The First Crusade: The Call from the East by Peter Frankopan (PDF)

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According to tradition, the First Crusade began at the instigation of Pope Urban II and culminated in July 1099, when thousands of western European knights liberated Jerusalem from the rising menace of Islam. But what if the First Crusade’s real catalyst lay far to the east of Rome? In this groundbreaking book, countering nearly a millennium of scholarship, Peter Frankopan reveals the untold history of the First Crusade.Nearly all historians of the First Crusade focus on the papacy and its willing warriors in the West, along with innumerable popular tales of bravery, tragedy, and resilience. In sharp contrast, Frankopan examines events from the East, in particular from Constantinople, seat of the Christian Byzantine Empire. The result is revelatory. The true instigator of the First Crusade, we see, was the Emperor Alexios I Komnenos, who in 1095, with his realm under siege from the Turks and on the point of collapse, begged the pope for military support.Basing his account on long-ignored eastern sources, Frankopan also gives a provocative and highly original explanation of the world-changing events that followed the First Crusade. The Vatican’s victory cemented papal power, while Constantinople, the heart of the still-vital Byzantine Empire, never recovered. As a result, both Alexios and Byzantium were consigned to the margins of history. From Frankopan’s revolutionary work, we gain a more faithful understanding of the way the taking of Jerusalem set the stage for western Europe’s dominance up to the present day and shaped the modern world.

User’s Reviews

Editorial Reviews: Review “Highly readable… The First Crusade tells a complex story, but its presentation of political machinations, compromises, and betrayals seems utterly convincing. The harsh truths of realpolitik are, alas, with us always.”―Michael Dirda, Washington Post“Frankopan’s reassessment of the first crusade through the prism of Byzantium is a useful corrective to the mass of western-centric crusade history… This book offers an accessible and convincing account of the crusade, which was both concocted and executed under the long shadow of Byzantium.”―Josh Glancy, Sunday Times“In his project to give fuller credit to those Byzantine and Turkish leaders who actually caused the First Crusade, Frankopan proves refreshingly undaunted by the prospect of scaling the citadel of almost a thousand years of scholarship. He is like the Byzantine warrior he describes who invented an ingenious flying bomb, ‘coating young birds with pine resin mixed with wax and sulphur before setting fire to them and despatching them back to their nests inside the walls of the city he was besieging.’ Scholarly and yet accessible, and unapologetically partisan, The First Crusade, as any vibrant history should, is bound to set a lot of feathers flying… All in all, The First Crusade is a persuasive and bracing work. Peter Frankopan is not yet well known, but he deserves to be. One trusts him to go on ploughing his own furrow and not join the brat-pack of historians.”―Nicholas Shakespeare, The Telegraph“Frankopan’s qualities as a historian and a writer are of a high order… It is pleasing to see [the Byzantine view of the First Crusade] updated with scholarship and flair.”―BBC History“The Crusades have been at the center of Western thought for 1,000 years, and have been the subject of too many books to count: For Crusades buffs, it sometimes feels like there is nothing new under the sun, and for beginners, it can be difficult to know where to start. Oxford historian Peter Frankopan has crafted a narrative and an argument that will appeal to both groups. In the popular imagination, the First Crusade begins with Pope Urban II’s stirring speech at the Council of Clermont in 1095. Frankopan reminds us there is another side to the story. The idea for the crusade, he writes, originated in the East, in a desperate yet strategic plea to the West issued by Byzantine emperor Alexios I Komnenos, whose bold but misguided policies had placed his empire in grave danger. Much of the book is devoted to this often-overlooked Byzantine context, and it makes for a welcome rectification and lively reading. Frankopan’s most interesting contribution is the idea that Alexios ‘knew how to appeal to Westerners,’ and created the Jerusalem objective as a selling point.”