama Richard II, was more than the death of a single man. It was also a strong example of what could happen to monarchs who became tyrants.151 146  Given-Wilson, C (1994) ‘Richard II, Edward II and the Lancastrian Inheritance’ The English H ­ istorical Review 109 (432): 553–71; McKisack, M (1985) The Fourteenth Century (Oxford Clarendon Press) 472, 491, 495–97. 147 Bolingbroke, as noted in Jones, D (2012) The Plantagenets: The Kings Who Made England (London, Harper) 581. See also Fletcher, C (2004) ‘Narrative and Political Strategies at the Deposition of Richard II’ Journal of Medieval History 30 (4): 323–341; Hicks, M (2009) ‘The Yorkshire Perjuries of Henry Bolingbroke in 1399’ Northern History 46 (1): 31–41. 148  ‘The Abdication of Richard II’ as reprinted in Baker, D (ed) (1982) England in the Later Middle Ages (London, Academica) 45. 149  As noted in Jones, D (2012) The Plantagenets: The Kings Who Made England (London, Harper) 550–60, 586. 150 See McKisack, M (1985) The Fourteenth Century (Oxford, Clarendon Press) 469–70, 494–97; Allmand, C (1997) Henry V (London, Yale University Press) 17; Jacob, E (1987) The Fifteenth Century (Oxford, ­Clarendon Press) 1–2, 12–14, 207; Carlyle, AJ (1910) A History of Medieval Political Theory in the West, Vol VI (London, Blackwood) 72–75. 151  Ashby, R (2015) ‘Pierced to the Soul: The Politics of the Gaze in Richard II’. Shakespeare 11 (2): 201–16; Doty, J (2013) ‘Shakespeare and Popular Politics’ Literature Compass 10 (2): 162–74.

216  The Fourteenth Century 5.  The Wars of Islam

A.  North Africa Outside of Europe, the only area in which Christian forces were now advancing during the fourteenth century was northern Africa. This advance was due to the fragmentation of Almohad power throughout the region into the three Sunni States that emerged around Tunis (the Hafsid dynasty), Morocco (the Marinid dynasty) and the area covering modern-day Libya and western Algeria (the Zayyanid dynasty). By the end of the thirteenth century, after intervention in dynastic issues, Tunisia was a type of protectorate of Aragon. To one of the foremost Muslim scholars of the period, Ibn Khaldun, who was writing from Tunis, the situation was intolerable. He believed that for Islam to be successful, religious devotion, violent conflict and a share of rewards had to be a continual cycle. When this cycle was directed against non-Muslims, society could thrive, but when it was directed against fellow-Muslims, it could only wither.152 In this fragmented context, the Christian kings of Spain quickly learnt how to act to their advantage, signing treaties with the one Muslim group, to the advantage of both. For example, Aragon helped the Marinids to capture the Moorish trading city of Ceuta in Morocco, which the Nasrids had seized, to the material advantage of both parties. However, these relationships were often short-lived, for the Nasrids reconciled with the Marinids, and collectively they attempted to force their way back into Spain. The point of this collision was the Marinid city of Algeciras, numbering over 30,000 people (at the southernmost point of Spain). The siege, which lasted from 1342 to 1344, ended in victory for the united forces of Alfonso XI of Castile and Alfonso IV of Portugal, and in the entrenched isolation of the Muslim Nasrid community in Grenada. From this point on, there was no hope of help for the remaining Muslim communities of Spain from North Africa.153

B.  The End of Christian Armenia As seen in the last chapter, at the end of the thirteenth century, the only independent Christian area in the Mongol-Muslim areas was Armenia. Initially, they had pinned their hopes on at least part of the Muslim empire staying non-Muslim, and joining with them. This was wishful thinking after the Mongol ruler of the Ilkhanate empire 152 

Kennedy, J (2011) ‘Prophets Armed: Muhammad Ibn Khaldun’ Theology 114 (2) 101–07. E (2010) ‘The Military Orders and the War of Grenada: 1350–1492’ Mediterranean Studies 19 (1): 14–42; Bennisn, A (2001) ‘Liminal States: Morocco and the Iberian Frontier Between the Twelfth and Nineteenth Century’ The Journal of North African Studies 6 (1): 11–28; Tanner, J (ed) (1958) The Cambridge Medieval History: Decline of Empire and Papacy (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press) 249, 582–83, 704. 153  Rodriguez-Picavea,

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which covered most of traditional Persia, Mahmud Ghazan, converted from Buddhism to Islam. He then converted his entire realm of the Ilkhanate to the Muslim faith in 1295. Despite this conversion, the Armenian hopes for survival were kept alive as the former Mongol now Muslim forces warred against the fellow Muslim Mamluks in 1299, 1300 and 1302. The Armenians and Georgians stayed on the side of the Ilkhanate against the Mamluks, winning battles in 1299 with the retaking of Homs and Damascus. Ghazan justified these conflicts on the grounds that he was a better guardian of Islam, the Mamluks were unfit to rule as they were both oppressive and did not follow the rule of God. Ghazan added that God favoured him, with his prestigious lineage, as opposed to the slave-based lineage of the Mamluk rulers. Conversely, the Mamluks portrayed the Mongol converts to Islam as heretics and deviants, with which the caliphate in Baghdad concurred. The fighting only stopped when there was a change in the leadership of both regimes, and the two sides were able to reconcile, with a formal peace being concluded in 1322, after each side accepted the other as good and true Muslims. This peace faded with the dissolution of the Ilkhanate in 1335, after which the Mamluks expanded their rule over the Anatolian frontier, in which local rulers pledged submission to the sultan of Cairo, in exchange for large degrees of autonomy.154 The 1322 peace treaty meant that Sunni Islam had now united and reconciled throughout the region and that Christian Armenia had lost all its allies. Its king, Leo IV, agreed a 15-year truce with the Mamluks in 1323, promising an annual tribute of 50,000 gold florins and half the customs revenue of Armenia’s biggest port. When Philip V of France, buoyed by then popular notions reconquest in the Middle East, offered to help Armenia, the Muslims struck back hard against Armenia, before Philip could do anything. This time, in 1337, the Armenian King Leo V pledged himself never again to associate himself with western Christian forces. When the next generation broke this promise, the Mamluks stormed through the country, taking captive the last Armenian king, Leo VI, his queen and all his children, imprisoning them in Cairo. All but the king died there. The king was ransomed and spent his last days in Paris. He died in 1393, and with him the political history of Christian Armenia.155

C.  The Beginnings of the Ottoman Empire The seed of the dynasty that would destroy the eastern Roman Empire arrived in the form of Osman I in 1258. Osman was the son of a man who was part of a tribe 154  Broadbridge, A (2008) Kingship and Ideology in the Islamic and Mongol Worlds (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press) 53–58, 66, 90–91, 108–10; Wing, P (2015) ‘Submission, Defiance and the Rules of Politics on the Mamluk Sultanate’s Anatolian Frontier’ Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society 25 (3) 377–88. 155  Black, A (2011) The History of Islamic Political Thought (Edinburgh, Edinburgh University Press) 141; Hodgson, M (1974) The Venture of Islam, Vol II (Chicago, Ill, Chicago University Press) 292–95; Hussey, J (ed) (1966) The Cambridge Medieval History: The Byzantine Empire, Vol IV (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press) 635–37.

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that may not have been Muslim but, like so many others, had fled the Mongols into ­Anatolia after the collapse of the Khwarazmian dynasty. Osman’s tribe was allowed to settle as vassals by one of the surviving remnants of the Seljuk Empire, the Seljuk Sultanate of Rum. In these depressed lands the young Osman was inspired by a dream, in which an angel visited him after Osman had read the Koran. In the dream he was told, ‘Since thou had read my eternal word with so great respect, thy children and the children of thy children shall be honored from generation to generation.’156 The journey from being a vassal tribe to becoming the world superpower began when Osman, who had become chief of the tribe upon his father’s death, declared independence from the Sultanate of Rum in 1299 and started to advance into contested Byzantine territories. The first recorded military clash with Byzantine forces was in 1301 near Nicea (modern Iznik), of which Osman emerged victorious. By 1326 Osman had conquered Bursa, the center of the Byzantine province of Bithynia, after Constantinople failed to attempt a rescue. Each advance was free of religious fanaticism, as Osman realised that one of his greatest assets was a pragmatic approach that built upon the disillusionment of the local Greeks with the authorities in faraway Constantinople. With only a little persuasion, the local Byzantine populations preferred the safety and stability of Osman’s rule, in addition to the new economic advantages of extended trade.157 Osman’s son, Orhan, had the same zest for conquest as his father, but adopted a greater religious identity. Orhan cast himself as a gazi—warrior for the faith, one who was ‘God’s carpet-sweeper, who cleanses the earth of the filth of polytheism’.158 Orhan advanced the dynasty by superb infrastructure, mobilisation and organization, and most significantly, by building upon the religious foundations of his conquests. He was aware that jihadi warriors from all over Anatolia flocked to the standard of his father with each victory he achieved, and he sort to advance this by the creation of a strong reward system of both the land and property of the defeated. Official letters and declarations offering war or submission to identified enemies became the standard practice. In 1328 Orhan seized Nicea, and Nicomedia (modern Ismid) the following year. The Byzantine Emperor, Andronicus III, marched against the Ottomans in the hope of recovering these areas but was defeated twice, at Philocrene in 1229 and Pelecanum in 1330. Following these losses, Andronicus was compelled to recognise the Ottoman conquests.159

156  For Osman’s dream, see Kinross, L (1976) The Ottoman Centuries (NYC, Qui) 2–3, 9–10, 23–24. Also, Wigen, E (2013) ‘Ottoman Concepts of Empire’ Contributions to the History of Concepts 8 (1): 44–66; May, T (2012) The Mongol Conquests in World History (London, Reaktion) 84–86. 157  Peirce, L (2004) ‘Changing Perceptions of the Ottoman Empire: The Early Centuries’ Mediterranean Historical Review 19 (1): 6–28; White, S (2011) ‘Ottomans in Early Modern Global History’ Journal of Global History 6 (2): 345–49. 158  This definition is from the scholar Ahmedi (1334–1412), as noted in Panaite, V (2000) The Ottoman Law of War and Peace (NYC, Columbia University Press) 99. 159 Panaite, V (2000) The Ottoman Law of War and Peace (NYC, Columbia University Press) 88–91, 135–36; Murphey, R (1999) Ottoman Warfare: 1500–1700 (NJ, Rutgers University Press) 25–30, 63, 141–45.

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D.  The Entry into Europe Before the Byzantine forces could consolidate and push back the advancing Ottomans, they became embroiled in a vicious civil war in 1342. This was the second such war, an earlier one, between 1321 and 1328, pitting a grandfather (Andronilos II Palaiologos) against his grandson (Andronikos III Palaiologos) and grandson-in-law (Michael Asen III). This first civil war drew in both Bulgaria and Serbia, as well as the emirate of Aydin, which served the grandson, Andronikos III. When the winner of the first civil war (Andronikos III) died in 1341, the second civil war broke out, as his heir, John V Palaiologos, was a minor, and a dispute arose as to who would be regent, with John Cantacuzenus, the supreme administrator in Constantinople and a descendant of the Palaiologos family, eventually deciding it would make more sense to take the crown for himself, as he did, in 1346. This time, the number of countries that got sucked into the war was even greater, including thousands of mercenaries, as well as soldiers from Genoa, Venice, Bulgaria and Serbia. The king of the Serbs, Stephen Dushan, took advantage of the chaos to expand his territory by capturing much of Greece which had been in a state of anarchy since the turn of the century following the arrival of the mercenary Catalan company. Dushan fought the mercenaries, taking control of large sections Macedonia, Thrace, Epirus and Thessaly, whilst Athens remained in the hands of the Franks. Following these successes, Dushan assumed the title ‘emperor of the Serbs and Greeks’.160 Dushan then asked the pope if he could be appointed a captain of the Church, with the duty of defending the Christians in the East. Dushan did not realise his dreams, as Pope Innocent VI did not grant him his request as he was occupying land contested by another Christian king, Louis of Hungary. Even worse for Dushan, in 1354 John ­Cantacuzenus ended the civil war and made peace with John V after C ­ antacuzenus lost control of Constantinople. John V married Cantacuzenus’ daughter, and ­Cantacuzenus retired as a monk. Undeterred by the end of political support from his original p ­ aymaster, Dushan decided to try to claim the crown of Constantinople for himself. However, Dushan died on the second day of his march towards the city, at the head of 80,000 men. His Serbian empire died with him.161 The point of significance for the Muslim world was that in 1345, John Cantacuzenus had sought the aid of the Ottomans in pressing his claim to the throne of Byzantium. For this support Orhan suggested an arranged marriage, with one of Cantacuzenus’ daughters to be provided for his harem. Thus, when the Serbs presented a military

160  Cheyney, E (1962) The Dawn of a New Era (NYC, Harper) 118–20, 307; Miller, W (1907) ‘Athens Under the Franks’ The English Historical Review 22 (87): 519–22. 161 Luttwak, E (2009) The Grand Strategy of the Byzantine Empire (London, Harvard University Press) 164–65; Hussey, J (ed) (1966) The Cambridge Medieval History: The Byzantine Empire, Vol IV (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press) 342–48, 350–52, 359–69, 362–67, 392, 411, 524–30, 758–60; Norwich, J (1996) Byzantium: The Decline and the Fall (London, Penguin) 229, 283–85; Norwich, J (1991) Byzantium. The Apogee (NYC, Knoff) 146–47, 165.

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threat to Byzantine control of the Balkans, Orhan sent 6,000 cavalry in support of his father-in-law. Having driven Dushan’s Serbs back, the Ottomans withdrew from Europe, only to return in 1349, again at the behest of Cantacuzenus, once more to fight the Serbs. By this time, 20,000 Ottomans were actively engaged in supporting Byzantine military goals. In return, Cantacuzenus accepted Turkish rule in one of the imperial provinces and granted the Ottomans a fortress near Gallipoli in 1352. The Genoese, sensing a commercial opportunity, ferried the Ottomans across the Dardanelles into Europe, to their new fortress.162 The Ottomans were not content to sit and wait for orders from Constantinople. They began to advance into Balkan lands as Dushan’s Serbian empire began to fall apart and Bulgaria split into a series of separate dynasties. The Ottoman threat now present in Europe that was taking advantage of the problems in the Balkans, forced Byzantium, Venice and Genoa to reconsider the situation. In 1355 they jointly pledged to oppose the Ottomans. However, this pledge came to nothing. By 1357, it was clear that Orhan was ordering the Byzantine emperor to do his bidding, and by 1359 the Ottomans were beneath the walls of Constantinople. This advance had occurred after the Ottomans refused to withdraw troops from the territory near Gallipoli, when summoned to do so by Emperor John V Palaiologos. The Byzantines now had to accept the Ottoman presence, and chose to make peace with them in 1359, accepting the fait accompli of lost territory in Thrace. A further daughter for Orhan’s harem was given by the emperor, in addition to a one-off payment of gold for peace.163

E.  The Loss of Autonomy of Constantinople Orhan was succeeded by his eldest son, Murad, who became the ruler of the Ottomans in 1362. Very quickly afterwards he conquered two-thirds of the Balkan peninsular and destroyed the independence of large parts of Serbia, Bulgaria and the splintered regions of Greece, that were rootless after the end of Dushan. These areas were also contested by the Hungarian king Louis the Great who had achieved suzerainty over Serbia and annexed the northern part of Bulgaria by the early 1360s. In 1363, Murad came to an agreement with the Genoese to transport 60,000 Ottoman troops into Thrace, following which they quickly seized Adrianople and Demotika. At every point, Murad treated the Christian populations with a tolerance that was in sharp contrast

162 Kinross, L (1976) The Ottoman Centuries (NYC, Quil) 40–43; Korobeinikov, D (2004) ‘Diplomatic ­ orrespondence Between Byzantium and the Mamluk Sultanate in the Fourteenth Century’ Al Masaq: C Islam and the Medieval Mediterranean 16 (1): 53–74. 163  See Geanakoplos, D (ed) (1986) Byzantium: A Sourcebook on Church, Society and Civilisation Seen Through Contemporary Eyes (Chicago, Ill, Chicago University Press) 383; Gabriel, R (2005) Empires at War, Vol III (NYC, Greenwood) 990–91.

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to the way in which the Orthodox Christians and Catholics treated each other. He ensured that if they paid the jizra, there would be no persecutions of Christians and no enforced conversions to Islam.164 Murad I also concluded a new treaty with the Emperor of Byzantium, John V Palaiologos. As the price of peace, the emperor agreed not to attempt to regain his losses in Thrace, or seek any military support for the Serbians or Bulgarians in resisting the Ottoman advance. John V was also obliged to support the Ottomans against their Turkish rivals in Asia Minor. This isolation of Byzantium was critical, as Murad was now advancing through the Balkans. In the face of these advances, Bosnia, Hungary and Wallachia (which is part of modern-day Romania, north of the Danube and south of the Carpathians) pulled together a collective force of perhaps 50,000 men to try to stop Murad. This Christian army, which was poorly organized and without clear leadership was defeated outside Adrianople in 1365.165 As this Christian coalition was being vanquished, Pope Urban V managed to raise a further crusade (of sorts), after John V Palaiologos personally went to western Europe to beg for military assistance and, in his own personal capacity, accepted Catholicism in an attempt to bring about a union between the two Churches. However, the Orthodox Church in Constantinople would not accept the union, and the crusade that followed was a very half-hearted affair, as it did not enjoy the active support of the superpowers in Europe. The feeling, as explained by Petrarch in a letter to Pope Urban, was that ‘the Osmanlis are merely enemies, but the schismatic Greeks are worse than enemies’.166 Despite such reservations, some 10,000 men from the papal territories of Rhodes, Genoa, Venice and Cyprus, volunteers from as far afield as England, and the military religious orders still answered the call for a crusade against the Ottomans. The papal legate to the 1365 expedition attempted to exhort the men not to fear death with the promise, ‘for today the gates of Paradise are open’.167 Unfortunately for Byzantium, the crusade’s action was directed against the Mamluks of Egypt, not the Ottomans of the Balkans, the latter being the region where armed resistance to help defend the spread of Islam into Europe was most needed. To make matters even worse, the crusade’s attacks on both Smyrna and Alexandria in Egypt were failures. Although the Christian forces initially were able to hold those areas, they were quickly chased off, and the disputed territories were reclaimed. Further attempts by Pope Gregory XI to organize yet further crusades were pitiful, with the only force

164  Housley, N (1984) ‘King Louis the Great of Hungary and the Crusades, 1342–1382’ The Slavonic and East European Review 62 (2): 192–208; Kinross, L (1976) The Ottoman Centuries (NYC, Quil) 42–43, 59. 165  Tanner, J (ed) (1958) The Cambridge Medieval History: Decline of Empire and Papacy, Vol VI (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press) 286; Hay, D (1996) Europe in the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Centuries (London, ­Longman) 281. 166  Petrarch, as noted in Kinross, L (1976) The Ottoman Centuries (NYC, Quil) 46. 167  As noted in Holmes, G (2000) Europe: Hierarchy and Revolt (London, Blackwell) 173; Luttrell, A (1988) ‘English Levantine Crusaders, 1363–1387’ Renaissance Studies 2 (2): 143–53.

