An Empire of Memory (40 page)

Gregori VII Registrum, ed. Erich Caspar, MGH Epist. sel. (Berlin, 1920–23), 2/1: 1. 46. English tr. in The Register of Pope Gregory VII, 1073–85, tr. H. E. J. Cowdrey (Oxford, 2002), 1. 46.

144

The Franks Recreate Empire

postponed by September 1074, with Gregory assuring Count William VI of Poitou

(d. 1086) that the ‘Christians have thus far repelled the savagery of the pagans’, the

plan was back on, though slightly modified, by December 1074. Now the pope

himself would lead an army of 50,000 strong to the East and against the enemies of

God, pushing even as far as the Holy Sepulcher. Care for the ecclesia would remain

in the hands of Emperor Henry IV.51 The optimism did not last and Gregory’s plan

had fizzled by January 1075.52

Gregory’s ideas about this expedition to the East seem to have evolved through-

out 1074. His first call early in the year seems to have simply been for soldiers to aid

the Byzantine empire. His three letters of general summons followed the same

contours and dwelt upon the audience’s duty to aid their fellow Christians. By the

end of 1074 though, the pope had decided to take charge of the expedition himself,

to march at its head ‘against the enemies of God and go as far as the sepulchre of the

Lord’. He would personally lead this army to the East, to help their Christian

brothers and return them to the bosom of Rome.53 To this end, he referred to

Eastern Christians as the West’s fratres,54 as part of the gens christiana,55 and as

subject to a more universal Christian imperium.56

This was provocative language, going back to the ninth century. The gens (or

populus) christianus were those over whom Frankish rulers once watched and those

who would, according to Adso Dervensis, be subject to universal imperium chris-

tianum under the Last Emperor. These stark, apocalyptic terms were matched by

Gregory’s language towards his enemies. Initially, they were Saraceni or a gens

paganorum57 but towards the end of 1074, as his proposed expedition was taking

shape, the enemies had become inimicos Dei and membra diaboli.58 Gregory,

however, did not sustain this language and the apocalyptic urgency of the situation

in the East seems to have eased (in his mind) by early 1075.59 Gregory, for instance,

was more anodyne in his letters referencing Southern Italian Muslims and was

positively nice when he wrote to the North African Emir an-Nasir in late 1076.60

51 Gregori VII Registrum, ed. Caspar, 2/1: 1. 49; 1. 72; and 2. 3, 2. 31, 2. 37; respectively. See also, Pope Gregory VII, Epistolae Vagantes, ed. H. E. J. Cowdrey (Oxford, 1972), no. 5.

52 Gregori VII Registrum, ed. Caspar, 2/1: 2. 49 where Gregory is lamenting the state of affairs to

Abbot Hugh of Cluny. See also the analysis in H. E. J. Cowdrey, Pope Gregory VII, 1073–85 (Oxford,

1998), 485.

53 Gregory was likely thinking of leading the milites sancti Petri. See Erdmann, Origin of the Idea of Crusade, esp. chs. 5–7; Delaruelle, ‘Essai sur la formation’, 79–96; I. S. Robinson, ‘Gregory VII and the Soldiers of Christ’, History, 58 (1973), 161–92; Cowdrey, Pope Gregory VII, esp. ch. 5; and Flori,

Guerre sainte, esp. chs. 6–7; among many others.

54 Gregori VII Registrum, ed. Caspar, 2/1: 1. 49, 2. 31, and 2. 37.

55 Ibid. 2. 31; and 1. 46, 1. 49, 2. 3, and 2. 31.

56 Ibid. 1. 49.

57 Ibid. 1. 46; and 1. 49, 2. 3, 2. 31; respectively.

58 Ibid. 2. 31; and 2. 37, 2. 49; respectively.

59 See H. E. J. Cowdrey, ‘Pope Gregory VII’s “Crusading” Plans of 1074’, in B. Z. Kedar, H. E.

Mayer and R. C. Smail (eds.), Outremer: Studies in the History of the Crusading Kingdom of Jerusalem

(Jerusalem, 1982), 38–40; and Paul Magdalino, ‘Prophecies on the Fall of Constantinople’, in Angeliki

E. Laiou (ed.), Urbs Capta: The Fourth Crusade and its Consequences (Paris, 2005), 41–53.

60 Cowdrey thought Gregory VII reserved his incendiary language for the Seljuks in Asia Minor.

See Cowdrey, Pope Gregory VII, 489–94. I don’t agree. See below.

The Franks Return to the Holy Land

145

Why these sudden shifts? A staid military expedition became a cosmic battle

between good and evil, which then became, well, nothing. But perhaps there was no

shift. Perhaps he had not changed; the enemy had. Gregory displaced his incendiary

language, moving it from East to West. As a man who saw the devil constantly at

work in the world around him, he believed his pontificate was witnessing a moment

of cosmic struggle against the forces of evil. But the devil worked in two ways, killing

Christians through his agents and creating new allies by pulling men from the true

faith. This latter movement, closer to home, began to consume Gregory’s thoughts

beginning in 1075–6. The partisans of Henry IV, these ‘false Christians’, were now a

more pressing threat––newly revealed membra antichristi who tormented the ecclesia

(the community of all Christians) from within.61

Although a military adventure to the East may have been at the center of Gregory

VII’s priorities in 1074, the campaign quickly lost steam. Part of the reason must

have had to do with Gregory warming to the Normans and so backing away from his

relationship with the emperors Henry IV and Michael VII (1071–8).62 As he passed

through 1075, Gregory was torn ‘between a world that was about to end with Rome,

Constantinople and Jerusalem united in a single, united res publica, and a world that

could not end until they were reunited under the authority of St. Peter’.63 But first

things first. Constantinople and the plight of the Eastern Christians retreated to the

background as a new, more dangerous enemy, emerged closer to home.