―Benjamin Soloway, The Daily“Frankopan [writes] with tremendous literary verve… [The] cry to free Jerusalem has never been better expressed… Frankopan’s creative revisionism pierces the armor of medieval history with a new weapon: the call of the East.”―Colin Gardiner, Oxford Times“That rare thing―a truly fresh interpretation of an old story.”―Time Out“Frankopan’s work will challenge scholars while interesting and entertaining general readers… The overall contribution of this engagingly written and well-researched book is substantial.”―S. A. Throop, Choice“In a field near Clermont, France, on November 27, 1095, Pope Urban II issued a rousing call to arms, a march to Jerusalem to retake the Holy City from the infidel Muslims who for more than 20 years had been invading and conquering lands belonging to Christians. Four years later, European armies arrived in Jerusalem and drove out the Muslims, retaking the city for Christendom. Yet, as historian Frankopan, a fellow at Oxford, so forcefully reminds us in this cracking good story of political and religious intrigue, the real reason that Urban II rallied the forces that day was an urgent message from Alexios I Komnenos, emperor of Byzantium, whose political authority had begun to decline and whose empire was under attack on all sides by Muslim forces. Alexios called upon Urban, who sent troops immediately. Frankopan draws deeply upon the Alexiad, written several decades later by Komnenos’s daughter, Anna, and he presents a vivid portrait of a man whose early political ineptness created division in his empire, but whose boldness launched the Crusades and changed the shape of the medieval world by expanding the geographic, cultural, and political horizons of Europe.”―Publishers Weekly“Filled with Byzantine intrigue in every sense, this book is important, compellingly revisionist and impressive in its scholarly use of totally fresh sources. It refocuses the familiar western story through the eyes of the emperor of the east and fills in the missing piece of the puzzle of the Crusades.”―Simon Sebag Montefiore, author of Jerusalem: The Biography“A dazzling book, perfectly combining deep scholarship and easy readability. The most important addition to Crusading literature since Steven Runciman.”―John Julius Norwich, author of Byzantium“In this fluent and dramatic account, Peter Frankopan rightly places the Emperor Alexios at the heart of the First Crusade and in doing so skillfully adds a dimension frequently missing from our understanding of this seminal event. Frankopan illuminates the complex challenges that faced Alexios and deftly depicts the boldness and finesse needed to survive in the dangerous world of medieval Byzantium.”―Jonathan Phillips, author of Holy Warriors: A Modern History of the Crusades“Peter Frankopan’s reassessment of the Byzantine contribution to the origins and course of the First Crusade offers a compelling and challenging balance to traditional accounts. Based on fresh interpretations of primary sources, lucidly written and forcefully argued, The First Crusade: The Call from the East will demand attention from scholars while providing an enjoyable and accessible narrative for the general reader.”―Christopher Tyerman, author of God’s War: A New History of the Crusades About the Author Peter Frankopan is Director of the Oxford Centre for Byzantine Research at the University of Oxford and author of The Silk Roads.

Reviews from Amazon users which were colected at the time this book was published on the website:

⭐The pace was great and it was really informative around how the first crusade was started essentially as a cry for help from Constantinople.