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willing to follow his command, the Hospitallers, landing on the coast of Albania, and being annihilated in early 1378.168 By the end of the decade, Murad was able to turn his attention back to the Balkans. In 1371, he destroyed the armies of both Serbia and Bulgaria at the Battle of Samakov, as well as those of one of his own son’s who had turned against his own father. The defeated and captured son was blinded and then beheaded, as were all of his treacherous supporters. All of Thrace and eastern Macedonia was now firmly in the hands of Murad, with both agreeing to become vassals of the Ottomans, promising to provide money and men to their Ottoman overlord when requested.169 By the spring of 1373, John V was fulfilling his duties as a vassal and accompanying Murad on campaign in Anatolia. When John’s son, Andronikos, rebelled against his father whilst he was away, Murad helped John V defeat him in both 1373 and 1376. Both Genoa and Venice were also drawn into the Byzantine conflict between father and son, before settling between themselves in the Treaty of Turin that followed. Remarkably, the peace between Venice and Genoa involved the division of more ­Byzantine lands without even considering the wishes of the Byzantine emperor. When Constantinople was retaken from the usurper in 1379, John V renewed his vassal status to the Ottomans, providing them with soldiers when required, as well as ‘many hundreds of pieces of gold and silver’ each year.170 With the help of these Byzantine soldiers, Murad took Ankara (the capital of modern Turkey) in 1380, before making further advances against the emir of Karamania.171 Despite being subjected to vassal status in 1371, neither the Greek nor the Serbian regions were prepared to accept this, as a result of which rebellion ensued. Murad acted quickly, Epirus and Albania falling in 1385 and the Serbian city of Nis in 1386. Again the Serbs formed a defensive league that included the Croats, Albanians, B ­ osnians, Poles and Hungarians—but not the Bulgarians. Initially, the league stemmed the tide, with an Ottoman defeat at the Battle of Bileca, north-east of Dubrovnik. However, the following year, in 1389, Murad I and an army of perhaps 30,000 men, without the assistance of the Byzantine vassal but with the support of a Bulgarian and two Serbian renegades and their men, met the opposing coalition of 20,000 on the plain of Kosovo. Although Murad was killed by a noble armed with a knife, who pretended to surrender to gain access to the Sultan, the Christian army was completely destroyed by the opposition.172

168  Devaney, T (2013) ‘Spectacle, Community and Holy War in Fourteenth Century Cyprus’ Medieval Encounters 19 (3): 300–41; Thibault, P (1985) ‘Pope Gregory XI and the Crusade’ Canadian Journal of History 20 (3): 313–15. 169  Turnbull, S (2003) The Ottoman Empire (London, Osprey) 14–17; Cheyney, E (1962) The Dawn of a New Era (NYC, Harper) 316; Crowley, R (2011) City of Fortune (London, Faber) 181, 230–33, 315. 170  The quote is from Panaite, V (2000) The Ottoman Law of War and Peace (NYC, Columbia University Press) 148; Finkel, C (2005) Osman’s Dream: The History of the Ottoman Empire (NYC, Basic) 16–19. 171  Kinross, L (1976) The Ottoman Centuries (NYC, Quil) 55–57. 172 Hussey, J (ed) (1966) The Cambridge Medieval History: The Byzantine Empire, Vol IV (Cambridge, ­Cambridge University Press) 372–73; Grant, R (2005) Battle: 5000 Years of Combat (London, Dorling Kindersley) 122.

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F.  Overunning the Balkans Any small hope in the Balkans that the death of Murad might give them some ­breathing space was never realised, as Murad’s successor, his son Bayezid, was known as ‘the Lightning’ for good reason. From the moment his father was killed, Bayezid moved very quickly to take over the reins of government, having his brother, Ya’qub, murdered. This first recorded fratricide in the history of the Ottoman Empire was not frowned upon, as succession by designation by the predecessor was specifically ruled out in many Muslim empires. It was said that succession was in the hands of God, so that a father could not intervene on behalf of one son and exclude the equal rights of the others. All that a father could legitimately do in advance of his own death, short of abdication and designation, was to give one son a position of military advantage over the others.173 In 1390 Bayezid set about expanding the Ottoman realm. First, to the east, with the aid of his Christian vassals, he invaded Karamania and besieged Konya, as his father had done before him. This time, the Karamanians were defeated and their territory was fully occupied by the Ottomans. This made Bayezid master of the greater part of Anatolia. Second, to the west, he realised that he needed to keep Byzantium weak and the supplementary Balkan areas divided. Accordingly, he ordered John V not to strengthen the defences around Constantinople, with which order John complied. Bayezid also increased the tribute demanded from Constantinople, and ensured the establishment of an Ottoman judge in the city for the Muslims and the cession of onequarter of the city to Muslim settlers.174 In 1392, Bayezid’s forces advanced into Bosnia, Thrace and then deep into Bulgaria, after having suspicions about the loyalty of these regions. Bayezid then captured the Bulgarian capital, Nicopolis, in 1393. These victories signaled the end of the independent Bosnian, Serbian and Bulgarian kingdoms, as well as of Wallachia. All agreed as the price of peace, to pay tribute and provide military resources to Bayezid when required. For almost 500 years afterwards, they would be provinces of the Ottoman Empire.175 Following these losses, Hungary was now the eastern bulwark of Christian Europe. The conflict between Hungary and the Ottomans started in 1395, the same year that the Ottomans completed the conquest of Macedonia. Bayezid was determined to stop any local authorities in the area (especially Wallachia) forming defence alliances with Hungary, and decided to act in a preemptive manner. As Bayezid crossed over the Danube for the first time, the Europeans were spurred into action. Pope Boniface IX

173 

Hodgson, M (1974) The Venture of Islam, Vol III (Chicago, Ill, Chicago University Press) 27. Kinross, L (1976) The Ottoman Centuries (NYC, Quil) 64–70. 175 Panaite, V (2000) The Ottoman Law of War and Peace (NYC, Columbia University Press) 150–51; Holmes, G (2000) Europe: Hierarchy and Revolt (London, Blackwell) 172; Finkel, C (2005) Osman’s Dream: The History of the Ottoman Empire (NYC, Basic) 20–21; Hussey, J (ed) (1966) The Cambridge Medieval History: The Byzantine Empire, Vol IV (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press) 374–75. 174 

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proclaimed a new crusade against the Ottomans. Collectively, a force of perhaps 10,000 men fought under the leadership of Philip the Bold, the Duke of Burgundy. These men came from England, Scotland, Flanders, Lombardy, Savoy and all parts of Germany, together with adventurers from Poland, Bohemia, Italy and Spain. Despite their enthusiasm, these men, with their lack of discipline, brought about a s­ pectacular disaster. They were completely routed at the Battle of Nicopolis in 1396, south of the Danube in Bulgaria, by a larger and more professional Ottoman force of 15,000 men, which included a number of Christian vassals in their empire. With this loss, all of western Greece fell into Bayezid’s hands. The following year, Bayezid temporarily occupied Athens, leaving only when tribute was promised. From this point, it appeared that most of Europe was at the mercy of the Ottoman Sultan.176

6.  The Last Nomadic Conqueror

The demise of the Byzantine Empire would have occurred five decades earlier had Timur/Tamerlane not arrived on the scene. Timur was the great grandson of the commander-in-chief to Jagatai, Genghis Khan’s second son, who had inherited Khorasan (in central Asia) as part of his portion of the Great Khan’s empire. By the end of his life, he would have extinguished nine dynasties as part of his personal goal to conquer the entire world, contending that ‘as there was only one God in Heaven, so there should be only one ruler on Earth’.177 The one God in Heaven in whom Timur believed was a Sunni Muslim. Islam governed Timur’s military expeditions. The Crescent always surmounted Timur’s royal standard, and it was under the banner of Islam that his conquests were prosecuted. Timur’s approach to Islam appears to have been more about pragmatism than principle. He personally had difficulty in following some of the basic rules (he never visited Mecca) or cultural practices (in terms of dress and style). Nevertheless, he was forthright in his belief that he was practicing jihad. To all of his enemies he proclaimed, ‘I am the scourge of God appointed to chastise you, since no one knows the remedy for your iniquity except me.’178 With such thinking, Timur came to hold the Steppes, Persia, the Caucasus and Syria, making very few changes to any regime except for placing his governors in charge and insisting that it be Muslim and pleasing to him. The human cost of these conquests, by

176  Rosetti, R (1936) ‘The Battle of Nicopolis’ Slavonic and East European Review 15 (1) 629–42; DeVires, K (1999) ‘The Lack of a Western European Military Response to the Ottoman Invasions of Eastern Europe from Nicopolis to Mohacs’ The Journal of Military History 63 (3): 596–618; Gabriel, R (2005) Empires at War, Vol III (London, Greenwood) 995; Grant, R (2011) 1001 Battles (London, Penguin) 210; Rogerson, B (2010) The Last Crusaders (London, Abacus) 72–75. 177  Timur, as noted in Kinross, L (1976) The Ottoman Centuries (NYC, Quil) 71. Also, Manz, B (2002) ‘Tamerlane’s Career and Its Uses’ Journal of World History 13 (1): 1–25. 178  Timur, as noted in Robinson, F (2009) The Islamic World (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press) 56. Also, Marozzi, J (2005) Tamerlane (NYC, Harper) 92–93.

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the time of his death in 1405, was a death toll of some 17 million people from Central Asia, India, and the Mamluk and Ottoman Empires.179 Timur’s work began in 1370, when he gained control of the western part of the Jagatai Khanate that occupied Transoxiana. This was the portion of Central Asia corresponding, approximately, to modern-day Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and Kazakhstan. This was the first point of conquest undertaken by the Muslim Timur against the pagan Mongols. He was assisted in this quest by his brother-in-law, Mir Husain, the two forces joining together. However, their relationship fell apart, despite their both professing the need for a joint Muslim attack against pagans. Timur, citing the greedy and impious actions of Husain, then destroyed the forces of his erstwhile Muslim ally in Kabul and Bactria.180 Timur then began to advance into Afghanistan and eastern Persia from 1380, and then into western Persia from 1382. He did this whenever the resident rulers did not agree to be his vassals, or did not live up to his expectations of how vassals were meant to behave. The conquest of Persia was relatively easy, as the area had been in a state of anarchy since the Ilkhanate (which had been Mongol, and then Muslim) had collapsed in 1335. Prior to the death of the last Khan, Abu Saíd, and consistent with the traditional religious toleration shown by the Mongols,181 Shia and Sufi Muslims had found refuge in this part of the world. Of note, Safi al-Din Ishak, who declared that he was the reincarnation Muhammad’s son-in-law and cousin, Ali, established the religious order known as the Safawiyya in the mountains of Azerbaijan, which laid the seeds for the Shia based Persian Safavid dynasty, lived in this period.182 It was into this world that Timur entered, initially in 1382, obtaining quick victories, whilst also trampling on both Christian Georgia and Armenia, in which he preached jihad. Timur then returned to Persia, with the goal of total conquest, not raiding, between 1392 and 1396. The second time, during which Timur came to peacefully occupy Baghdad, he was engaged in a much larger war against his onetime ally, the Mongol Muslim known as Tokhtamysh, who ruled the Golden Horde/ eastern Kipchak, which operated out of what is today southern Russia. Tokhtamysh, who Timur considered his vassal, had turned against Timur and invaded Azerbaijan (which Timur had just annexed), as he regarded Timur as an imposter on the Asian stage, a minor noble at best, unfit to rule. Timur responded by sending an army reported to be over 100,000 men to fight, pursue and finally vanquish his enemy and any of their associated allies. The victory for Timur was absolute, and by 1395, he was the ­undisputed ruler of Central Asia.183

179 White, M (2011) Atrocitolology: Humanity’s 100 Deadliest Achievements (Melbourne, Text Publishing) 146–50. 180  Grousset, R (2010) The Empire of the Steppes (Atlantic City, Rutgers University Press) 327–28. 181  See page 140. 182  Grousset, R (2010) The Empire of the Steppes (Atlantic City, Rutgers University Press) 390–93, 425–29, 435–43, 482–83. 183  Broadbridge, A (2008) Kingship and Ideology in the Islamic and Mongol Worlds (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press) 170–74.

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Northern India was Timur’s next target. This part of the Muslim world, and the great Sultanate of Delhi, had fragmented into independent regions, with ambitious local rulers calling themselves sultans. Subsequently, independent Muslim areas around Benegal, Malwa, Kashmir, the Sind and Gujarat broke free from the Sultanate of Delhi during the second half of the fourteenth century. At the same time, Hindus in many areas began to react against the oppressive rule of some of the Muslim rulers. This revolt led to the formation of the independent Hindu Empire of Vijayanagara, to the south of the Krishna River, which had emerged in 1346 and fought its way to a peace treaty with the Sultanate in 1365 that recognised its autonomous existence. This peace, between Bukka Raya I of Vijayanagara and Muhammad Shah, Bahmani, concluded a vicious war in which hundreds of thousands of people were killed.184 It was this peace with the Hindus, and the increasing tolerance of the Sultanate of Delhi towards Hindus, that drove Timur to attack the Sultanate of Delhi in 1398. Timur explained the conflict in the following terms: Although the true faith is observed in many places in India, the greater part of the kingdom is inhabited by idolaters. The Sultans of Delhi have been slack in their defence of the Faith. The Muslim rulers are content with the collection of tribute from these infidels. The Koran says that the highest dignity a man can achieve is to make war on the enemies of our religion.185

A battle for Delhi followed, in which up to 1 million Indians may have died, after a request for complete submission to Timur was refused. In the aftermath, much of the remaining parts of Delhi Sultanate fragmented. Timur departed, leaving the country in the grip of total anarchy, with everything destroyed and nothing set in order.186 After conquering Muslim India, Timur turned his attention to the other great Islamic powers—the Mamluks and the Ottomans. His first target was the Mamluks, who had earlier executed some of his ambassadors and held others captive. They had also given sanctuary to the sultan of Baghdad, who had fled from the advancing forces of Timur in 1393, after the people of Baghdad had wisely decided to open the gates of the city to him rather than try to defend them. Timur demanded that the sultan should be handed over to him. He also warned the Mamluks that they were not following the true Muslim path, by being too intolerant towards complimentary Muslim faiths, such as the Shia. The Mamluk ruler, the 13-year-old Faraj, under the guidance of his advisers, replied that Timur was an infidel and the Mamluks were favoured by God, and that was why they were the guardians of the holy places. The young ruler warned Timur that the Mamluks had defeated the Mongols in the past and they would do so again. Timur decided to test this assertion, wheeling his armies into Syria and promising war unless the Mamluks submitted to his rule and released his ambassadors and those 184  Eraly, A (2015) The Age of Wrath: A History of the Delhi Sultanate (London, Penguin) 190–202; Kulke, H (1996) A History of India (London, Routledge) 170–72, 175, 179, 190–96; White, M (2011) Atrocitolology: Humanity’s 100 Deadliest Achievements (Melbourne, Text Publishing) 145. 185  Timur, as recorded in Marozzi, J (2005) Tamerlane (NYC Harper) 239. 186  Nossov, K (2006) The Rise and Fall of the Delhi Sultanate (London, Osprey) 4–5; Grant, R (2011) 1001 Battles (London, Penguin) 210.

China 227

people who currently claimed asylum in Egypt. Aleppo was the first town to fall after a 29-day siege, in which at least 20,000 Syrians died. Damascus then surrendered, after the Mamluk force sent to relieve it failed to fight upon seeing the enemy, retreating to Cairo under the cover of an alleged rebellion at home. Although Damascus was not sacked, Baghdad, which had rebelled against his rule was sacked, after it withstood a siege of 40 days. The sack included the death of perhaps 90,000 people who were not religious figures, and the destruction of every building that was not used for religion or education. Although Timur allowed Baghdad to be rebuilt according to his own plans, and insisted that henceforth he would select the Caliph, the city was now but a shadow of its former self, having suffered destruction twice in the space of 150 years.187

7.  China

A.  The End of the Yuan The next target that Timur had in mind (but never achieved) was China and the Ming dynasty. The Ming had arisen when the last Yuan emperor, Toghon Temur, ascended to the throne as the Son of Heaven in 1333 after a sequence of violent contests within the Yuan court that had seen ten khans in the last 17 years. By the time he was in power, the regime was a very long way from its original plans. Government was so degraded that it was dependent upon local warlords for power, as there was very little strong central control left. In the gaps, bandits, pirates and/or brigands multiplied as did corruption, runaway inflation, exorbitant taxation and economic exploitation increased as more Chinese were reduced to outright slave status than at any other time in their history. To make matters even worse, the ecology was unkind, unleashing natural calamities of drought and famine across the land.188

B.  The Rise of the Ming Two decades into the fourteenth century in China, and there may have been several million peasants on the brink of starvation. The first peasant uprising occurred in 1338 in Yangzhou, in the name of a group, who distinguished themselves by their dress, the Red Turbans’. Although the 1338 uprising was short-lived, more than a hundred

187  Broadbridge, A (2008) Kingship and Ideology in the Islamic and Mongol Worlds (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press) 180–85; Marozzi, J (2005) Tamerlane (NYC, Harper) 314–17; Marozzi, J (2015) Baghdad: City of Peace, City of Blood (London, Penguin) 159–61; Grant, R (2011) 1001 Battles (London, Penguin) 212. 188  Wang, X (2010) ‘Climate, Desertification and the Rise and Collapse of China’s Historical Dynasties’ Human Ecology 38 (1): 152–72; Hucker, C (1975) China’s Imperial Past (California, Stanford UP) 286–288.

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further peasant revolts occurred over the following decades against the Yuan regime, which by the middle of the century was rapidly losing its ability to help local landlords suppress the rebellions. From these uprisings, the Hongwu (meaning, ‘Vast Military Power’) emperor, Zhu Yuanzhang arose in central China. Unlike other rebels, Zhu set about capturing places of real strategic importance, at the same time as eliminating his rebel rivals. All of this was done as part of his broader goal of opposition to the Yuan dynasty of foreign rulers. He explained: It is the birthright of the Chinese to govern foreign peoples and not these latter to rule in China. It used to be said that the Yuan or Mongols, who came from the regions of the north, conquered our empire not so much by their courage and skill as by the aid of Heaven. And now it is sufficiently plain that Heaven itself wished to deprive them of that empire as some punishment for their crimes, and for not having acted according to the teachings of their forefathers. The time has now come to drive these foreigners out of China.189

In addition to his hatred of foreign forces ruling China, Zhu Yuanzhang was also driven by two further considerations. First, he realised that the revolution had to cater to the material needs of the poor. He himself came from a desperately poor farming family, in which many of his immediate family had died of starvation. From such humble beginnings, his goal appeared to be of catering to the poor and humbling the rich. His soldiers had to show great respect to the peasants. Large estates were confiscated by his forces and then rented out to the landless, who were also offered seeds, tools, farm animals and tax incentives to settle in depressed or underpopulated areas. The policies of the Song, whereby all had the chance to enter into the royal services, irrespective of hereditary lineage, were reinstituted. In addition, slavery was radically reduced, but not abolished despite the arguments of Chu Yuan-Chang, who was a lone voice against the institution overall.190 Second, Zhu adopted an anti-Confucian policy as despite the early goals of the Mongol court, it had eventually found itself dominated by entrenched neo-Confucian elite. It was this elite of Confucianized scholars and citizens, who Zhu, in part, held responsible for the squalor in China. Accordingly, he decided to bring Buddhism to the fore. As he had earlier trained as a Buddhist monk, this was not a surprise, but he elaborated upon what he had learnt, as he found that more forms of direct action were required to change the situation in China, than were traditionally found with Buddhism. He then, as part of the process of symbolism and legitimization adopted the title ‘Ming’ for his dynasty. Ming was a Buddhist epithet which denoted, ­‘brightness’.

