This change was most particularly evident after the defeat of the
Byzantines at the battle of Manzikert in 1071. The Byzantine Emperor had
raised a well-armed and highly disciplined force of over 60,000 men. Their
opponents were over 100,000 Seljuk Turks, descendants of wild Mongolian
horsemen from the Russian steppes. These nomads were easy converts to
Islam as its looser morality and aggressive spirit coincided with their own.
During the battle itself, the Christian army, exhausted by great heat, was
outmanoeuvred and overwhelmed by repeated waves of swift horsemen
firing showers of arrows. The Turkish warriors then moved in for the kill
with their razor sharp curved swords.
The consequences of defeat at Manzikert for Christendom were far-
reaching. The heartland of Anatolia, once the region where St. Paul had
planted the first seeds of Christianity, was now in the hands of a more
fanatical strain of Islam. Constantinople was once again threatened, while
pilgrimages to the Holy Land were now subject to an official policy of
harassment. Word of deaths and oppression would soon be reaching the
ears of a concerned Europe. Pope St. Gregory VII first conceived the idea
of a crusade to relieve the East in 1073, but he did not live to see it
materialize. However, when Byzantine Emperor Alexius I Comnenus sent a
plea for assistance to Pope Bl. Urban II in 1095, the West was now ready
and willing to respond.
Western Christendom was already very familiar with and experienced in
the crusading spirit. The Spanish Reconquista was nearing its four
hundredth year and had achieved great successes under King Alfonso II in
the ninth century and currently under the legendary Rodrigo del Bivar (El
Cid). However, few could have forseen the overwhelming response to Pope
Bl. Urban II’s speech delivered at the Council of Clermont on November
10, 1095, calling for a large expeditionary force to turn back the Moslem
advance and liberate the Holy Land. In his speech the Pope promised a
plenary indulgence––a full remission of temporal punishment due to sin––
to all those prepared to take up the cross and reclaim the Holy Sepulcher.
Pope Urban then quoted from the Gospel of St. Matthew: “every one who
has left houses or brothers or sisters or father or mother or children or
lands, for my name’s sake, will receive a hundredfold, and inherit eternal
life.” The crowd of thousands then exclaimed with one voice, “God wills
it!”
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