⭐This book gives a fairly good introduction into the subject of the First Crusade. Even though this is the first book I read about it, the documentaries I have watched always start with 1095, Clermont and Urban II, “Deus vult!” and go then on with the campaign of the crusaders. Peter Frankopan on the other hand gives an extensive background overview before he arrives at the crusade proper.In the first chapter, he tells us why a pope would even care about the Byzantines in 1095, considering the Great Schism in 1054: After Henry IV, the Holy Roman Emperor, in 1077 had to go to Canossa to submit to Gregory VII, he would not do so anymore in 1080, but had Gregory VII ousted and a more collaborative cleric elected as pope Clemens III. Gregory VII acted from now on from exile, Urban II was later elected as a successor of Gregory VII and could not enter Rome. Urban II was as a consequence interested to get as many allies as possible and was so also interested in a settlement with a Byzantines. They would thus naturally appeal to Urban II.Then we learn why the Byzantines would appeal at all to the pope for help. In contrast to what we learn from Anna Komnene, Asia Minor had not been lost by the Byzantines after the battle of Manzikert 1071. In contrast, after her father Alexios I Komnenos had usurped the throne in 1081, he could concentrate his efforts on the campaigns against the Normans and the Pechenegs in Europe, because he could leave Asia Minor in the capable hands of Sulayman, a trusted Turkish subordinate, who would manage these areas effectively and even recover Antioch after the local ruler had defected. When Sulayman died in battle 1085, the succeeding Turkish warlord did not want to submit to Constantinople anymore. First the Seljuk sultan in Baghdad realized the danger of a powerful adversary arising on his Western flank and so drove the warlord out and restored cities in Asia Minor to the Byzantines; Antioch might have been the price therefore. The death of the sultan in Bagdad in November 1092 then did not help the Byzantines. In the power vacuum the Turkish warlords thrived; one held on to Nicaea whereas another one controlled the western coast of Asia Minor and had started to conquer the islands. The Byzantines tried with old diplomacy to woe the ruler in Nicaea to hand the city back, when in February 1094, one of the sons of the sultans managed to be proclaimed as ruler. He sent a former prisoner from Bagdhad to take over Nicaea for him. The Turks were too happy to hand over the city to him, as the prisoner was the son of Sulayman.When Alexios I Komnenos had become emperor in 1081, he had eliminated competition and secured his position by giving important positions to close family members he could trust. Other aristocrats were left out, and as a consequence of this, they saw their salaries reduced or even removed. Officious revenue gathering, politically motivated confiscations and generous trade conditions for Venetians, who were given some of the confiscated properties and who did not have to pay taxes anymore, making it impossible for Byzantine traders to compete, added furthermore to the disenchantment of the Constantinopolitan elite. Still, during the 1080s, there was no murmuring of resentment. Only with the setbacks in Asia Minor and the failures to retrieve Nicaea in the early 1090s where upon Alexios’ led a campaign in 1094 against… the Serbs raiding the north-western frontiers became unrest palpable. When an attempt on Alexios’ live was made, he was surprised that it was some of his closest allies and family members that were after his live. As a consequence, he replaced many of the ruling class with a new generation of close advisors. Reflecting again on the problem of how to get Nicaea back, he turned to the one obvious source of manpower with ample experience taking heavily fortified targets.When Alexios asked for help from the west, he had cultivated the message for years. Jerusalem was being presented as under the threat by the heathens. At the same time, tensions between the Shia Fatimids of Cairo and the Sunni Turks in Baghdad made it effectively more dangerous to visit the Holy City, which pilgrims reported back home. Many relics were sent to the west, to gain the goodwill of the westerners. Moreover, Alexios focused his efforts on people that has helped in the past, such as for example Robert, Count of Flanders, or specifically Urban II. There had actually been a precedence when in 1073 emperor Michael VII had asked Pope Gregory VII for an alliance against the Norman in southern Italy. Gregory VII had thus throughout the year enlisted troops to help against the Turks, with the idea that they would fist help defend papal territories from Norman attack, and several powerful people, such as Wiliam, Duke of Aquitaine, had shown interest to help. However, when the Byzantines came to terms with Robert Guiscard in middle of 1074, he had to cancel the expedition, stating that the Byzantines had overcome the enemy by divine providence.The response from the west was orchestrated by Urban II. He travelled before and after the Council of Clermont through southern France, whereby he tried to recruit high ranking knights that would then serve as example for other leading men to join the expedition as well. As such, he managed to win over Raymond, Count of Toulouse, Godfrey and Baldwin of Bouillon, Stephen of Blois and