189 Zhu Yuanzhang, as noted in Waterson, J (2013) Defending Heaven: China’s Mongol Wars (Frontline, London) 190. Also, Dexin, Z (2000) ‘A Brief Discussion of Zhu Yuanzhang’s Relations with the Yuan Dynasty’ Chinese Studies in History 33 (3): 68–79; Dardess, J (1970) ‘The Transformation of Messianic Revolt and the Founding of the Ming Dynasty’ The Journal of Asian Studies 29 (3): 539–58. 190  Guo, H (2000) ‘On Zhu Yuanzhang’s Philosophy of Ruling the Nation’ Chinese Studies in History 33 (3): 80–104. For two examples of the Hongwu Emperor’s insistence on the highest standards to protect the population, see his ‘Edict Restraining Officials from Evil’ and ‘Dismissal of Excessive Local Staff Because of Their Crimes’, both are reprinted in Buckley, P (ed) (1993) Chinese Civilisation: A Sourcebook (NYC, Free Press) 203–07.

China 229

This was adopted in anticipation of Buddhism rising to preside over the end of the world.191 By 1356 Ming forces had captured Nanjing, and two years later, Beijing fell to them too. Large scale battles continued between 1360 and 1363, with many in excess of 100,000 men. At the Lake Poyang campaign of 1363, over 300,000 men clashed, with 60,000 deaths. With each victory for Zhu, his confidence grew, as more men joined his forces, and the size of his armies snowballed as the territory and size of the enemy shrank. The Yuan opposition was finally crushed in 1372, when the last Yuan general found his army of 100,000 surrounded by three Ming armies equating to nearly treble the size. The last Yuan emperor, Toghon, was then forced out of China and back into Mongolia. The end result was that although the Mongolian and Siberian lands held by the Yuan were beyond the reach of the Ming, all of China was, once more, unified. The human cost for this recovery, between 1340 and 1370, was about 30 million people.192 Having unified China and ejecting the Mongolians from his country, Zhu then turned on his own people. First, he oversaw a series of purges of his own administration, leading to the deaths of an estimated 45,000 officials, fearing he could not rely on their loyalty. Several officials were even put to death on suspicion of having inserted derogatory puns in memorials designed to praise the emperor.193 Second, despite his initial attraction to Buddhism, he became careful not to allow himself to get too drawn into their interests. Accordingly, Confucian values remained prominent. The Red Turbans were prohibited, the Christian influence (which was evident in the Yuan epoch) disappeared by 1390, and in 1391, Zhu concluded that Buddhists were as selfish as all others, and passed his Hundred Day Edict, which amalgamated hundreds of monasteries, and restricted the monks to stay inside their properties and instructed them not to mingle with the public. Although this edict passed with the death of Zhu, the principle that no religion was to have a preferred status, continued.194 Zhu Yuanzhang passed on his power to his grandson, Zhe Yumen, who was usurped by his uncles in the civil war of three years that started in 1399, known as the Jingnan rebellion. From this conflict, the third Ming ruler, the Yongle Emperor, Zhu Di, arose in 1402. Before this point, Zhu Di had to win comprehensive victories against his enemies in his own family, which had to be ‘pacified’ after they had fallen into,

191  Chan, H (2008) ‘The ‘Song’ Dynasty Legacy: Symbolism and Legitimation from Han Liner to Zhu Yuanzhang’ Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies 68 (1): 91–133. 192  The figure of 30 million is from White, M (2011) Atrocitolology: Humanity’s 100 Deadliest Achievements (Melbourne, Text Publishing) 140–43. Also, Waterson, J (2013) Defending Heaven: China’s Mongol Wars (London, Frontline) 140–64. 193  See Xinquan, C (2000) ‘A Tentative Analysis of the Slaughter of Meritorious Officials and Veteran Generals by Zhu Yuanzhang’ Chinese Studies in History 33 (3): 50–67; Lorge, P (2005) War, Politics and Society in Early Modern China (London, Routledge) 100–108. 194  Brooke, T (2010) The Troubled Empire: China in the Yuan and Ming Dynasties (Massachusetts. Harvard UP) 90, 170–71.

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‘evil ways’ through the misguidance of self-serving officials. Then copying the example of his grandfather, once secure in China, he purged his own administration, executing tens of thousands of his own officials, just to ensure that their loyalty could be relied upon.195

8.  Conclusion

The beginning of the fourteenth century in Europe saw war continuing to burn around the contest of whether the pope was superior to kings, or not. Pope Boniface was clear in his view that he was superior to all temporal authorities. The first challenger to these claims was the French king, Philip IV, who, in his desire to create united French opinion, established the Estates General, in which the three estates—the clergy, the nobility and all others not in the first two estates—were brought together into one body. The Estates of France concluded that Philip was beholden to God alone, not to the pope. However, before this matter could be resolved, and before Philip could be excommunicated and rebellion stirred, Pope Boniface died. The next pope to get involved in these debates to the same extent was Pope John XXII, who found the papacy challenged by both scholars and kings alike. Of the former, Dante, Ockham and Wycliffe all denied the absolute nature of the power that the popes were trying to claim, along with the papacy’s obsession with temporal wealth and its incessant meddling in affairs that resulted in war. The solution, as most clearly advocated by Dante, was that of an all-powerful monarch, who would break free from papal power and put an end to the incessant warring between the factions of a hopelessly divided Italy. Of the latter, the king to put the theory into practice that monarchy was above the papacy, was Louis the Bavarian, whom Pope John refused to crown after he had secured the throne of Germany, following a disputed election and subsequent civil war, but who was not Pope John’s preferred candidate. Following Louis’ assertions that his election was determined by God and the electors alone, Louis was excommunicated, after which Pope John called for rebellion and war against Louis. The man who rose up against Louis, and was endorsed by the papacy after he promised obedience, was Charles IV. As it was, Louis died of natural causes before battle could be engaged. This left Charles IV as the undisputed master of Germany. Once secure in his power, he issued the Golden Bull, which attempted to put an end to the need for future wars due to disputed elections. This contained two key considerations. First, the formalities for elections in Germany and the rights of the seven electors were set down. Secondly, the papacy was excluded from the process. Before the papacy could object to being excluded in a process which it had tried to manipulate for the previous three centu-

195  Brooke, T (2010) The Troubled Empire: China in the Yuan and Ming Dynasties (Massachusetts, Harvard UP) 92–93.

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ries, the Church split in the great western Schism. This schism which went on for four decades, divided Europe over who was and was not the rightful pope, and theologians, on the question of whether the pope could be voted out of office. This question was unresolved as the fourteenth century ended. War bedeviled the three kings who were toppled from their thrones in Europe in the fourteenth century. The English kings, Edward II and Richard II, were both deposed after each had received warnings regarding their bad counsel, running rough-shod over the rights of others and deteriorating international relations. In both instances counterweights put in place against the arbitrary power of the king were agreed, and then were reversed by the monarchs themselves. As a result, these kings achieved absolute power, from which no dissent was tolerated. The reaction was that both were overthrown. Edward II was overthrown by his wife and her lover; whilst Richard II was deposed by his cousin, Henry Bolingbroke (the future Henry IV of England). Both cases involved Parliament, in terms of the drawing up of charges and then the recognition of successors. Similarly in Germany, Wenceslaus IV was declared deposed by the electors on account of his ineptitude, idleness and neglect of duty. In every instance the precedent, and a cause for war, was becoming clear: a king did not have an absolute right to rule. Even in France, the Estates General was formed, and the idea that all parts of a community had a stake in government, came into vogue. When new rulers came into power, such as Edward III in England, the emphasis was towards a much greater sharing of power with existing mechanisms, such as the Parliament. Elsewhere, the advance and clear setting out of power-sharing rules, by which monarchs had to govern was most clearly achieved in the newly created union of Poland and Lithuania. Here, the recognition of the right to be the monarch was conditional upon obedience to a detailed set of rules and promises, covering matters from religious practice to the rights of nobles. With such instances, it is possible to assert that unlike the three centuries before hand, the fourteenth century saw a clear trend towards peace being achieved by monarchy being buttressed by constitutional considerations that tempered the idea of the absolute authority of a king or queen. Although strong progress was made for the nobles in their power sharing quests with monarchs, the greatest revolutions of all and a clearly newly articulated cause for war, were driven by the peasants, and arose at the end of the century, arising in Castile, France, England and Switzerland. The only successful attempt in this area was with the rise of Switzerland, in which traditional forms of authority were exited from the region, and the people, who were renowned for their civic equality, came to obtain greater amounts of autonomy. Conversely, in all of the other attempts to put an end to serfdom and increase the rights of the poorest people in society, their efforts were crushed. The same fate befell the Flemish communities, who instigated a sequence of failed rebellions in which considerations of both economic betterment of the lower classes, and independence from the French crown, combined. However, after much bloodshed, these people could only ever gain a limited autonomy, provided they recognised the overall authority of the French king. The Scots, too, although not engaged in wars related to social progress for the lowest economic strata of society, oscillated as they had for the earlier centuries, between being fully sovereign and fully beholden

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to the English crown. The difference was that in the fourteenth century, their quests for independence were more pronounced than in the past. However, despite their increased efforts, their biggest problem to achieving their goal lay in civil and dynastic wars, in which one side or the other would appeal to the English for support in return for promising loyalty to the English crown. The disputes between France and England became increasingly worse in the fourteenth century, as the beginning of the Hundred Years War testified. The root cause of this war was the inter-marriage of two royal families from different countries and the inability of one of them, to produce heirs. In this instance, Isabella of France was married to Edward II of England. The difficulty was that Isabella, as the sister of the French King Charles IV, was among the last of the direct Capetian line. When Charles failed to produce an heir, Isabella’s son, Edward, thus became the next in line to the French throne. The French Parliament, who saw the problem in advance, passed the Salic law, in which the throne in France could only ever pass to a male. When Isabella came to power after deposing her husband Edward II, and needing French help more than the French crown, she did not pursue the claim for her son, accepting the succession of her cousin, Philip of Valois, instead. She also promised that the English would pay homage to the French king for all the English-held lands in France. However, when Edward III came to power, and gave refuge to a number of prominent Flemings who were fleeing the reach of the French king and failed to answer charges in Paris, the king of France declared that all of the English lands in France were forfeited. Edward III replied that he, by descent, was the rightful king of France. In the killing that followed, Edward quickly gained the upper hand. He ended up capturing the next French king, John, and the Scottish king, David, who was allied to the French. As France fell into internal turmoil and suffered an uprising, which failed, the authorities agreed to the Treaty of Bretigny. Although Edward III did not end up claiming the throne of France, the treaty did agree that all of the English territories in France, including, amongst others, Gascony, Aquitaine and Calais, were his, absolutely, for which no homage was owed to the French crown. The difficulty was that the treaty was never fully concluded, and in the last decades of the century it fell apart. This collapse was at the same time that both England and France had both joined opposing sides in distant wars in both Castile and Portugal, both of which kingdoms had, also, split apart over questions of succession to their thrones. Accordingly, in both instances, the causes of war were directly related to questions of who was best fit to be a monarch of a country. The fourteenth century saw the end of the Mongolian influence in most of the areas they had conquered in the thirteenth century. This ending caused conflict not only in throwing off their yoke, but also, in the building of new regimes. In the case of what became Russia, Moscow, with the increased autocracy of its ruler as opposed to more republican types of government, oversaw the unprecedented acquisition of smaller Rus territories as the reach of the Golden Horde slackened. By the end of the century, the leaders of Moscow were feeling strong enough to directly challenge the Golden Horde in connection with their vassal status.

Conclusion 233

The other area where the end of the Mongols created unprecedented opportunities for others was in the Middle East, from which the seeds of the Ottoman Empire sprouted. These seeds grew out of the chaos of the Mongolian onslaughts and the fragmentation of much of the region when from a small patch of sanctuary in the ­territory of the Seljuk of Rum, Osman I emerged, taking territory, but promising tolerance and economic prosperity, to both Muslim and Byzantine communities alike. His son, Orhan was stronger on the military and religious side, casting himself as more of a religious fundamentalist, and with his zeal, the first significant victories against the Byzantines occurred in the 1330s. However, the real advances of the Ottomans was due to the chaos of succession disputes that pulled apart Byzantium from inside. This chaos was multiplied by quests for independence of Bulgaria, Serbia and Greece. The disputes were then overlaid with a theological competition between Orthodox and Catholic Christians (in the breakaway provinces) in which multiple contenders for the throne, invited the Ottomans into Europe to secure their military skills and join any number of a banquet of causes for war. Murad I continued to cause war as the Ottoman empire expanded at the expense of the non-Muslim territories in the Balkans. Murad reverted back to the policy of non-persecution of non-Muslims under occupation, promising them greater security than that offered by Byzantium, if they paid the applicable taxes and accepted his suzerainty. The Byzantine Emperor John V tried to get help from Europe, but when the Orthodox Church in Constantinople refused to accept a union to Rome, only a small Crusade could be organised, and even this, attacked (and then left) Egypt, not the Balkans, where it was most needed. When this had departed, Murad fully subsumed Serbia and Bulgaria, comprehensively crushing their efforts of independence at Kosovo in 1389, whilst John V became an unequivocal vassal to the Ottomans, providing both gold and men when demanded. The following Sultan Bayezid, expanded to the east into Karamania, subsuming independent Sunni areas. To the west, Bayezid ordered the Byzantine emperor not to strengthen the defences around Constantinople, to increased the tribute owed, and hand over one quarter of the city to Muslim settlers. He then expanded into Bosnia and tightened his grip on Bulgaria and Serbia, turning them all into provinces of the Ottoman empire. Bayezid crossed the Danube in 1395, as Hungary was now the front line. A reply of 10,000 men from all over Europe was then defeated at Nicopolis. All of western Greece fell next, escaping occupation for the price of tribute. The demise of Byzantium would have arrived five decades earlier had Timur not arrived on the scene. Timur was the great grandson of the commander in chief to Jagatai, Genghis Khan’s second son. Nominally Muslim, Timur fought all oppositions, irrespective of creed, before him, using justifications of jihad, against non-believers, and believers who were too soft, or too hard, in their faith. The wars of Timur began in 1370 when he gained control of the western part of the Jagatai Khanate which occupied Central Asia, after local authorities either refused to be his vassal, or behaved wrongfully in his eyes (and therefore unfit to govern), including both established Sunni and emergent Shia. He destroyed the Muslim forces in northern India for not p ­ ersecuting

234  The Fourteenth Century

the Hindu’s. He then attacked the Mamluks for giving sanctuary to his enemies and their persecution of Shia. This victory against the Mamluks, meant that at the end of the fourteenth century, there was only one viable Muslim opposition in his path—the Ottomans. The other non-Muslim target that Timur had in mind was China. China by this point had ejected its Mongolian rulers, with the rise of the Ming dynasty, which had eclipsed the Yuan dynasty in the middle of the fourteenth century. The cause for war in China was that the integrity of the Yuan had dissolved, allowing powerful local warlords, bandits, pirates and brigands to flourish in an era of corruption, runaway inflation, exorbitant taxation and economic exploitation, as more Chinese were reduced to outright slave status than at any other time in their history. The Ming, who sought to reinvigorate the policies of the Song, were initially anti-foreigners, and focused upon social policies to improve the lot of the poorest in society. They were also, initially, strongly Buddhist in outlook. However, once the Yuan had been pushed from China, this interest in Buddhism faded, and successive emperors began to maintain control by purging their own State and waging war on their own relatives who began to take an undue interest in the throne. This pattern of purges, feuds and fratricide then became the norm in the Ming Empire.

VI Conclusion

I

T IS NOW time to conclude this volume of work, covering the causes of war for the years 1000 to 1400. To do this, rather than deal with the causes on the chronological and geographical basis I used in this book, I am reverting back to the broad classes related to the causation of warfare that I identified in the first volume of this work, namely, migratory peoples; monarchy; politics and religion.

1. Migratory Forces

Migratory peoples as a cause of war was evident in the epoch covered in this book. The Vikings, Liao, Mongols and Timur, were all migratory peoples of one description or another. The differences with these peoples compared to the past, was that in this epoch they were rarely purely transitory. In most instances, they all tried to settle and establish longer term controls on the territories they conquered. Their base justifications for war, in either western Europe or east Asia, was booty and/or tribute. The causes used to justify their violence were intervention on behalf of an existing power seeking mercenary assistance; the killing of an ambassador; giving sanctuary to an enemy or failure to submit and provide tribute when demanded. Peace with such groups could only ever be achieved by either military victory, tribute, or amalgamation with the existing populations. Of all of these groups, the only one to find success in staying in a region and ­establishing a long standing influence was with the Vikings, and the Normans in both western Europe and southern Italy, in particular. The Mongols were the second most successful group in terms of long term standing, although their best case example of the civilisation they left within what became Russia, only lasted as an independent entity for a few centuries. The other sections, in the Middle East and China, were relatively transitory, achieving great success and then disappearing within the space of a few generations. In the spaces that were created by their disappearance, there would be scrambles for power.