Odo, later Pope Urban II (1088–99), was born c.1035 not far from Châtillon-sur-

Marne, in the archdiocese of Reims and the county of Champagne, possibly to the

family of the lords of Lagéry. He studied at Reims under Bruno of Cologne, later

founder of Chartreuse, and became an archdeacon at Reims c.1050. He remained

an archdeacon until c.1067, when he entered the monastery of Cluny, eventually

rising to the rank of prior. Around 1080, he was sent to Rome and ended up

remaining there. Gregory VII elevated Odo to the cardinal-bishopric of Ostia

shortly thereafter and he remained in that position until 1088, when he was elected

to the papacy after the death of Victor III (1086–88).64

During 1095–6, roughly eighty-five years after Sergius IV put out his call and

twenty years after Gregory VII, more than 100,000 people from across Europe

(Figure 5.1), from all classes of society, left hearth and home in waves to walk

61 See Gregori VII Registrum, ed. Caspar, 2/1: 4. 1, 4. 2, etc. In 1082, Gregory sketched out the war

being fought between good and evil. Ibid. 2/2: 9. 21; and Gregory VII, Epistolae Vagantes, ed.

Cowdrey, no. 54. See also, Karl Josef Benz, ‘Eschatologie und Politik bei Gregor VII’, Studi

Gregoriani, 14 (1991), 1–20; H. E. J. Cowdrey, ‘The Gregorian Papacy, Byzantium, and the First

Crusade’, Byzantinische Forschungen, 13 (1988), 155–6; and idem, Pope Gregory VII, 531–4.

62 For an overview of the shifting diplomacy in this period involving the papacy, Normans, and

Byzantium, see Jonathan Harris, Byzantium and the Crusades (London, 2003), 46–7; and Cowdrey,

Pope Gregory VII, 483–6.

63 Paul Magdalino, ‘Church, Empire and Christendom in c.600 and c.1075: The View from the

Registers of Popes Gregory I and Gregory VII’, in Cristianita d’Occidente e cristianita d’Oriente (secoli VI–XI): 24–30 aprile 2003 (Spoleto, 2004), 28–30, quotation at 30.

64 The essential discussion of Odo’s biography is Alfons Becker, Papst Urban II. (1088–99), 2 vols.

(Stuttgart, 1964–88), i. 24–90.

London

494

445

1655–6

R.Rhine

275

228

1335–7

293 271 287

246

677

597 319–20 50

536 273 191 1393

Boulogne

4534

596

24 396

260

4535

4532–3

139 141–2

167

317

168 302 4533

395

26?

Cologne

144 590

839

509 Lille

557–8

Aachen64–5

2078

380–1

325

282

237, 322

Liège

592

1250

61

221

405

340

527–8

649 497

223? 5332

546

423

508

184

185

224

531–2

470

517

572

574

54–5

420–2

31

R.

217 449

443

311

154 482

137

Mainz

Main

58

Rouen

233

Bouillon 426

85–6

560

797?

230, 369

145

513

483

310

121

113

810–11

R.Seine

402

464

4950

390

646

124

94–5

147

418

495

316

229

425

268

30

213 214

280

189

Rheims150

4355

4158

348

2355

372

437

643

108

630

259

Paris

545

579

238

239 556

283–4 645

455 433

432

456

93

498

171 3828

212

220

23

549

652?

3442

473–5

465?

5362

631–2

40

22

134

406-7

3296–7

290

202–3

361

Chartres

195

135

480

157–8

383

581

3901 126

4783

205–6

3326

442

Le Mans 460

1654

208235

3824

413

R.

384

373

411–2

Rhine

155

5249 160

567? 4787

Moselle

604

3812

R.

ube

366

301

5360 4722–3

5400

434

367

4315

2529 3583

448 414

Troyes

3471

234

R. Dan

540

1652

219

575 3850

193 1559

204

267 218

4716

89

4326

Angers 537 278

3485

91

4717

R. Loire

525

491

173

416–7

4792

3484

634

5039

635?

172

553–5

3761

Tours

174–5

1649

3795

1653

4812

1650

583–4

3663

362

1651

4803

398?

559

351–5

4788

151

5032

4559

538

4560

4826–7

415?

33

5498

266

Dijon

419

42

3891

5001

4647

Besancon

245

392

4639

3782

R.

R.

4558

Loire

178

3951

Poitiers

4795

Cher

104

3948

5499

N

389 522

R.

326

3933

115

485

4636

Allier

201

444

3953–4

R.

1566

Saône

3638

R.

4782

562–3

Creuse

100–1

5049

633? 1501?

613

Cluny

564

3940

3926

4609 1543

62

606

3941 3949

1532

1474

127

131

3912–3 1502

105–6

1476

3897

3908

2641

Limoges

438

4620

1490

379

2219

102

435

1502–5

573

Clermont

1482–3

1500

5358

103

577

1538

209

244

3944–5

3701489

587 1521

3747–8

279?

3865

1475

2221–2

236

1472

1529–31

3875 3870

2223

Lyons

1528

496?

2224

188

3867

1658–9

377

Bordeaux

394

194

461

3873

375

1662–3

74

215

263–4 72

77

566

R.

387

Dordogne
4420

Le Puy

76

2653

28, 73

Milan

75 78

2217

341

382 2654

71 114

34

568–9

4655

817

2656

111–2

385 169

2668