2. Monarchy

Monarchy and the considerations related to its maintenance, continued to be a continual source of war from the eleventh to the fourteenth century. In the beginning

236  Conclusion

of this period, the only country where it was relatively clear that kingship was not a hereditary right, was in Germany. In most other places it was assumed to be something that could be passed on, however, the rules around how this could be done, such as with primogeniture, took centuries to evolve. The only thing that was more certain than not, was that a woman, as a non-warrior, could not rule. The end of each monarch could easily result in war as conflict for the throne developed. Even within a settled realm, where there was more than one possible heir, war was possible. At all points, due to the fragmented state of the emerging kingdoms, support was given in exchange for benefits. The more a local ruler was offered in terms of autonomy and rewards of land and resources, the more likely he was to pledge allegiance. When absolute victory was achieved, there was no peace processes, only conquest and obedience. When a stalemate occurred between monarchs, peace could be found by dividing the land, as initially occurred with the Vikings in England. When the basis for their division disappeared (the death of the opposing English king), unification occurred with shared laws, exiting mercenaries and execution of non-loyal supporters for the future monarch. The other region of the world in which treaties settled military stalemates between emperors and want-to-be emperors was in China, where the Song agreed to demarcate regions with both the relatively migratory forces of the Liao and the Xi Xia. In both instances, peace could be reached in the eleventh century between opposing monarchs and borders could be set for the price of tribute. Uniquely to China, considerations of status of the leader, and whether they were equal, or subservient, to the (Song) emperor, could also cause warfare, as could the need to possess culturally important areas. This pattern continued into the twelfth century where warfare over the ownership of the Sixteen Prefectures was an ongoing concern for the Song. When the Jin arose (as the successor to the Liao dynasty), the Song cooperated militarily with them to recover the culturally important areas. However, the relationship between the Song and the Jin was fickle, and although the Sixteen Prefectures were returned to the Song, when the Jin sensed the time was right, they turned on their erstwhile allies. The attack on the Song was pure opportunism based around perceived strengths of military power, and rhetoric of the Song harbouring the enemies of the Jin. When peace was found, large amounts of tribute would be exchanged (from the Song), in addition to recognition of culturally significant terminology of one state, being superior to another. Such recognition did not satisfy an intrinsically predicatory Jin, who when the time was right, took a large section of the northern section of the Song Empire, including an emperor. Peace was only achieved with the annual giving of more tribute and recording that they (the Song) were the inferior State. Further warfare was related to the offensive language of the earlier treaty (and whether the Jin were of equal status to the Song). Peace was found with increases in tribute. War would continually spill over borders, as centralised control was an elusive concept in most countries, or, as empires dissolved and power vortexes arose. The opportunities for contenders to take power of an area and claim independence was a cause of war. In this area, such as in China with the end of the Tang, areas that were once under control such as Tibet or Vietnam, would splinter into their own warring

Monarchy 237

ecosystems when the superpower left. Conversely, with Korea, a solid relationship with China was formed in both politics and philosophy, from which the Koryo dynasty, which would hold power for 400 years would emerge. In Europe, to gain, or regain, control over an area, local lords would be offered advantages to switch sides and/or pledge allegiance. This was especially the case in border regions, which by the very nature of the time, were very nebulous and undefined. Germany experienced continual tension with Poland, Hungary and Bavaria. England had the same tension with Wales and Scotland, and post William the Conqueror, Normandy. In each instance, the fight would be over whether a regional ruler was absolute or subservient, via either a personal or a feudal obligation. A feudal obligation meant that a local ruler was on ultimate matters of war and justice, subservient to the direction of another king. Rulers who required outside assistance to maintain power often paid the price for that support of agreed subservience to another. With more embedded dynasties, outside support could often be achieved by intermarriage, as a diplomatic advantage, between established and powerful families of other regions, whereby the resources of one monarchy might be lent to another. Inter-marriage between ruling powers was a feature of all of civilisations and societies of this study. Marriage was also used within a realm, whereby families who were defeated and a remaining threat, or those with potential resources, would be joined together. Marriage was often shown to be a more reliable tool than warfare in realising large ambitions. Dynastic marriages were often undertaken for very similar reasons, either to help to legitimise a claim, or to stake out a new one. At this point in time, marriages of people with standing rarely involved love but rather represented investments or the diplomatic equivalent of mergers, as a result of which power could be maintained. When children were the result of the arrangement, the hope was that the two realms would be closely intertwined and stop fighting each other. In practice, this was not the case, as often, it only created dynastic contenders for crowns from different lands. Although dynastic relationships via marriage were part of the process of war in Europe, in England the relationships were much more personal, inter-family war being taken to a whole new level. Primogeniture in England was still not an established practice until the middle of the twelfth century, before which siblings would battle for power, of which Henry I, was a strong example. The succession crisis following the death of Henry I saw the house of Plantagenet reaching for power, after Henry’s daughter, Matilda, in a rare instance of a female ruler, fought (with the help of her dynastic relations in Scotland, who joined the fray for both reasons of loyalty and land) her cousin Stephen for the English throne. Stephen, with the support of the pope and many of the nobles of England following promises in exchange for their support, could not be defeated. Following the military stalemate, peace was achieved with Matilda’s son Henry II and Stephen, with the formulae that would become a common pathway to peace in other countries where dynastic civil wars developed and ended in stalemate, where one of the contenders could have the throne for the period of their life, and loyalty from the contender. When the throne-holder died, it would pass to the contender and their dynasty.

238  Conclusion

Once on the English throne, Henry II proceeded to expand into Wales, via a series of alliances whereby loyal local leaders were rewarded with the assets of the defeated, and then into Ireland, with the addition that the papacy approved and supported his conquest. In Scotland, Henry completely defeated his former allies, and made them fully subservient to the English crown, although they later regained their autonomy in the reign of Henry’s son, Richard the Lionheart. Before this point, Henry II in some of the most pointless wars of the century, had to battle his sons and his own wife over his rule of the kingdom and the eventual division of the realm that he had built up. With France, the overlapping interests were even more difficult after Henry decided to marry Eleanor of Aquitaine, the former wife of French King, Louis VII. As Henry was a vassal to Louis for his lands in France, he should have asked permission, as the marriage had large implications in terms of landholdings on the Continent. The war that followed, caused by feudal breach, was settled by the reiteration of the promise of homage of the English king to the French king for English held land in France, but the marriage remained in place. The relationship between the monarchs of France and England always remained tense during the thirteenth century. The theory was that homage was owed by the English king to the French king for all the lands the English held in France. However, the trend throughout this century was that much of territory in question became French (even that which was nominally English and/or independent) either by battle, such as with Normandy, or by treaty and feudal obligations, such as with Aquitaine. Where the English retained the right to govern regionally, they were, in theory, vassals to the French crown, to which loyalty was owed to the ultimate overlord, the king of France. Despite continual flare-ups, especially by disgruntled local nobles who tried to play both crowns against each other, peace was achieved by clarifying the rules and clear boundary setting, and by inter-marriage between the two monarchies. The problem was that this inter-marriage that sought to bring peace to one generation, laid the seeds for a conflict that would dominate Anglo-French relations for the next 150 years, in the form of the Hundred Years War. The root cause of the Hundred Years War in the fourteenth century was the intermarriage of two royal families from different countries and the inability of one of them, to produce heirs. It was fuelled by civil wars in, or disputes with neighbouring countries. In this instance, Isabella of France was married to Edward II of England as part of a peace deal designed by their parents. The difficulty was that Isabella, as the sister of the French King Charles IV, was among the last of the direct Capetian line. When Charles failed to produce an heir, Isabella’s son, Edward, thus became the next in line to the French throne. The French Parliament, who saw the problem in advance, passed the Salic law, in which the throne in France could only ever pass to a male. When Isabella came to power after deposing her husband Edward II, and needing French help more than the French crown, she did not pursue the claim for her son, accepting the succession of her cousin, Philip of Valois, instead. She also promised that the English would pay homage to the French king for all the Englishheld lands in France. However, when Edward III came to power, and gave refuge to a number of prominent Flemings who were fleeing the reach of the French king

Politics 239

and failed to answer charges in Paris, the king of France declared that all of the English lands in France were forfeited. Edward III replied that he, by descent, was the rightful king of France. In the killing that followed, Edward quickly gained the upper hand. He ended up capturing the next French king, John, and the Scottish king, David, who was allied to the French. As France fell into internal turmoil and suffered an uprising, which failed, the authorities agreed to the Treaty of Bretigny. Although Edward III did not end up claiming the throne of France, the treaty did agree that all of the English territories in France, including, amongst others, Gascony, Aquitaine and Calais, were his, absolutely, for which no homage was owed to the French crown. The difficulty was that the Treaty of Bretigny was never fully concluded, and in the last decades of the century it fell apart. This collapse was at the same time that both England and France had both joined opposing sides in distant wars in both Castile and Portugal, both of which kingdoms had, also, split apart over questions of succession to their thrones. Similarly, Edward I took the opportunity to intervene in a succession crisis in Scotland, in which he chose the successor, who then pledged allegiance to the English crown. However, this relationship could not hold, and soon the Scots were reaching out for their first, and enduring, alliance with the French. War followed quickly, built upon the cause that Scotland should be independent, and their king, not subservient to the English monarch. Accordingly, in all three instances of Spain, Scotland and France, the causes of war were directly related to questions of who was best fit to be a monarch of a country, and which one was subservient to the other. For Scotland, this was a particular struggle, as they continued to oscillate wildly between being fully sovereign and fully beholden to the English crown. The difference for Scotland was that by the fourteenth century, their quests for independence were more pronounced than in the past. However, their fundamental, repeated, problem to achieving their goal of independence was undermined in repeated civil and dynastic wars, in which one side or the other would appeal to the English monarch for support in return for promising loyalty to the English crown if they (the contender) were made king in Scotland.

3. Politics

The right of a monarch to rule with absolute power was not an accepted fact between the eleventh and the fourteenth centuries in western and eastern Europe, from which warfare could start. Conversely, power sharing with popular assemblies, or challenges to notions of absolute authority was not an option in the Muslim part of the world. In the Muslim world, power sharing was only possible between religious and temporal leaders, with the religious, acting as a counterweight to the temporal. Counterweights, in terms of constitutions or rudimentary types of democracy never developed in that part of the world. In China, the situation was different, and was unique in the eleventh century, as although there were no popular assemblies of nobles, the initial focus of the

240  Conclusion

rulers of the Song dynasty was on the material conditions of the poor, and not just the local nobles. This focus reappeared with the Ming dynasty, whilst quests for aspects of ­equality were also notable with the Yuan. In Europe, from the early decades of the eleventh century, the pattern was different. Although all kings wanted absolute power, this was not always possible. Assemblies and gatherings to deal with matters of national importance were notable in areas within Scandinavia, Scotland, Russia and England. Of the latter, the idea that a king would hold his authority via a type of contract conducted through promises made to be a good and just ruler, can be traced to the beginning of the eleventh century. Somewhat differently, Germany developed a process where warfare could be avoided by having an established process to select the ruler via voting, rather than hereditary rule or bloodshed. Here, a system evolved where the seven most powerful regional rulers in the land would elect their king, and the king would make promises to secure their vote. However, such an approach to avoid bloodshed in Germany was fickle, as one of the most successful kings of this period, Heinrich II showed, bludgeoning his way to power. By the time of the twelfth century within Europe, a new cause of war was becoming clear when independent third forces emerged in the form of the Cortes, Veches, Communes and bourgeoisie. These forces were not entirely dependent or beholden to the power of the king or religious leaders. It was always urban, and typically linked to commerce and a quest for independence. Although many of these bodies experienced conflicts with rising autocratic rulers who did not wish to share their power, the principal struggle of the twelfth century was with the Lombard League in northern Italy which found itself caught between the two greater powers of the day, namely the pope and the emperor. The peace that resulted after the pope gave the League a large degree of autonomy, but it were still, in theory, subservient to the emperor and, for all effective purposes, still within the feudal hierarchy. The twelfth century was also unique in the causes of war, as attempts began to formulate much clearer rules around the question of by whom, and how, a throne should be acquired. In Germany, the constitutional process for choosing a king was clearer by the time Lothair II was elected. However, disgruntled dukes of powerful provinces were always a risk, and sometimes they did dispute the election results, leading to civil war, into which large parts of Germany and associated parts of Eastern Europe would get dragged. This point should be underlined, as by the twelfth century, it was clear that through webs of dynastic and legal relationships, a war in one country could quickly drag in multiple other countries due to their defensive alliances. In the case of Germany, although Frederick Barbarossa tried to convince both the papacy and powerful magnates in Germany to make the throne hereditary to avoid such disputed outcomes, he was not successful. In one instance, when war did break out between the elected king and a disgruntled duke, peace was only achieved by agreeing that the disgruntled duke could be the next emperor, but had to promise loyalty until that point. Despite the theory in Germany, questions of succession continued to be difficult in the thirteenth century, and especially after the end of the Hohenstaufen line.

Politics 241

The country was largely fragmented, comprising both semi-independent regions and rising urban groupings, and only began to be put back together by Rudolf H ­ absburg, from whose line one of the most famous dynasties in history arose. Despite Rudolf winning the electoral process, he had to face the very powerful king of ­Bohemia, who refused to accept him as the ruler of Germany. Once he had battled his way to ­acceptance of his crown, Rudolf allowed a semi-independent Switzerland to start to emerge, in which uniquely, a new political force of free peasants working with a type of democracy, came to the fore. Despite the achievements of Rudolf, the electors of Germany did not want his son, Albert, to rule them. However, they subsequently declared deposed their preferred candidate, due to his poor management of Germany and his seeking of unpalatable foreign alliances, and replaced him with Albert. This was a radical act, as this was the first time in German history that a ruler was deposed by the electors, without having a papal excommunication first. Although Albert become entangled in dynastic ­spiders-webs in Bohemia, before being assassinated by his own nephew, who wanted greater lands under his control, the principle was clear, that electors could depose a king they were unsatisfied with. Wars in England in the thirteenth century were predominantly internal. King John was lucky to become the uncontested king of England. However, his heavy-handed methods, from taxation to confiscations of the lands of his nobles, and his military losses in France, provoked discontent amongst his barons that ultimately forced him to accept a form of peace treaty in the Magna Carta. This document prevented the arbitrary rule of the king and set down clear constitutional and civil rules as a ­counterweight to the king’s power. When John failed to uphold these terms, war broke out, and deepened as the French intervened on the side of the barons, seeking an opportunity to take the English crown for themselves. Peace was only achieved when John died, the French went home and the English crown agreed to abide by the terms of the Magna Carta. It was the failure to abide by the same terms in letter and spirit, that went on to cause future wars in England when the son of John, Henry III, came fully to power. Henry’s nemesis came in the form of Simon de Montfort and a further sequence of barons, who believed that the Magna Carta was not being upheld and that they had the right to topple tyrannical kings. They were particularly encouraged by what they interpreted by the more open approach of the French. A military alliance with the rebels and Wales forced Henry III to agree to further constitutional reforms. However, these measures were short-lived, and Henry, and his son, the future Edward I, threw them off. However, realising that any quests for absolute authority of the monarchy would only cause further wars, the Welsh were allowed to retain an unprecedented degree of independence, and the essence of the Magna Carta maintained. Edward I learnt from these wars, and when he became king, he implemented many of the earlier reforms, and went even further than de Montfort could have imagined, in establishing the English Parliament and introducing the third estate into the management of the ­country. However, what he gave in England, he took in Wales and Scotland, destroying the independence of both countries.

242  Conclusion

In terms of the causes of war being related to the deposing of unfit monarchs, the fourteenth century was unique as war bedevilled three kings in Europe, who were toppled from their thrones. The English kings, Edward II and Richard II, were both deposed after each had received warnings regarding their bad counsel, running roughshod over the rights of others and deteriorating international relations. In both instances counterweights put in place against the arbitrary power of the king were agreed, and then were reversed by the monarchs themselves. As a result, these kings achieved absolute power, from which no dissent was tolerated. The reaction was that both were overthrown. Edward II was overthrown by his wife and her lover; whilst Richard II was deposed by his cousin, Henry Bolingbroke (the future Henry IV of England). Both cases involved Parliament, in terms of the drawing up of charges against the king, and then the recognition of successors. Similarly in Germany, not only had the election processes for the king been made much clearer with the Golden Bull, a king was actually deposed. Specifically, Wenceslaus IV was stripped of his crown by the electors on account of his ineptitude, idleness and neglect of duty. In every instance the precedent, and a cause for war, was becoming clear: a king did not have an absolute right to rule. Even in France, the Estates General was formed, and the idea that all parts of a community had a stake in government, came into vogue. When new rulers came into power, such as Edward III in England, the emphasis was towards a much greater sharing of power with existing mechanisms, such as the Parliament. Elsewhere, the advance and clear setting out of power-sharing rules, by which monarchs had to govern was most clearly achieved in the newly created union of Poland and Lithuania. Here, the recognition of the right to be the monarch was conditional upon obedience to a detailed set of rules and promises, covering matters from religious practice to the rights of nobles. With such instances, it is possible to assert that unlike the three centuries before hand, the fourteenth century saw a clear trend towards peace being achieved by monarchy being buttressed by constitutional considerations that tempered the idea of the absolute authority of a monarch. Although strong progress was made for the nobles in their power sharing quests with monarchs, the greatest revolutions of all and a clearly newly articulated cause for war, were driven by the peasants, and arose at the end of the century, arising in Castile, France, England and Switzerland. The only successful attempt in this area was with the rise of Switzerland, in which traditional forms of authority were exited from the region, and the people, who were reknown for their civic equality, came to obtain greater amounts of autonomy. Conversely, in all of the other attempts to put an end to serfdom and increase the rights of the poorest people in society, their efforts were crushed. The same fate befell the Flemish communities, who instigated a sequence of failed rebellions in which considerations of both economic betterment of the lower classes, and independence from the French crown, combined. However, after much bloodshed, these people could only ever gain a limited autonomy, provided they recognised the overall authority of the French king.

Religion 243 4. Religion

Religions remained a dominant cause of war between the eleventh and fourteenth centuries. It was in the background of all conflicts, as well as being at the forefront of many. The exception to this rule was in China, where the neo-Confucian Song moved away from any form of religious preference, or persecution, linked to State policy. Similarly, the Mongolian’s refused to give preference to any religious point of view over any other, especially as a pretext for war. The Yuan dynasty in China continued this policy, although it has a preference, but did not discriminate for the advantage of Buddhism. The Ming followed the same path, although it had a preference for religions with roots in China.

A.  Inter-Christian Warfare Religion was a dominant cause of warfare in eleventh century Christian Europe. This warfare was primarily related to the rise of power of the papacy. This body, unprincipled and weak at the beginning of the eleventh century, was the powerhouse of Christendom by the end of the century. The key to their power was the establishment of a mechanism for the selection of popes, and appointment of regional church leaders, free from outside interference from temporal authorities. Once the papacy controlled its own electoral processes, the Church positioned itself as the only body with a direct line to God, and the right to get engaged in domestic politics of countries if the rulers were acting in a sinful manner. The tools they came to use to achieve power were interdict, anathema and excommunication. Together, these tools threatened to block the gates of heaven opening for people, if they did not do as they were told. These tools were very effective to those who believed the papacy had the power it boasted of. Those of the shared Christian faith who did not believe that the papacy had (or deserved) such powers were challenged as heretics. The fight against heresy within western Europe was evident from the beginning of the eleventh century. Initially, the focus was only upon small groups of theological enemies, as opposed to larger groups, such as Orthodox Church, although by the middle of the eleventh century, the break (but not yet violence) between Catholic and Orthodox Christians had been achieved. The papacy began to gain control over the temporal realms by offering rulers the stamp of religious legitimacy for the wearing of a crown of a monarch. This meant that local rulers in principalities close to Rome, through to distant rulers in places such as Poland, Hungary and even Russia, would receive their crown, and legitimacy, from the pope. The foremost example from the eleventh century was William the Conqueror, who with papal approval, managed to turn an absolute conquest of fellow Christians into a religiously approved expedition. The gifting of Sicily and southern Italy to the Normans, followed a similar process, although with the latter, the promises and legitimacy offered by the papacy often involved treaties following failed attempts by papal

244  Conclusion

armies to obtain power more directly. Either way, approval for a temporal ruler to hold power was made in exchange for a variety of promises ranging from agreeing that a country was papal fief, through to allowing the Church to govern all of its own affairs and exercise its full authority in the conquered territories. This ability of the pope to ultimately be the sole authority that could grant kingdoms, as opposed to assemblies of people, or rival contestants battling for a throne was a powerful cause for war. The biggest debate of all in this area, which led to successive wars, was whether the pope was subservient to the kings and/or the Holy Roman Emperor, or the temporal rulers to the pope. Both demanded a right to be involved in the election of the other. Although initially the emperor enjoyed primacy in the time of Heinrich II, whereby a new pope could not ascend to the papal throne without the agreement of the emperor, by the time of Heinrich IV, this position had been reversed, and temporal rulers were left fighting for control over their influence over national appointments, in addition to the wider question of whether their power was granted by God alone, or through God’s intermediary, the pope. By this point, the papacy had complete autonomy in its own elections, and anyone (emperor, king, local ruler or heretic), who challenged the papacy risked excommunication. This tool relieved all citizens within a region of the obligation of obedience to them, from which alternative leaders would arise, with the blessing of the papacy. Bloodshed would follow. The wars stirred up by Pope ­Gregory VII in Germany against the Emperor Heinrich IV were exemplars of this. By the twelfth century, peace between the temporal authorities and the Church over the ongoing debate about how much autonomy the Church was to have in western Europe was found, in theory, in the Concordats of both London and Worms. These were types of peace treaties, in which the right of the king to invest higher members of the Church was agreed to be largely a matter of Church business, but the appointed church officials also had to perform homage to the king. However, as the century moved on, this point was repeatedly tested, as temporal rulers tried to control who was appointed with religious authority in their lands. This was a particular problem in some countries, where a single individual could hold both religious and temporal authority and there was no clear separation or division of power and loyalties were confused. The other area of note where the Church began to refine its thinking on the use of violence, was with non-conformist communities in Europe, of which witches and Jewish peoples’, in addition to the existing lists of heretics, began to feel the weight of increasingly intolerant approaches. The tendency of the papacy to, twice, go to war to win back southern Italy and Sicily on the justification that the lands were originally papal fiefs were repeated failures. In the peace treaties that followed, the pope would recognise, and legitimate, the ruler of Southern Italy as a king of an independent kingdom (and not just a gifted papal fief). This would always infuriate the emperor, who believed that southern Italy was his to do with as he pleased, not the pope. When the emperor would descend into Italy to try to resolve the issue, excommunication would follow from the pope, from which the emperor’s subjects would be encouraged to rise-up. The emperor would then typically respond by trying to place antipopes into Rome, and feed religious schisms.

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As with the earlier century, the debate would continue over whether an emperor and/ or king received their right to rule from God alone, or through the papacy. In the case of Barbarossa, after much bloodshed, peace was achieved only at the end of the Lombard Wars, when excommunications were lifted, the emperor promised loyalty to the pope, northern Italy was given a large degree of autonomy, and it was agreed that the ruling houses of both Southern Italy and Germany would inter-marry, thus allowing Southern Italy to clearly be joined to the Empire via marriage (although the theory was that they would be kept separate). The thirteenth century saw inter-Christian religious based warfare within Europe intensify as the fight against heresy heightened and the papacy felt increasingly confident that it was the sole source of truth. Attacks on communities that disagreed with the centralised and increasingly intolerant approach of the papacy were unprecedented. Witches were burnt, Jewish communities fleeced and ejected from countries, and the Albigensian crusade in France saw the complete subjugation of large areas (after soldiers fought for remission of sins) and the property of the defeated (fellow Christian) heretics. Religious concerns were also of considerable importance when the fellow-Christian, but Orthodox Byzantium, was toppled for over half a century, as the outcome of the Fourth Crusade. The conclusion of this Crusade, without the official blessing of the pope before the event, was due to a combination of distrust between the east and west over the earlier Crusades, and a belief that Constantinople was duplicitous. When the Byzantine relations with Venice soured, the Venetians saw an opportunity to utilise the Crusaders they were meant to transport to the Holy Land for other ends. The specific opportunity to intervene in Constantinople arose via a dynastic dispute, and the chance for the Venetians and Crusaders to pick a winner. When the successor in this dynastic dispute which Venice and the Crusaders had opted for obtained power, but was unable to keep his promises, the city was sacked, divided and the religion changed from Orthodox to Catholic. The survivors of Byzantium then fled to a small corner of the Aegean. In terms of the Holy Roman Empire, the wars of Frederick II and especially those against the allies of the pope, dominated the first fifty years of the thirteenth century. Frederick II came to power in the wake of a civil war that had morphed into an international conflict via a collection of overlapping defensive alliances following a disputed election in Germany. When the candidate that the papacy originally supported did not keep his promises, he was excommunicated by the pope and the electors then deposed him, after which Frederick (who promised loyalty to the papacy) was offered the throne of both Germany and the crown of emperor. Despite this initial mutual support Frederick II’s greatest battles ended up being against the papacy and their associated forces. The first excommunication of Frederick followed his attempt to unite southern Italy to the Empire and his not going on Crusade when directed. Despite eventually winning back Jerusalem via diplomacy (involving a promise of non-aggression against the Muslim sultan, and protection of Muslim interests in the city) and not bloodshed, the pope, excommunicated Frederick again and organised

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military actions against him. The wars against Frederick II as directed by the pope were done by fomenting rebellion in Germany (by removing the requirement of f­ eudal loyalty to the king) and with the cities of the Lombard League in north Italy (by supporting their quests for full autonomy from Frederick). Although attempts were made to arbitrate the differences, especially over the Lombard obligations via earlier treaties, there was no peace between the emperor and the pope. This war continued after Frederick’s death, and onto his sons Conrad, Manfred and finally, grandson, Conradin. At each point, excommunications followed the successors of the Hohenstaufen line, until it was extinct, and all of their attempts to rule over southern Italy, were extinguished. Rudolf of Habsburg, the following king who emerged at the end of the Interregnum, determined to try to reduce future conflicts in this area, realised that Italy had been the graveyard of many German kings and the cause of endless wars. Accordingly, he divested his country of any interests in the area. Although Germany tried to reduce tensions with the papacy, after the end of the Hohenstaufen dynasty, the papacy proceeded to cause wars by auctioning off southern Italy and Sicily (as Papal fiefs) to other monarchs in Europe who it hoped would be more compliant. The winner of this process was Henri of Anjou, who the Pope also hoped would, in time, reconquer Orthodox Byzantium (which by this point had re-established itself, retaken Constantinople and broken free from the Catholic church). Although Henri went on to acquire vast tracts of other territory, he and his descendants found southern Italy and Sicily very difficult to govern as the area devolved into three decades of fighting. They fought over whether descendants of the original Norman settlers should rule them or dynasties from the house of Aragon. Fratricidal struggles then spilled over into the mix. A ­multitude of papal excommunications and support for preferred candidates, followed, but ultimately achieved nothing. Peace only arrived when the disputed lands were clearly divided, and succession plans agreed. The beginning of the fourteenth century in Europe saw war continuing to burn around the contest of whether the pope was superior to kings, or not. Pope B ­ oniface was clear in his view that he was superior to all temporal authorities. The first challenger to these claims was the French King, Philip IV, who, in his desire to create united French opinion, established the Estates General. The Estates of France concluded that Philip was beholden to God alone, not to the pope. The next pope to get involved in these debates to the same extent was Pope John XXII, who found the papacy challenged by both scholars and kings alike. Dante, Ockham and Wycliffe all denied the absolute nature of the power that the popes were trying to claim, along with the papacy’s obsession with temporal wealth and its incessant meddling in affairs that resulted in war. The solution, as most clearly advocated by Dante, was that of an all-powerful monarch, who would break free from papal power and put an end to the incessant warring between the factions of a hopelessly divided Italy. The king who put the theory into practice that monarchy was above the papacy, was Louis the Bavarian, whom Pope John refused to crown after he had secured the throne of Germany, post a disputed election and subsequent civil war, but who was

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not Pope John’s preferred candidate. Following Louis’ assertions that his election was ­determined by God and the electors alone, Louis was excommunicated, after which Pope John called for rebellion and war against Louis. The man who rose up against Louis, and was endorsed by the papacy after he promised obedience, was Charles IV. As it was, Louis died of natural causes before battle could be engaged. This left Charles IV as the undisputed master of Germany. Once secure in his power, he issued the Golden Bull, which attempted to put an end to the need for future wars due to disputed elections. Of particular note, the papacy was excluded from the process. Before the papacy could object to being excluded in a process which it had tried to manipulate for the previous three centuries, the Church split into a schism which went on for four decades. This schism divided Europe over who was and was not the rightful pope, and theologians, on the question of whether the pope could be voted out of office. This question was unresolved as the fourteenth century ended.

B.  Inter-Religious Warfare Christians and Muslims found it easy to fight each other in the eleventh century. Unlike inter-Christian warfare, with Christian-Muslim warfare, justifications for warfare were tied to considerations that the land the Muslims occupied, namely Sicily, Spain or even Jerusalem, was once Christian, and therefore wrongly possessed. In each instance, the pope offered the additional incentive to fight via a remission of sins for the combatant. Unlike earlier centuries, from the eleventh to the fourteenth century, the advances of Christian forces received lasting results, reoccupying both Spain and southern Italy. For a brief period, they also held part of the Middle East. Military advances into Muslim occupied lands at this point was relatively easy as the overall Islamic community was fragmented. The early part of the eleventh century had seen Islam stopping to advance in most parts of the world, with the exception of northern India where the Ghaznavids, orthodox Sunni, advanced into northern India, fighting lax Sunni and heretic Shia, but saving most of their anger for the pagan Hindus. Despite the advances on the periphery of the Muslim world, at its core, the Abbasid Caliphate, also Sunni, was seeing large chunks break off as emerging Shia Fatimids advanced from their point of origin in modern day Tunis, expanding o­ utwards creating new cities like Cairo and taking old ones, like Jerusalem. Despite at least one deeply intolerant Fatimid ruler of non-Muslims at the turn of the eleventh century, they appear to have been generally tolerant, and displayed a willingness to work diplomatically with Byzantium, to achieve their political goals by treaties. However, when the judgement day promised by the Fatimids failed to arrive, and succession disputes split the dynasty, Sunni based rebellions started against their rule. The foremost rebellion was the Seljuks, who in rebelling against their former leaders, took possession of much of modern day Iran and Iraq, including placing the Abbasid caliphs of ­Baghdad, securely in their grip.

248  Conclusion

In this inter-Muslim competition, Pope Alexander II directed both men and promises of salvation to encourage the Normans to subdue the Muslims and reclaim once Christian land in southern Italy. Similarly, the Caliphate of Cordoba in Spain which had splintered from the Abbasid, fractured over dynastic disputes of leadership, for which Pope Gregory VII exploited, with similar promises to the Christians forces of salvation for the reclamation of once Christian lands. These Christian efforts were initially so successful in Spain, that the threatened Muslim communities invited the Almoravids, Sunni Muslims of even greater orthodoxy and strong dislike of nonMuslim communities, into Spain from North Africa, to stem the tide. The other area where the fragmentation of Muslim dynasties had a strong influence upon Christian Europe was when the Seljuks, in continuing their wars against the Fatimids, took Jerusalem. It was this Seljuk conquest of Jerusalem which Pope Urban II heard of, from the Emperor of Byzamtium, Alexius I, who pleaded for help. The Papacy then orchestrated the Christians of western Europe to respond, with promises of salvation, the reclamation of once Christian land, and because of the atrocities being undertaken by the Seljuks in Jerusalem. Whilst the first popular response of enthusiastic pilgrims was a massacre, the second response, known as the First Crusade, found success, as the Seljuks had dissolved into a series of fratricidal feuds. Dorylaeum, Antioch, and then Jerusalem fell into their hands, after much blood had been spilt, and by 1120, the Christian progress was such that there were four Christian principalities in the Middle East. These were Edessa, Tripoli, the principality of Antioch, and the kingdom of Jerusalem. The four Christian principalities that existed for the initial decades of the twelfth century did so by working between the opposing Muslim communities that were largely divided between the Shia based Fatimids out of Egypt and the offshoot Nazari, and a number of competing Sunni groups under the Seljuk umbrella. Of the later, Zengi came to power, and captured Christian Edessa. This resulted in the Second Crusade, from which tens of thousands of Christian soldiers advanced to the Middle East. In travelling to the Middle East, thousands of Crusaders went via Spain helping with the reconquest of Lisbon, which in turn, triggered the intervention of further Muslim forces from North Africa, this time, the orthodox Almohads. The rhetoric of Holy War or Jihad and promises of theological rewards was similar in all of these theatres for both sides, as were the claims of retaking land that was culturally important and ­wrongfully taken by the opposition. Fearing a growing Muslim coalition against Christian interests, the forces of the Second Crusade attacked the former ally, the Muslim ruled independent Damasacus. This attack forced Damascus to make a defensive alliance with the same Muslim group which had taken Edessa. Accordingly, the Crusaders, due their quest for glory and booty, and their failure to understand the dynamics of the region, caused the very coalition they had hoped to prevent. The Crusaders then tried desperately to prevent the disintegration of the counter-weight of the Fatimids by giving them military support. However, this was fruitless as the Fatimid’s collapsed, being consumed by the Sunni general Saladin, who due to his military prowess, had been under their employment. Saladin then proceeded to take control of a dynastic dispute in Egypt, and found his own Ayyubid dynasty, encompassing most of Syria and Egypt. Whether Saladin would

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have turned on the Christian Middle East is unknown. However, with the provocations of the Prince of Antioch, Reginald of Chatillon, he felt that he had to respond. ­Jerusalem felt obliged not to be complicit in the downfall of Antioch, and was drawn into the conflict from which its forces, and then city, were lost. Acre, Nablus, Jaffa, Sidon, Beirut and Ascalon all then fell in quick succession. These losses triggered the Third Crusade, for which a number of European kings, of which Richard the Lionheart was most prominent, went to the Middle East. The key in terms of losses in Spain for the Muslims or losses in the Middle East for the Christians (as well as the failure of the Second and Third Crusades) was similar in terms of divided communities that could not present a unified front, from which the opposition exploited the weaknesses. Although the warfare ended up being portrayed as Muslim opposed to Christian, on the ground alliances were often more determined by considerations that were greater than religious orientation, with the Christian communities managing to have alliances with both the Egyptian based Fatimids and independent Sunni based communities. However, Saladin, through the self-destroying goals of many Christian forces, multiplied by a policy of divide and conquer of the Christian communities, including making treaties of alliance with Byzantium, managed to isolate, and topple, most of the opposing enemies. Yet even the great Saladin could, at the end of the Third Crusade, conclude a treaty with Richard the Lionheart to stop the war after the two sides had battered themselves to the point of exhaustion. The core of this agreement was accepting the status quo of what territory both sides held, a free movement and free commerce for both, and allowing Christian pilgrims to visit their culturally important sites in Jerusalem. After the Fourth Crusade had ended up toppling Constantinople, further efforts were called for to continue the conflicts against Muslim occupied territories. The advances of Christian forces in Spain began with such force in the thirteenth century, that the Almohads left the country to its fate, retreating back to North Africa. Building on the momentum, a Fifth Crusade was called for in 1215 which arrived at the new target of Egypt in 1218, hoping to capitalise on the fragmentation of the Ayyubid dynasty of Saladin. Their goal, to accelerate the fragmentation and thus free the Middle East and reclaim Jerusalem, failed miserably with nothing being achieved beyond an eight year truce, and a full withdrawl of Christian forces from Egypt. However, within eleven years, Frederick II had entered Jerusalem, without bloodshed, and was proclaimed to be its overlord, following a treaty with the same Sultan of Egypt who had been the target of the Fifth Crusade. By this agreement, Muslim spiritual, cultural and economic interests in the city were preserved, and Frederick was pledged to not support any other Muslim’s against the Sultan. Although this pact was denounced by both the pope and many Muslims, the agreement held.

C.  The Mongol Dimension The real threat to the Muslim world arrived in the form of the Mongols. The ­Mongolian Empire, as solidified by Genghis Khan, was the most dominant catalyst

250  Conclusion

for war in the thirteenth century. Genghis fought his way to the top of these migratory peoples’, and lead them against external enemies. Their original targets were other migratory peoples’ who would not accept submission. Their wars with the Song of China began when a military alliance against a shared enemy, went bad. Specifically, when the Mongols destroyed the Jin, some of the culturally significant Sixteen Prefectures were returned to the Song. But the Song then attempted to wrest the remaining Sixteen Prefectures from the Mongols, leading to war. This intensified when the Song refused to pay the Mongols the same tribute they used to give to the Jin. The Mongol wars with Islam, and the Khwarizm empire in particular, began when Mongolian merchants were executed and recompense was not offered. In the conflict that followed, after a series of significant losses, the Khwarizmians tried to flee to north India, but were refused sanctuary. For anyone who offered sanctuary, war would follow. It was the same thinking, of allowing sanctuary to enemies fleeing from the Mongols that also brought the Mongols into Russia and eastern Europe. At each point, once war was started, survival could only be achieved by either good luck, such as when one of the Khan’s died and the Mongols retreated to their homelands to choose a new leader, or complete submission to the Mongols. Here, despite their enlightened position on religious tolerance, their views on political dissent, were absolute. Once an area was settled, submission was total. In the case of the Mongols and the Muslims, the decision of the Ghurid Muslims not to give the Khwarizmians sanctuary, allowed their regime (which had also evolved to learn the importance of the tolerance and suzerainty, as opposed to intolerance and full sovereignty) to survive. However, for the rest of the regions in the Middle East, it was a disaster as the Khwarizmians searched for new paymasters and the Mongols pursued them, and anyone who gave them sanctuary. It was this search, as they progressed through the Middle East in search of their new paymaster of Egypt, that Christendom in the Middle East came to an end. The problem was that the Christian forces, in siding with local Muslim forces against the migratory Khwarizmians, picked the wrong side. Despite the urgings of Frederick II, the Christians sided with other non-Ayyubid Muslim forces against Egyptian interests (with whom Frederick had made the treaty which guaranteed their protection and status). This meant that when they came out against the Khwarizmians, the sultan of Egypt was not going to stand in the way of their extinction as rulers of Jerusalem. In China, the initial survival of the Song was only due to the breathing-space created by the death of Ogedei Khan and the fact that the Mongols were embroiled in their own civil war. When this was settled, following further warfare with the Song, peace was found for the price of silver and silk. When Kublai Khan came to power after a further Mongol civil war, the full and final conquest of the Song (who had attacked Kublai’s forces as they had exited China) was so successful that a new dynasty, the Yuan, and a China unified for the first time in hundreds of years, came into being. The Yuan regime, exhibited religious tolerance and was much more cosmopolitan than any previous regime. Control was consolidated over Tibet, Myanmar, Korea and Vietnam. The only Asian country to avoid subjugation, after being invited to be a vassal to the

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Mongols was Japan. Japan, which had recently emerged as a unified state under its shogun was saved, primarily, by the weather. Back in the Middle East, the response to the loss of Jerusalem was the Seventh Crusade. Again, the target was Egypt and again the attempt failed hopelessly. This time, the price for the exit of those who lived to tell the tale was the surrender of all of the territory they had captured, and hundreds of thousands of pieces of gold. The bigger long term loss for Christendom, but saviour for Islam, was that the Crusade in Egypt provided the spark for the rise of the Sunni based Mamluks who toppled the last ruling Ayyubids. It was the Mamluks, who through the knowledge that they were not facing a full Mongol force, and that the Mongols and Christians were not united (as the pope, fearing the Mongols more than the Muslims, initially refused any suggestion of cooperation) who halted the Mongolian advances. The Mamluks achieved their victory after receiving positive helps of neutrality of some of the Christian forces, to cross through Acre and attack the Mongols from behind. With the Mongols halted, the Mamluks struck outwards, pushing them back, and systematically taking out both non-allied Muslim, and/or Christian communities in the process, or dividing some by offering them truces, whilst to others, war. When half of the Mongolian forces turned Muslim (the Kipchak/the Golden Horde) and declared war on their former Mongolian allies, the balance of power shifted, with the Ilkhanate of Hulegu being left on the limb. Hulegu responded by making alliances with the local Christian communities, and trying to form wider ranging alliances with the Christian authorities in Europe. This time, although the new pope was sympathetic, and Louis IX and Edward I even went to fight, they could not stop the momentum of the Mamluks. Antioch and the county of Tripoli, were lost as the front line between the Ikhanate and Mamluks went back and forth before Acre, the last significant Christian outpost, was lost in 1291. The remaining Christian countries in the region, Armenia and Georgia, were subsumed over the following decades. Sunni based Islam, was now absolutely dominant throughout the Middle East. Only with the reconquest of Spain, and follow-through actions into north Africa following the fragmentation of Almohad power throughout the region, into three, Sunni based, dynastic states, did Christian interests advance, as the Christian kings learnt to divide and rule, supporting some Muslim dynasties in this region, in return for them ­becoming vassals.

D. The Post Mongol World: The Ottoman Empire, Timur and the Ming The last significant cause of war in the fourteenth century had to do with the end of the Mongolian influence in most of the areas they had conquered. This ending caused conflict not only in throwing off their yoke, but also, in the building of new regimes. In the case of what became Russia, Moscow, with the increased autocracy of its ruler as

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opposed to more republican types of government, oversaw the unprecedented acquisition of smaller Rus territories as the reach of the Golden Horde slackened. By the end of the century, the leaders of Moscow were feeling strong enough to directly challenge the Golden Horde in connection with their vassal status. The other area where the end of the Mongols created unprecedented opportunities for others was in the Middle East, from which the seeds of Ottoman Empire sprouted. These seeds grew out of the chaos of the Mongolian onslaughts and the fragmentation of much of the region when from a small patch of sanctuary in the territory of the Seljuk of Rum, Osman I emerged, taking territory, but promising tolerance and economic prosperity, to both Muslim and Byzantine communities alike. His son, Orhan was stronger on the military and religious side, casting himself as more of a religious fundamentalist, and with his zeal, the first significant victories against the Byzantines occurred in the 1330s. However, the real advances of the Ottomans was due to the chaos of succession disputes that pulled apart Byzantium from the inside. This chaos was multiplied by quests for independence of Bulgaria, Serbia and Greece and then overlaid with a theological competition between Orthodox and Catholic Christians (in the breakaway provinces). All of these conflicts related to Byzantium resulted in multiple contenders for the throne, inviting the Ottomans into Europe to secure their military skills and join any number of a banquet of causes for war. Once in Europe, Murad I continued to cause war as the Ottoman empire expanded at the expense of the non-Muslim territories in the Balkans. Murad reverted back to the policy of non-persecution of non-Muslims under occupation, promising them greater security than that offered by Byzantium, if they paid the applicable taxes and accepted his suzerainty. The Byzantine Emperor John V tried to get help from Europe when he realised that the Muslim-Ottoman forces were a quickly growing problem. However, when the Orthodox Church in Constantinople refused to accept a union with the Catholic Church of Rome, only a small Crusade could be organised, and even this, attacked (and then left) Egypt, not the Balkans, where it was most needed. When this had departed, Murad fully subsumed Serbia and Bulgaria, comprehensively crushing their efforts of independence at Kosovo in 1389, whilst John V became an unequivocal vassal to the Ottomans, providing both gold and men when demanded to the Ottomans. The following Sultan Bayezid, expanded to the east into Karamania, subsuming independent Sunni areas. To the west, Bayezid ordered the Byzantine emperor not to strengthen the defences around Constantinople, to increase the tribute payments, and hand over one quarter of the city to Muslim settlers. He then expanded into Bosnia and tightened his grip on Bulgaria and Serbia, turning them all into ­provinces of the Ottoman empire. Bayezid crossed the Danube in 1395, as Hungary was now the front line. A reply of 10,000 men from all over Europe was then defeated at Nicopolis. All of western Greece fell next, with permanent occupation for Greece only being avoided for the price of tribute. The demise of Byzantium would have occurred five decades earlier had Timur not arrived on the scene. Timur was the great grandson of the commander in chief to Jagatai, Genghis Khan’s second son. Nominally Muslim, Timur fought all oppositions,

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irrespective of creed, before him, using justifications of jihad, against non-believers, and believers who were too soft, or too hard, in their faith. The wars of Timur began in 1370 when he gained control of the western part of the Jagatai Khanate which occupied Central Asia. His causes for warfare involved local authorities which either refused to be his vassal, or behaved wrongfully in his eyes (and were therefore unfit to govern), including both established Sunni and emergent Shia communities. He destroyed the Muslim forces in northern India for not persecuting the Hindu’s. He then attacked the Mamluks for giving sanctuary to his enemies and their persecution of Shia. This victory against the Mamluks, meant that at the end of the fourteenth century, one ­viable Muslim opposition in his path was the Ottomans, and this would be nearly crushed to death in the opening years of the next century. The other non-Muslim target that Timur had in mind was China. China by this point had ejected its Mongolian rulers, with the rise of the Ming dynasty, which had eclipsed the Yuan dynasty in the middle of the fourteenth century. The cause for war in China was that the integrity of the Yuan had dissolved, allowing powerful local warlords, bandits, pirates and brigands to flourish in an era of corruption, runaway inflation, exorbitant taxation and economic exploitation. The Ming, who sought to reinvigorate the policies of the Song, were initially anti-foreigners, and focused upon social policies to improve the lot of the poorest in society. They were also, initially, strongly Buddhist in outlook. However, once the Yuan had been pushed from China, this interest in Buddhism faded, and successive emperors began to maintain control by purging their own State and waging war on their own relatives who began to take an undue interest in the throne. This pattern of purges, feuds and fratricide then became the norm in the Ming Empire.

254

Index Abaoji, 38 Abaqa Khan, 161 Christian alliances, attempts at, 162–63 Damascus, attack on, 163 Edward I, attempted alliance with, 162 Abbasid Caliphate, 5, 14, 43 Baghdad, sack of, 158 Mongolian Empire, conflict with, 158 reactivation of (1261), 160 Acre Christian forces at, 159 fall of, 164 ad-Din, Nur Damascus, protection of, 74, 75 death of, 75 Adolf of Nassau (King of Germany) Edward I, alliance with, 137, 138 elected & deposed king, 166 Germany, elected & deposed king of, 118–19 Adrian, Pope, 58 Constantinople, military alliance with, 61 Diet of Besancon (1157), 63 Henry II, support of Irish interventions, 53 Aethelred II, 7–8 Ain Julut, Battle of (1260), 160 Al Mansurah, Battle of (1250), 157 Al-Ashraf (Mamluk sultan), 164 Albigensian Crusade (1179), 96–98 Treaty of Meaux (1229), 98 Aleppo, Mongolian Empire, sacking of, 159 Alexander II, King of Scotland, 126 Alexander II (Pope), 23 Heinrich IV, challenge to, 25 Holy Wars, encouragement of, 43 Spain, war against Islam, 22–23 William the Conqueror, support for, 24 Alexander III, King of Scotland death of, 135 Henry III, King of England, relations with, 126 Alexander III (Pope), 51 papal seat, claim for, 63–64 Alexander IV (Pope), Mongols, threat of, 159–60 Alexiad, 34 Alexius I Comnenus, 33 Papal support for Holy War, 33–34 Alexius IV Angelos, Crusaders, association with (13th C), 91–92 Alfonso I battles of, 45 death of, 73

Alfonso VI, 22 Alfonso VIII, Las Navas de Tolosa, Battle of (1212), 99 Al-Hakim (Caliph), 15 religious persecutions by, 15 Alighieri, Dante, 172 conflict in Italy, participation in, 175 papacy, view of, 175–76 Aljubarrota, Battle of (1385), 211 Al-Juwayni, 32 Al-Kamil (Ruler of Egypt), 100–01 Frederick II, alliance with, 105, 156 Treaty of Jaffa (1229), 105–06, 156 Alliance Conducted by Sea (1123), 80 Almohad Caliphate, 167 fragmentation of, 99–100 Las Navas de Tolosa, Battle of (1212), 99 Almoravid Dynasty, 23, 43 Berber Almohads, 74 al-Mulk, Nizam, 71 Al-Qaim (Baghdad Caliph), 32 al-Sulami, Ali ibn Tahir, 70 Anacletus II (antipope), 56 Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, 48, 49 Aquinas, Thomas, 95–96 Henry III, criticism of, 128 Summa Theologica, 112 Arghun (Ilkhanate leader), 163 Christians, protection for, 163–64 Ariq-boga, 152, 153 Armenia, 164 Baybars, destruction of, 163 Christian area of, 216–17 Leo IV, King of, 217 Mamluks, truce with, 217 Mongolian Empire, conflict with, 145 Arnold of Brescia, 58 Arnoldists, 69 death of, 61 Arpad Dynasty, 12 Arslan, Alp, 32 Arsuf, Battle of, 79 Artevelde, Philip van, 211 Arthur of Brittany, 119, 120 Articles of Accusation (1327), 197 as-Salih, Al-Malik (Ruler of Egypt), 156 Seventh Crusade, 157 Audita tremendi, 77 Auld Alliance (1295), 137 Austria, Mortgarten, battle at (1315), 177

256  Index Avignon, papacy at, 174, 176, 183 Ayyubid Dynasty, 100, 104, 167 break-up of, 98–99, 159 Jerusalem, conflict in, 156 Saladin, death of, 98 Baghdad Mongolian Empire, sacking of, 158 Timur, attack on, 227 Baldwin II, 113 Balkans, Murad I, conquering of, 220, 222 Ball, John, 209–10 Balliol, Edward, 201 Balliol, John, 135–36 France & the Auld Alliance (1295), 137 Bannockburn, Battle of, 193 Barbarossa, Frederick accession to German throne, 57–58 death of, 78 Diet of Besancon (1157), 63 Italy, Holy Roman Emperor of, 61 Lombard League, agreements with, 65 Milan, attacks on, 64 Papacy, relations with, 58, 62, 65 Third Crusade, 78, 90 Batu Khan, 148 Baybars, Sultan (Mamluk), 160–61 Armenia, destruction of, 163 Bohemund VI, besieged by, 161–62 Christians, treatment of, 161 death of, 163 Golden Horde, alliance with, 161 Bayezid, Ruler of the Ottomans, 223, 233, 252 Becket, Thomas, 50–51 Beijing (China), 153 Genghis Khan, occupation of, 142 Bela IV, King of Hungary, 148–49 Benedict VIII, 17 Berengar of Tours, 20 Bernard of Clairvaux, 68 Wendish (Baltic) Crusade, 73 Berwick, Battle of, 137 Blue Water, Battle of, 186 Bogomils, 17 Bohemia, Heinrich VII, relations with, 175 Bohemund VI of Antioch, 159 Baybars, under siege from, 161–62 Boleslaw II, 29 Boleslaw the Mighty, 12 Bolingbroke, Henry banishment of, 214–15 Richard II, capture of, 215 Boniface IX (Pope) election of, 184 Ottoman Empire, crusade against, 224 Boniface VIII (Pope), 114, 173 Clericis Laicos, 172

dissent against, 172–73 English invasion of Scotland, view of, 138 Habsburg, Albert of, excommunication of, 119 Holy Year (1300), 171–72 Philip IV, disagreement with, 172–74, 188 Boroughbridge, Battle of (1322), 196 Boru, Brian, 8 Boulogne Agreement (1308), 192 Bouvines, Battle of (1214), 103, 123 Bruce, Robert, 135, 190 Buddhism, Yuanzhang, Zhu, adoption of, 228–29 Bukhara, 140, 143, 144 Byzantine Empire, 165 Alexius IV Angelos, 91–92 civil war in, 219 Constantinople, sacking of, 92–94 disputes within, 170 Fatamid Caliphate, relationship with, 15 Hulagu (Hulegu) Khan, alliances against, 161 Innocent III (Pope), conflict with, 89 Latin Crusaders, conflict with, 90 Murad I, treaty with, 221 Ottoman Empire, conflict with, 218–19 Saladin, alliance with, 76, 90 Seljuks, challenge to, 32 Venice, friendship & conflict with, 90–91 Caen (France), English sacking of, 202 Calixtus II, Pope, 55 Jewish communities, protection for, 68 Canmore, Malcolm, 10 Cantacuzenus, John Byzantium, throne of, 219 Ottoman Empire, support from, 219–20 Casimir I, 12 Casimir III, King of Poland, Peace of Kalish (1347), 185 Castile, 203 French military alliance with, 206 Portugal, annexation of, 211–12 casus belli, explanation of, 3–4 Cathars/Albigensians, 69 Albigensian Crusade (1179), 96–98 Celestine III (Pope), Heinrich VI, support for, 67 Charles IV, King of Germany, 181, 182–83 Golden Bull (1356), 181–82, 247 papacy, relations with, 181 Charles of Anjou, 111, 113–14 Charles of Valois, 115 Charles V of France, 205–06, 210 Charles VI of France, 210–11, 212 Charter of Liberties (London, 1100), 60, 123 Chatillon, Reginald de (Prince of Antioch), 76–77 Hao, Chéng, 36–37 China 14th century, conflict in, 234

Index 257 Beijing, 142, 153 Korea, relationship with, 41, 236 Kublai Khan, reunification by, 153, 168–69 leadership & monarchy, 236 Ming Dynasty, 170, 234 Mongolian Empire, conflict with, 152–53 peasant revolutions, 227 philosophy & practices of, 36–37, 40, 41 Song Dynasty, 6, 35, 36–37, 38–39, 41, 168–69, 236 Christianity advancement of, 5–6, 84 Arghun, offer of protection for, 163–64 Armenia, Christian area of, 216–17 Christian-Mongol coalition, development of, 161, 168 inter-Christian warfare, 245 Mamluks, risk to, 161 Murad I, protection of Christians, 220–21 Muslim attacks on (13th C), 164, 249 threat to, 162 Christianity see also crusades Civitate, Battle of, 19 Clare, Richard de, 53 Clement II (Pope), 18 Clement III (antipope), 31 Clement III (pope/antipope), 66 Clement IV (Pope), 180 Unigentas (1342), 180 Clement V (Pope), 190–91 Clement VII (Pope), 183–84 Clito, William, 47 Clontarf, Battle of, 8 Cluniac reforms, 19 Cnut, King, England. invasion of, 8–9 communes (Italy), 60, 82 Venice, 61 Comyn, John, 190 Concordat of London, 83 Concordat of Worms (1122), 55, 56, 83 Conrad, King of the Germans, 109 Conrad II, 12 Conrad III, 56–57 Conradin (son of Manfred, King of Sicily), 111 Constantinople attack on & the Fourth Crusade, 91–92 Charles of Anjou, planned conquest of, 113 Ottoman presence at, 220 sack of, 92–94 Constitutions of Clarendon, 50 Coronation Charter (Charter of Liberties), 47 Cortenuova, Battle of (1237), 108 Courtrai, Battle of, 189 Crac des Chevaliers, 162 Crécy, Battle of (1346), 202–03 crusades (to the Holy Land), 6, 70–71 Albigensian Crusade (1179), 96–98

Constantinople, sacking of, 92–94 Damascus (Second Crusade), 74, 84, 248 Fifth Crusade, 87, 100–01, 167, 249 First Crusade, 15, 33–35 Fourth Crusade, 86, 91–92, 165, 249 Jerusalem (Third Crusade), 79 Lisbon, capture of (Second Crusade), 73 Ottoman Empire, 221–22, 224 Saladin, challenges by, 76 Second Crusade, 44, 71–72, 73–75, 84, 248–49 Seventh Crusade, 156–57, 169, 251 Sixth Crusade, 104–06 Spain (Second Crusade), 73–74 Third Crusade, 44, 67, 77–80, 84, 90, 249 Tunisia, 162 Venice, association with (13th C), 91, 92–94 Wendish (Baltic) Crusade, 72–73 Cumans, 145–46 Curthose, Robert, 46, 47 Damascus Abaqa Khan, attack on, 163 Second Crusade, 74, 84, 248–49 Zengi, Imad ad-Din, attempt to take, 74 David, King of Scotland, 48 David II of Scotland, 201 death of, 206–07 England, alliance with, 206–07 Neville’s Cross, Battle of (1346), 203 de Montfort, Simon, 128–29 Edward I, battle with, 132 Henry III, relations with, 128–29, 131, 166–67, 241 Llywelyn ap Gruffydd, alliance with, 131–32 Mise of Lewes/Peace of Canterbury, 131 Provisions of Westminster, enforcement of, 130–31 Declaration of Arbroath (1320), 194 Delhi Sultanate, 226 Despensers, The, 191, 196–97 Di, Zhu, 229–30 Dictum of Kenilworth (1266), 132 Diet of Besancon (1157), 63 Diet of Nuremburg, 116 Donation of Constantine, 20 Donskoy, Dmitry, 186 Mongols, conflict with, 186–87 Prince of Moscow, 186 Dunkeld, House of, 10 Dupplin Moor, Battle of (1332), 201 Dushan, Stephen, King of the Serbs, 219 dynastic issues and warfare, 4 12th century, 44 diplomacy & inter-marriage, 41 monarchy, challenges to, 5, 237–38 Song Dynasty, 6

258  Index Eastern Europe Armenia, 145 Georgia, 145 Middle Volga, 147–48 Mongolian Empire, conflict with, 145–46, 147–49 Ogedei, conflict with, 147–49 Edessa Harran, Battle of, 71 Second Crusade, 73 Seljuks, attack on, 71 Zengi, Imad ad-Din, attack on, 72 Edward (the Confessor), 9–10, 23 Edward, Prince of Wales, 203–04 Aquitaine, taxes levied in, 205, 206 Edward I, King of England, 132–33, 187–88, 241 Abaqa Khan, attempted alliance with, 162 Boniface VIII, disagreement with, 172–73 Christianity, fears of threat to, 162 de Montfort, Simon, battle with, 132 death of, 190 France, relationship with, 136 Germany, alliance with, 136–37 Llywelyn ap Gruffydd, conflict with, 134 parliament, establishment of, 133–34, 167 Philip III, relationship with, 136 Philip IV, relationship with, 136 Scotland, control over, 135–36, 137, 167, 189–90 Statute of Wales (1284), 134–35 Treaty of Aberconwy (1277), 134 Treaty of Paris (1303), 189 Edward II, King of England Articles of Accusation (1327), 197 death of, 197 Despensers, relations with, 191, 196–97 France, relationship with, 195 Gaveston, Piers, influence of, 191–92 Ireland, relations with, 193–94 Isabella, conflict with, 196–97 Ordinances (1311), 192, 195, 196 Philip V, relations with, 195 Scotland, relations with, 193–94 Treaty of Paris (1303), 191 Edward III, King of England accession of, 197 England, regaining control over, 199–200 France, claim of throne of, 202, 206 Hundred Years War, triggering of, 201, 238–39 John II of France, conflict with, 203 Philip VI, relations with, 201–02 Philippa of Hainault, marriage to, 199 Scotland, relationship with, 188, 200–01 Edward the Bruce, 193–94 Egypt Cario, Mongol attack on, 159 Fifth Crusade, & invasion of, 100–01, 167

Muslim world, power base in, 156 Saladin, power in, 75–76 Seventh Crusade, attack on, 157 Eleanor of Aquitaine, 50 Elster, Battle of, 31 England 13th century, war & conflict, 86 14th century, war & conflict, 231 burghers, 60 Charles VI of France, attack by, 212 constitutional rule, foundations of, 8 Crécy, Battle of (1346), 202–03 Dupplin Moor, Battle of (1332), 201 Edward III, control of, 199–200 France, relationship with (12th/13th C), 46, 50, 127, 167, 238 Great Revolt (1173–74), 50 Hundred Years War, 201–02, 232, 238–39 Ireland, relations with, 53–54, 193–94 Jewish communities in, 69 Louis VIII, King of France, invasion of, 125, 126 Magna Carta (1215), 119, 123–25, 166–67, 241 monarchy & dynastic issues, 237–38 Norman Conquest, 23–24 Otterburn, Battle of (1388), 212 Parliament, under Edward III, 200 Philip II of France, war against, 122–23 Portugal, defence alliance with, 211 primogeniture, introduction of, 82 Robert the Bruce, relations with, 193, 197–98 throne of, 12th century, 45–46 Treaty of Bretigny (1360), 205, 206, 239 Treaty of Edinburgh-Northampton (1328), 197–98 Treaty of Paris (1259), 130 Vikings, invasion of, 7–8 Wales, relations with, 52 Ephraim of Bon, 69 Eric ‘the Unforgettable’, 45 Eriksson, Leif, 6 Estates General (France, 1302), 188, 230 Salic Law, 195 Eugene, Pope, 58 Eugenius III (Pope), Edessa, attack on & reaction to, 72 Fatamid Caliphate, 5–6, 43 Byzantine Empire, relationship with, 15 collapse of, 32, 84 development of, 14–15 Saladin, destruction of, 75 Ferdinand I of Castile, 22 Fidem Catholicam (1338), 180–81 Flanders Philip IV of France, conflict with, 188–89 Treaty of Athis-sur-Orge (1305), 189 Forest Charter (1217), 125

Index 259 Forkbeard, Sweyn, 7 England, invasion of, 7–8 Fourteenth Ecumenical Council (Lyons, 1274), 162, 163 Fourth Lateran Council (1215), 94, 96–97 Fifth Crusade, proposal for, 100 Jewish communities, protection for, 95 France 13th century, war & conflict, 86–87 Albigensian Crusade (1179), 96–98 bourgeoisie, 60, 82 Crécy, Battle of (1346), 202–03 Edward I, relationship with, 136 Edward II, relations with, 195 England, relationship with (12th/13th C), 46, 50, 127, 167, 238 Estates General (1302), 188, 230 Ghent, uprising by, 211 Great Ordinance, 204 Gregory VII (Pope), influence over, 27 Hundred Years War, 201–02, 232, 238–39 Isabella, Queen, relations with, 198–99 Jewish communities in, 68 John, King of England, war against, 122–23 John II, reign of, 203–04 Philip of Valois, accession of, 198–99 Salic Law, 198 Scotland & the Auld Alliance (1295), 137 Treaty of Bretigny (1360), 205, 206, 239 Treaty of Paris (1259), 130 Vikings, invasion of, 7 Francis of Assisi, 102 Frederick II of Germany, 86 Al-Kamil (Ruler of Egypt), alliance with, 105, 156 background of, 101–02, 165 coronation & early reign of, 103–04 Cortenuova, Battle of (1237), 108 crusade against, 109, 246 excommunication of, 108, 109, 165, 245 Gregory IX, conflict with, 105, 106–07 Jerusalem, taking of, 87, 105–06, 167–68 Lombard League, dispute with, 107–08 peace in Germany, 107 Sixth Crusade, involvement in, 104–06 Treaty of Jaffa (1229), 105–06, 156 Treaty of Saint Germano (1230), 106, 107, 108 Yolande, marriage to, 104 Frederick of Swabia, Duke, Germany, challenge to throne, 56 Frederick the Fair of Germany, Louis, Duke of Bavaria, civil war against, 177 Froissart, Jean, 209 Gaozong, Emperor of the Song, 81 Gaveston, Piers, 195 Edward II, relations with, 191–92

Gelasius II, Pope, 55 Genghis Khan, 168, 250 background of, 138–39 Beijing, occupation of, 142 Bukhara, capture of, 140, 143, 144 China, conflict with, 141–42 death of, 146 Jin Dynasty, attack on, 141, 250 Khitan tribes, relationship with, 142 Korea, intervention in, 142 Muhammad II, Shah Ala ad Din, relationship with, 143 Xi Xia, attack of, 141 Genoa, Treaty of Turin (1381), 222 Geoffrey Plantagenet (Duke of Normandy and Aquitaine), 48 Georgia, Mongolian Empire, conflict with, 145 Germany Adolf of Nassau, elected & deposed king of, 118–19, 166 burgers, 60 civil war, 56, 177 Edward I, alliance with, 136–37 Frederick II, 86, 101–02 Golden Bull (1356), 181–82, 230 Great Interregnum (13th C), 109–10, 115 Gregory VII (Pope), challenges to king of, 28–31 Habsburg, Albert of, elected king of, 118, 166, 241 Habsburg, Rudolf von, 116, 166, 241 Hohenstaufen Dynasty, 65, 102, 103, 111, 166 Hungary, relations with, 12 kingship, view of, 40 Markward of Anweiler, claim to throne of, 102 monarchy, view of, 40, 240–41 Muhldorf, Battle of, 177 Otto IV, King of (disputed), 67, 101–02 Philip of Swabia, King of (disputed), 67, 101–02 Poland, relations with, 12–13 political & diplomatic relations in, 11–12, 40, 82, 86 Reichstag, formation of, 182 Richard of Cornwall, king of, 115 Sicily, alliance with, 65 Ghazan, Mahmud, 164, 217 Ghaznavids, 13, 43 Ghent, 211 Ghibellines, 110 Guelphs, conflict with, 175 Ghurid Empire, 144–45 Godwin of Wessex, 9, 10 Godwinson, Harold, 23–24 Godwinson, Tostig, 23–24 Golden Bull (1356), 181–82, 230–31, 247 Golden Horde (Kipchak), 148, 149, 232 Baybars, alliance with, 161

260  Index Hulagu (Hulegu) Khan, alliances against, 161 Timur (Tamerlane), conflict with, 225 Tokhtamysh Khan, 187 Great Revolt (1173–74), 50 Gregory IX (Pope), 104 Frederick II, conflict with, 105, 106–07, 108 heretics, treatment & pursuit of, 95 Lombard League, support for, 107–08 Papal Inquisition, 95–96 Treaty of Saint Germano (1230), 106, 107, 108 Gregory VII (Pope) beliefs of, 25 Dictatus Papae, 25–26 France, influence of, 27 Heinrich IV, challenge to, 28–31 Normans, allegiance to, 26 oaths of allegiance to, 26 Russia, allegiance with, 27 William the Conqueror, clashes with, 27–28 Gregory VIII (Pope & antipope), 55 Audita tremendi, 77 Third Crusade, call to arms, 77 Gregory XI (Pope), 183 Grosseteste, Robert, 17 Gruffydd ap Llywelyn, 10, 23 Guelphs, 110 Ghibellines, conflict with, 175 Guiscard, Robert, 21, 31 Gunther of Schwartzburg, 181 Guyuk, 150 Gwynedd, Owain, 52 Habsburg, Albert of, 118, 166 assassination of, 174 excommunication of, 119 Germany, elected king of, 118, 241 Habsburg, Rudolf von, 86, 115, 166, 241 Germany, elected king of, 116 Italy, break from, 117 Otakar II, war against, 116–17 Hanseatic League, 182 Harbiyah, Battle of (1244), 156 Hardrada, Harald, 23 Harran, Battle of, 70 Harthacnut, England, King of, 9 Heinrich II, 11–12 Benedict VIII, relations with, 18 Heinrich III, 12, 13 Papacy, relations with, 18, 19 Heinrich IV, 20 Alexander II (Pope), challenge to, 25 Gregory VII (Pope), challenge to, 28–31 Saxony, rebellion in, 30 Urban II (Pope), excommunication of, 31 Heinrich V, Papacy, relations with, 54–55

Heinrich VI accession to thrones of Germany, Italy & Sicily, 66 Richard I, conflict with, 66–67 Sicily, advance into, 67 Heinrich VII, King of Germany, 175 background of, 174–75 Henri of Anjou, 166, 246 Henry I, King of England, 46–48, 52, 82 Henry II, King of England, 49–51, 237–38 Adrian, Pope, support of Irish interventions, 53 Eleanor of Aquitaine, marriage to, 50–51, 83 England, invasion of (1149), 49 France, war with, 50, 238 heretics, treatment of, 69 Ireland, relations with, 53–54, 82 Scotland, control over, 51–52, 83 sons, challenges from, 50–51, 83 Wales, relations with, 52, 82 Henry III, King of England, 125 Alexander II & III, King of Scotland, relations with, 126 de Montfort, Simon, relations with, 128–29, 131, 166–67, 241 discontentment of his subjects, 127–28 Forest Charter (1217), 125 France, war with, 127 Mise of Lewes/Peace of Canterbury, 131 Provisions of Westminster (1259), 129–31 Sicily, offer of, 110 Treaty of Montgomery (1267), 132 Treaty of Paris (1259), 130 Wales, relations with, 127 Henry of Bracton, 133 heresy Arnoldists, 69 Cathars/Albigensians, 69, 96–98 England, reactions to (12th C), 69 Gregory IX, reaction to, 95 Innocent III, reaction to, 70 Papal Inquisition (Gregory IX), 95–96 papal reaction to (12th C), 69, 70 Paterines (Italy), 69 Third Lateran Council (1179), 69, 95 Vergentis in senium, 70 Waldensians, 69 Hohenstaufen Dynasty, 65, 102, 103 Conradin, claim over, 111 decline of, 165–66 Holy Sepulchre, Church of, 15, 79 Honorius II (Pope), 25 Honorius III (Pope), 104 Hsi, Chu, 36 Hulagu (Hulegu) Khan, 152 Cario, attack on, 159 inter-Mongol war, 161 Middle Eastern campaigns, 157–58, 169 Urban IV (Pope), alliance with, 161

Index 261 Humbert, Cardinal, 20 Hundred Years War, 171, 201–02, 232, 238 Richard II, reigniting of, 210 Hungary Germany, relations with, 12 Mongolian Empire, conflict with, 149 Ottoman Empire, conflict with, 223 Ilkhanate (Mongol Empire), 169 Arghun, leader of, 163 Islam, conversion to, 216–17 India (northern), 168 Delhi Sultanate, 226 Mongolian Empire, relations with, 144–45 Timur (Tamerlane), conflict with, 226 Innocent, II (Pope), 56 Roger II, excommunication of, 56–57 Stephen of Blois, support of, 48 Innocent III (Pope) Albigensian Crusade (1179), 96–98 beliefs & views of, 88 Byzantines, conflict with, 89, 94 Fifth Crusade, proposal for, 100 heresy, reaction to, 70 Jewish communities, protection for, 69 Magna Carta (1215), reaction to, 125 Markward of Anweiler, crusade against, 102 Otto IV, King of Germany, dispute with, 103 paganism, intolerance towards (13th C), 94 Quod super his, 94 Innocent IV (Pope) Frederick II, excommunication of, 109 Guyuk, relations with, 150 Manfred of Sicily, conflict with, 110 Seventh Crusade, preparations for, 156–57 Ireland Edward II, relations with, 193–94 England, relations with, 53, 193–94 Gaidhealtachd, 214 John, King of England, intervention in, 122 Magna Carta (1215), effect on, 125 Norse invasion of, 8 Richard II, conflict with, 213–14 Robert the Bruce, relations with, 193 Ironside, Edmund, 8 Cnut, defeat of, 9 Isabella, Queen of England Edward III, coup against, 199 English throne, power over, 197 France, relations with, 198–99 Mortimer, Roger, relationship with, 196–99 Ismailis, Nizari, 71 Italy civil turmoil (14th C), 175–77 communes, 59, 61, 82 Heinrich VII, entry in to, 175–77

Lombard League, 64, 82, 106, 107 Paterines (heretics), 69 Iziaslav, Prince, 27 Jadwiga, Queen of Poland, 185–86 Jagatai Khanate, 225 James II of Sicily, 114 Japan, 154–55 Jerusalem Christian & Muslim allies in, 156 Frederick II, control of, 87, 105–06, 167–68 Holy Sepulchre, Church of, 15, 79 and Middle Eastern conflicts, 156 recapture of, from Muslim occupiers, 34, 87 Saladin, surrendered to, 76–77 Seljuks, attack on, 32–33, 43, 248 Third Crusade, 79 Jewish communities anti-Jewish sentiments (13th C), 95 Clement IV, protection of, 180 England, treatment of (12th C), 69 First Crusade, effect on, 68 France, expulsion from, 68 papal protection for, 68, 69 Sicut Judaeis, 68 Talmund, destruction of, 95 Third Lateran Council (1179), 68 violence against (western Europe), 68 Jin Dynasty, 44, 236 Alliance Conducted by Sea (1123), 80 Genghis Khan, attack on, 141, 168 Song Dynasty, alliance with & war against, 44, 80–81, 85, 141–42 Treaty of Shaoxing (1141), 81 Xi Xia, relations with, 141 Jingnan rebellion (1399), 229 Jogalia, Grand Duke of Lithuania, 185–86 Moscow, conflict with, 186 John, King of England, 166 Barons’ War (1215), 125 coronation of, 119 death of, 125 home territories, difficulties with, 121, 123 Ireland, intervention in, 122 Magna Carta (1215), reaction to, 125 Normandy, loss of, 120–21 Papacy, relations with, 122 Philip II of France, conflict with, 121, 122–23 Treaty of Norham (1209), 121 Wales, intervention in, 122 John II of France, 203–04 John of Gaunt death of, 214–15 Richard II, support for, 213 John of Salisbury, 63 John the Bastard, Portugal, king of, 211

262  Index John the Blind, 175 Crécy, Battle of (1346), 202–03 John V Palaiologos, 219, 233 Catholic Church, approach to, 221 Ottoman Empire, involvement with, 220, 221–22, 223 John XXII (Pope) challenges to authority of, 178–80 civil war in Germany (14th C), involvement in, 178 Louis IV (Duke of Bavaria), excommunication of, 178 Juvaini, Ala-ad, 140 Kalka River, Battle of, 145–46 Karamania, 223 Kerayits, 138 Khaldun, Ibn, 216 Khitan tribes, 38 Genghis Khan, relationship with, 142 Khwarazmian Empire, 104 Mongolian Empire, conflict with, 143–44, 145, 156, 168, 250 Kiev (Russia), 11 Mongolian Empire, conflict with, 148 Kipchaks see Golden Horde Knights Templar, 190–91 Korea, 37 China, relationship with, 41, 237 Choson, 170 Genghis Khan, intervention in, 142 Kublai Khan, intervention in, 154 Ogedei, conflict with, 146 Koryo Dynasty, 38, 41, 237 challenges to, 39 Kuangyin, Zhao, 35 Kublai Khan, 87, 138, 250 Asia, conflict in, 153–54 China, reunification of, 153, 168–69 Japan, attempt at conquest, 154–55 Mongolian Empire, dissolution of, 151–52 Song Dynasty, conflict with, 150–51, 152 Kwiju, Battle of, 39 La Forbie, Battle of (1244) see Harbiyah, Battle of Lancaster, Earl of, 196 Las Navas de Tolosa, Battle of (1212), 99 Leo IV, King of Armenia, 217 Leo IX (Pope), 19–20 Leopold, Duke of Austria, 177 Leopold V of Austria, Richard I, conflict with, 66–67 Liao, challenges to, 39 Liao Dynasty, 38 Alliance Conducted by Sea (1123), 80 Licet iuris, 181 Lisbon, Second Crusade, capture of, 73

Lithuania, 185–86 Llywelyn ap Gruffydd de Montfort, Simon, alliance with, 131–32 Edward I, conflict with, 134 Treaty of Aberconwy (1277), 134 Treaty of Montgomery (1267), 132 Lombard League, 82, 106 Cortenuova, Battle of (1237), 108 founding of, 64 Frederick II, dispute with, 107–08 Lothair II (Duke of Saxony), 56 Louis, Duke of Bavaria, 177 Louis IV (Duke of Bavaria) Clement IV, conflict with, 180 excommunication of, 178, 180 Holy Roman Emperor, 180 Licet iuris, 181 Sachsenhausen Appellation (1324), 179 Louis IX, King of France Christianity, fears of threat to, 162 Provisions of Westminster, arbitration of, 130–31 Seventh Crusade, preparations for, 157 Louis VI, King, 47 Louis VIII, King of France, 125, 126, 127 Lumphanan, Battle of, 10 Macbeth, 10 Magna Carta (1215), 119, 123–25, 166–67, 241 Innocent III (Pope), reaction to, 125 John, King of England, reaction to, 125 principles & clauses of, 124 royal power, abuse of, 123–24 Maimonides, Moses, 23 Malcolm III, King, 45–46 Malcolm IV, King, 51 Mamai Khan, 187 Mamluks, 169 Acre, conflict at, 164 Golden Horde, alliance with, 161 Hulagu (Hulegu) Khan, alliances against, 161 Ilkhanate, attack on, 163, 217 Mongolian Empire, conflict with, 87–88, 157–58, 159–60, 163, 251 Sunni dynasty, development of, 157 Timur (Tamerlane), conflict with, 226–27 Manfred of Sicily, 110, 111 Manzikert, Battle of, 32 Marcel, Etienne, 204, 207 Margaret (Maid of Norway), 135 Marinids, 216 Markward of Anweiler, 102 Marsilius of Padua, 179 Martin IV (Pope), 113 Peter III of Aragon, excommunication of, 114 Matilda, Empress, 48–49, 82 Michael VIII Palaiologos, 113 Middle Volga, 147–48

Index 263 Mieszko II, 12 Milan (Italy), 64 Ming Dynasty, 234, 253 Jingnan rebellion (1399), 229 rise of, 227–30 Mise of Lewes/Peace of Canterbury, 131 monarchy 12th century, 45 14th century, 171, 231, 242 Denmark, family feuds, 45 Germany, view of, 40, 240–41 power of and challenges to, 5, 41, 171, 237, 240 Salic Law, 195, 198, 232, 236 Spain, internal & external challenges, 45 succession & war, 41, 236 Mongke, 157 Mongolian Empire, control of, 150–51 Mongolian Empire, 168, 249–51 Abbasid Caliphate, conflict with, 158 Asia, conflict in, 153–54 background of, 138–39 Bela IV, conflict with, 149 Bukhara, capture of, 140, 143, 144 Cario, attack on, 159–60 Christian alliances, attempts at, 162–63 Christian-Mongol coalition, development of, 161 Cumans, conflict with, 145–46 destruction of, 160, 232 dissolution of, 151–52 Donskoy, Dmitry, conflict with, 186–87 Eastern Europe, conflict with, 145–46, 147–49 expansion of, 87 Genghis Khan, 138 Guyuk, leader of, 150 Hungary, conflict with, 149 ideology of, 139–40 Ilkhanate, 163 India (northern), relations with, 144–45 inter-Mongol war, 161 Islam, conversion to, 164, 251 Kerayits, 139 Khwarazmian Empire, conflict with, 143–44, 145, 156, 168, 250 Korea, intervention & conflict, 143, 146, 154 Kublai Khan, 87, 138, 250 Mamluks, conflict with, 87–88, 157–58, 159–60, 163, 251 Middle East, conflict in, 156–60 Mongke, leader of, 150–51, 157 Nizari, conflict with, 158 Ogedei, leader of, 146–49 religious views & tolerance, 140, 153 Song Dynasty, conflict with, 87, 146–47, 150–51 Tibet, conflict with, 147, 154 Montaperti, Battle of (1260), 110 Mortgarten, battle at (1315), 177

Mortimer, Roger, 196 death of, 199 English throne, power over, 197 Isabella, Queen, relationship with, 196–99 Muhammad II, Shah Ala ad Din, 143 Genghis Khan, relationship with, 143 Muhldorf, Battle of, 177 Murad I, Ruler of the Ottomans, 233, 252 Balkan peninsula, conquering of, 220, 222 Byzantine Empire, treaty with, 221 Christians, treatment of, 220–21 Murchada, Dairmait Mac, 53 Muslim world Abbasid Caliphate, 5 Algeciras, siege at, 216 changes in (11th C), 5–6 Christian communities, attack on, 164, 249 Egypt, power in, 156 Fatamid Caliphate, 5–6 Holy Wars, justification for, 33–34, 43, 44 Imams, role of, 14 jihad, practice of, 70, 224, 248 leadership, 13–14 Mongolian Empire, conflict with, 143–44, 160 Sicily, war against Islam, 21 Spain, war against Islam, 22–23, 73–74 Sunni & Shia conflicts, 71 Zengi, Imad ad-Din, 71 Myamar, 154 Nasrid Dynasty, 99 Nasrids, 216 Neo-Confucianism, 36–37 Neville’s Cross, Battle of (1346), 203 Nevsky, Alexander, 148 Nicolas II (Pope), 20 Nicolas IV (Pope), 164 Nicopolis, Battle of (1396), 224 Ningzong, Song Emperor, 141 Nizari, 158 Normandy, 120–21 Normans Conquest of England, 23–24 Gregory VII (Pope), allegiance to, 26 Papal alliance with, 19, 21 Novgorod (Russia), 11, 186 boyars, control of, 60 Mongolian Empire, conflict with, 148 Ockham, William of, 178–79 O‘Connor, Rory, 53–54 Ogedei death of, 149 Eastern Europe, conflict with, 147–49 Korea, conflict with, 146 Mongolian Empire, leader of, 146 Song Dynasty, conflict with, 146–47

264  Index Ordinances (1311), 192, 195, 196 Orhan (Ottoman Empire), 252 Cantacuzenus, John, support for, 219–20 Ottoman Empire, advancement of, 218 Osman I, 217–18 Otakar II, King of Bohemia, 116–17 Otterburn, Battle of (1388), 212 Otto IV, King of Germany, 67 excommunication of, 103 throne of Germany, dispute over, 101–02 Ottoman Empire, 251–53 Bayezid, ruler of, 223, 252 beginnings of, 217–18, 233 Bileca, Battle of, 222 crusade against, 221 emergence of, 170 Murad I, 220–22, 252 Ovid, ‘Golden Age’, view of, 2 paganism, intolerance towards (13th C), 94 Palestine, crusade against, 162 papacy 14th century, decline in power of, 171, 230, 246–47 Barbarossa, Frederick, relations with, 58 Charles IV, relations with, 181 Concordat of Worms (1122), 55, 56 corruption within, 18 Germany (12th/13th C), issues in, 56, 86, 246 Gregory VII (Pope), power of, 25–31 growth & power of, 5, 16–17, 42, 243–45 Heinrich V, relations with, 54–55 Holy Wars, justification for, 33–34, 43 Jerusalem, recapture of from Muslim occupiers, 33–34 John, King of England, relations with, 122 Knights Templar, threat to, 190–91 Lombard League, 64, 82 monarchy, links to, 16–17 Normans, alliance with, 19, 21 Papal Inquisition (Gregory IX), 95–96 papal seat, 12th C claims for, 63–64 pope & monarch, relationships between, 42–43 Provisions of Westminster (1259), view of, 131 Roman Senate, relations with, 58 Statue of Premunire (1353), 200 Statue of Provisors (1351), 200 temporal realms, control over, 42 Truce of God, 19 Western Schism, 183–84, 231, 247 Paris, Matthew, 149 Pascal, Pope, 54–55 Peace of Caltabellotta (1302), 115 Peace of Constance (1183), 65, 106 Peace of Krzyskowo (1157), 57 Peace of Tournai (1385), 211 peasant revolutions, 4, 242

England, 208 Europe, 208 laws passed against, 209 Ordinances on Laborers (1381), 209 Richard II, reaction to, 210 Wycliffe, John, involvement in, 208–09 Peasants Revolt (1381), 207–10 Peter III of Aragon, 114 Peter the Hermit, 34 Philip II of France Albigensian Crusade (1179), 96–98 Jewish communities, expulsion of, 68 John, King of England, truce with, 121 John, King of England, war against, 122–23 Normandy, gaining of, 120–21 Richard I, conflict with, 67 Third Crusade, 77–78 Philip III of France Charles of Anjou, support for, 114 Edward I, relationship with, 136 Philip IV of France, 136, 187–88 Boniface VIII, disagreement with, 172–74, 188 Edward I, relationship with, 136 Flanders, conflict in, 188–89 Knights Templar, threat to, 190–91 Treaty of Athis-sur-Orge (1305), 189 Treaty of Paris (1303), 189 Philip of Swabia, King of Germany, 67 Fourth Crusade, 92 throne of Germany, dispute over, 101–02 Philip the Bold, 224 Philip V, King of France, 195 Philip VI, King of France, 201–02 Philippa of Hainault, 199 Philips of Valois, France, 198–99 Plantagenets, origin of name, 48 Poitiers, Battle of (1356), 203–04 Poland Germany, relations with, 12–13 Jadwiga, coronation of, 185 Polish-Lithuanian union, 185–86 succession issues (14th C), 185 Treaty of Soldin (1309), 175 Pontvallain, Battle of (1370), 206 Portugal, 211–12 Castile, annexation by, 211–12 Provisions of Oxford (1259), 129–30, 131 Provisions of Westminster (1259), 129–30, 131 enforcement of, 130 Louis IX, King of France, arbitration of, 130–31 Qalawun, Al-Mansur, Sultan (Mamluk), 163 Qatwan, Battle of, 143 Qinzong, Emperor of the Song, 80–81 Quod super his, 94

Index 265 Qutuz, Mazaffar, 159 Mongolian Empire, war with, 159–60 Raymond VI, Count of Toulouse, 97 Red Turbans, 227, 229 religion and warfare, 4, 42, 243–47 12th century, 83 13th century, 86–88 Christianity, advancement of, 5–6, 84 crusades (to the Holy Land), 6, 84 inter-religious warfare, 247 Islam, war against, 83, 247 Middle East, conflict in, 155–56 Mongolian Empire, religious tolerance of, 140 Muslim world, 5, 13–14 papacy, growth in power of, 5, 16, 42, 243–45 Sicily, war against Islam, 21, 83 Spain, war against Islam, 22 Renzong (Emperor), 39, 40 Reutlingen, Battle of (1377), 183 Rhine League, 116 Richard I, King of England death of, 68 Heinrich VI, conflict with, 66–67 Leopold V of Austria, conflict with, 66–67 Philip II of France, conflict with, 67 Scotland, relationship with, 52 Third Crusade, 77–80, 84 Treaty of Messina (1191), 66, 78 Richard II, King of England accession of, 207 Bolingbroke, Henry, challenge by, 215 Hundred Years War, reigniting of, 210–11 Iberian Peninsula, involvement in, 211 Ireland, conflict in, 213–14 John of Gaunt, support from, 213 Parliament, concerns of, 212, 213, 214 Peasants Revolt (1381), 207–10 Robert III, truce with, 213 Scotland, conflict with, 212 truce, with France (1389), 212–13 Richard of Cornwall, Germany, King of, 115, 116 Richard of Devizes, 60 Robert II of Scotland, 207 Robert III of Scotland, 213 Robert the Bruce, 190 England, relations with, 193, 197–98 Ireland, relations with, 193 Scotland, named king of, 192–93 Treaty of Edinburgh-Northampton (1328), 197–98 Roger II (King of Sicily), 56–57 Roman Senate, Papacy, relations with, 58 Romanos IV Diogenes, 32 Rousseau, Jean Jacques, 2 Rudolf of Swabia, 30, 31 Rus (Russia) Cumans, alliance with, 145–46

political & diplomatic relations in, 10–11 veches, 60–61, 82 Rushd, Ibn, 74 Russia Gregory VII (Pope), allegiance to, 27 Moscow, power of, 186 Sachsenhausen Appellation (1324), 179 Saladin (Salah ad-Din Yusuf ibn Ayyub) Byzantine Empire, alliance with, 76, 90 Chatillon, Reginald de (Prince of Antioch), conflict with, 76–77 crusades & challenges to Christians, 76, 84 death of, 87 Egypt, power in, 75–76 Fatamid regime, destruction of, 75 Syria, control of, 75–76 Third Crusade, 77–80, 84 Salic Law, 195, 236 France, application of, 198, 232 Samakov, Battle of, 222 Saxony, Germany, 30 Scotland Declaration of Arbroath (1320), 194 Disinherited, The, 198, 201 Dupplin Moor, Battle of (1332), 201 Edward I, control over, 135–36, 137, 167, 189, 239 Edward II, relations with, 193–94 Edward III, relations with, 200–01 England, relations with, 135–36, 137–38, 197–98, 239 France & the Auld Alliance (1295), 137 Hundred Years War, involvement in, 202 Magna Carta (1215), effect on, 124 Otterburn, Battle of (1388), 212 Richard II, conflict with, 212 succession issues (13th C), 135 Treaty of Birgham (1290), 135 Treaty of Edinburgh-Northampton (1328), 197–98 Wallace, William, 137–38 William the Conqueror, invasion of, 46 Seljuks, 5, 6 Arslan, Alp, 32 Edessa, attack on, 71 First Crusade, 33–35 fragmentation of, 98–99 Jerusalem, taking of, 32–33, 43, 248 rise of, 32 Sultanate of Rum, 98, 101 Tughril Beg, 32 Sempach, Battle of (1386), 183 Serbia, 219–20 serfs & slaves, status of (Europe), 59 Sergious IV (Pope), 15 Shenzong (Emperor, Song Dynasty), 36 Shiva (temple), Gujarat, 13

266  Index Sicily Conrad III, conflict with, 56 crusades against, 114–15 Frederick III, control of, 115 Germany, alliance with, 65 Heinrich VI, advance into, 67 Holy Roman Empire, alliance with, 65 Islam, war against, 21, 83 Manfred, King of, 110, 111 Papacy, relations with, 56, 66 Peter III of Aragon, claim on the throne of, 114 Tancred of Lecce, Count, 66, 67 Silkenbeard, Sitric, 8 Song Dynasty, 84, 236, 250 Alliance Conducted by Sea (1123), 80 background of, 6 challenges to, 38 decline of, 168–69 founding of, 35 Gaozong, Emperor of, 81 Jin Dynasty, alliance with & war against, 44, 80–81, 85, 141–42 Liao, conflict with, 39 ‘Mandate of Heaven’, 35 Mongolian Empire, conflict with, 87, 150–51, 152, 168 Neo-Confucianism, 36–37 Ningzong, Emperor, 141 Ogedei, conflict with, 146–47 philosophy & practice, 36–37, 40 Qinzong, Emperor of, 80–81 Renzong, Emperor of, 39, 40 Treaty of Shaoxing (1141), 81 Xi Xia, peace agreement, 39 Zhenzong, Emperor of, 39 Song of Lewes, 131 Spain Alfonso I, battles of, 45 Almohad Caliphate, 99–100 cortes, 60, 82 Gregory VII (Pope), & reconquering of, 26–27 Islam, war against, 22–23, 26–27 monarchy, internal & external challenges, 45 Second Crusade, 73–74 Statue of Premunire (1353), 200 Statue of Provisors (1351), 200 Statute of Marlborough (1267), 132 Statute of Wales (1284), 134–35 Stephen, King of Hungary, 12 Stephen IX (Pope), 20 Stephen of Blois, 48–49, 82 Straw, Jack, 209 Sultanate of Rum, 218 Summa Theologica (Aquinas, Thomas), 112 Swabian League, 182–83 Swinderby, William, 208 Switzerland, 231

formation of, 117–18 prominence of, 177 Syria, Saladin, control of, 75–76 Tancred of Lecce, Count, 66 Treaty of Messina (1191), 66, 78 Tang Dynasty, 35 Temujin see Genghis Khan Temur, Toghan, 227 defeat of, 229 Teutonic Order, Peace of Kalish (1347), 185 Third Lateran Council (1179), 65 heresy, issue of, 69 Jewish communities, effect on, 68 Thomas of Woodstock, 213 Tibet, 37 civil war (14th C), 170 Mongolian Empire, conflict with, 147, 154 Timur (Tamerlane), 233–34, 252–53 background of, 224 emergence of, 170–71 India (northern), conquest in, 226 jihad, practice of, 224 Mamluks, conflict with, 226–27 Persia, advances into, 225 Timurid Empire, founding of, 224–25 Tokhtamysh Khan, 187 Timur (Tamerlane), conflict with, 225 treaties of Aberconwy (1277), 134 of Abernethy (1072), 46 of Alton (1101), 47 of Anagni (1295), 114 of Barcelona, 114 of Benevento (1156), 61–62, 63 of Berwick (1357), 203 of Birgham (1290), 135 of Bretigny (1360), 205, 206, 232, 239 of Bruges (1375), 207 of Chanyuan (1004), 39 of Constance (1153), 58, 61, 63 of Corbeil (1326), 195 of Devol (1108), 90 of Durham (1138), 49 of Edinburgh-Northampton (1328), 197–198 of Falaise, 52 of Jaffa (1229), 105–106, 156 of Lambeth (1217), 126, 127 of Leake (1318), 195, 196 of Lyubutsk (1372), 186 of Meaux (1229), 98 of Messina (1191), 66, 78 of Montgomery (1267), 132 of Neuberg (1379), 184 of Newcastle (1244), 126 of Norham (1209), 121 of Oloron (1287), 114

Index 267 of Paris (1303), 189 of Perth (1266), 126 of Pipton (1265), 131 of Ramla (1192), 79 of Regensburg (1042), 13 of Rheinfelden (1283), 117 of Saint Germano (1230), 106, 107, 108 of Shaoxing (1141), 81 of Soldin (1309), 175 of Strasbourg (1189), 66 of Trausnitz (1325), 177–178 of Turin (1381), 222 of Venice (1177), 64–65 of Viterbo (1267), 113 of Winchester (1153), 49 of Windsor (1175), 53 of Worcester (1218), 126 of York (1237), 126 of Zara (1203), 91–92 Truce of God, 19 Tsai, Chang, 37 Tughril Beg, 32 Tunisia, 214–15, 216 crusade against, 162 Tyler, Wat, 209 Ubayd Allah al Mahdi Billah, 15 UNESCO, warfare, view of, 2 Unigentas (1342), 180 Urban II (Pope), 31 Jerusalem, Seljuk attack on, 32–33 Urban III (Pope), 65 Urban IV (Pope) Charles of Anjou, offer to Sicily & Naples to, 111 Hulagu (Hulegu) Khan, alliance with, 161 Manfred of Sicily, crusade against, 111 Urban V (Pope), 221 Urban VI (Pope), election of, 183–84

England, relations with, 52, 122, 127, 132, 134–35 Gwynedd, Owain, 52 Henry III, relations with, 127 John, King, intervention in, 122 Llywelyn ap Gruffydd, 131, 132 Magna Carta (1215), effect on, 124 Statute of Wales (1284), 134–35 Treaty of Aberconwy (1277), 134 Wallace, William, 137–38, 189 Wenceslaus IV, King of Germany, 184 Wendish (Baltic) Crusade, 72–73 White Ship, 47 William I, King of Scotland, 52 Treaty of Norham (1209), 121 William I, King of Sicily, 62 William II, King of England, 46–47 William II, King of Sicily, Third Crusade, 77–78 William of Holland, German throne, accession to, 109–10 William of Poitiers, 24 William of Puylaurens, 96 William the Conqueror, 24 Gregory VII (Pope), clashes with, 27–28 Scotland, invasion of, 46 witchcraft, as a criminal offence, 95 Wycliffe, John, 208–09 Xi Xia, 38, 40 Genghis Khan, attack on, 141 Jin Dynasty, relations with, 141 Song Dynasty, peace agreement, 39

Vasili I Dmitriyevich, 187 Venice Byzantine Empire, friendship & conflict with, 90–91 Constantinople, sacking of, 92–94 Crusaders, association with (13th C), 91, 92–94 Treaty of Turin (1381), 222 Vergentis in senium, 70 Victor IV (Pope), 63–64 Vietnam, 37 Dai Vet, 170 Mongolian Empire, conflict with, 154 Vikings, 6–8 Vladimir the Great, 10–11

Yaroslav I, 27 Yaun-Chang, Chu, 228 Yolande, Queen of Jerusalem, 104 Yuan Dynasty, 87, 154, 168 decline of, 170, 227, 229 founding of, 151, 152 peasant revolutions, 228 Yuanzhang, Zhu, opposition from, 228 Yuanhao, Weiming, 39–40 Yuanzhang, Zhu anti-Confucian policy, 228 background of, 228 Buddhism, adoption of, 228–29 Hundred Day Edict, 229 Yuan Dynasty, opposition to, 228 Yumen, Zhe, 229 Yusuf, An-Nasir, 159 Yusuf ibn Tashfin, 23

Waldo, Peter, 69 Wales Edward I, intervention in, 134–35, 167

Zengi, Imad ad-Din, 71, 72, 74 Zengids, 71 Zhenzong (Emperor), 39

268