Robert, Duke of Normandy, son-in-law and son of William the Conqueror, resp., Hugh of Vermandois, brother of the king of France, Robert II, Count of Flanders, and Bohemond, son of Robert Guiscard. The mission of the expedition as well as who would lead it were kept by Urban II intentionally vague, as he was of the opinion that Alexios in Constantinople would be responsible for that. Timing in the second half of 1096 and itinerary of the different leaders and their armies to Constantinople were meticulously organized by Alexios, who organised provisions on their way and sent the different groups over different ways. This as not to overexpose any region, but also for other purposes: Raymond of Toulouse, a close man of the pope, for example was sent over land and down the Dalmatian coast, thereby also acting as a deterrent against the Serbs.The pope and Alexios however could not control who would go on this expedition. Peter the Hermit would preach in the Rhineland, Urban II did not dare to go to any of the areas under the control of Henry IV, and motivated there also many people to go to Jerusalem. These people of the People’s Crusade had no structure, they started in early 1096, massacred Jews on their way in Cologne and Mainz, caught the Byzantian authorities off guard when they suddenly arrived on the frontier and demanded provisions, almost mutinied until they could be supplied, assaulted towns on their way and once they did arrive in Constantinople, behaved so appallingly, that Alexios direct moved them over the Hellespont. There, they were supposed to wait but, in their enthusiasm, they assaulted Turks and Christians alike and finally took a castle east of Nicaea only to panic when a Turkish force closed in to recover it. They were subsequently slaughtered.Once the knights from the Crusade proper started to arrive, Alexios hosted them in all his magnanimity, had them supplied with all they could wish for, money and food, and met with every single one of the leaders. Their armies were sent already over the Hellespont, as it would have been dangerous to keep such a large body of troops so close to Constantinople. And indeed, when Godfrey of Bouillon arrived just before Christmas 1096 and did not want to have his soldiers moved over the Bosphorus, they started to ransack properties on the outskirts of Constantinople and Alexios had to sent a heavily armed squad to displace them. Only when Alexios started to withdraw provisions did Geofrey agree to meet with him. Alexios met with all the knights as he made them all swear an oath of fealty to him. Like this, they would all accept to became his vassals. Geoffrey again did not want to swear it, and in the end did swear that he would not harm the emperor, nor deprive him of his possessions. He was also nudged therefore by Bohemond, who had gotten from Alexios the concession that he could keep everything beyond Antioch for a fifteen days’ journey and eight in width. This concession did not hurt Alexios, as these lands had not been Byzantine possessions for a long time. Bohemund’s intention was thus already to carve out a realm for himself.Arriving at Nicaea, the Crusader prepared to seize it. The emperor as well as the Turkish garrison thought it impossible to take the city by storm; only with a lengthy siege could the city be taken. The western knights however at once analysed the walls for weaknesses and began to use them. Siege warfare had evolved rapidly in the 11th century in western Europe. Once the westerners started to attack a tower, the garrison panicked and the city was handed over to Alexios. Building up on this success, Alexios sent two forces west to recover the western coast of Asia Minor, which was aided by the pressure the Crusaders put up further east. The Crusaders split in two groups to traverse the Anatolian plateau, when the group of Bohemond was attacked close to Dorylaion by mounted Turkish archers. They were pushed close to the river, which helped the knights to drinking water, whereas the Turkish horses struggled with the marshy lands. Once reinforcements arrived and attacked the Turkish camps, the Turks fled and victory was achieved. The knights moved further southwest, not directly but along a trajectory where they took over important strategic towns that would enable the Byzantines to launch further conquests. Baldwin of Bouillion eventually detached himself from the main body and marched into Cilicia to take over Tarsos and other cities along the coast. He then marched on to Edessa. Peter Frankopan says, this was done in official mission ordered by Alexios: By conquering the coast, the resupply from Cyrus was enabled and Edessa had long resisted conquest by the Turks. Baldwin went thus as official representative of Alexios. Tancred’s foray, who had followed Baldwin, on the other hand had not been sanctioned.When the Crusaders arrived outside Antioch in October 1097, they had ripened fruits and corn to eat additionally to their provisions; there was thus aplenty to eat. This changed however the longer they had to besiege Antioch, which they could not do completely, too long was its city wall. Food shortages would soon lead to disease, whereby about 20% of the besiegers died. Tatikios, the Byzantine leader who had guided them so far, left to organize resupply. However, his leaving was interpreted as him having betrayed the Crusaders. With him gone, it was also not clear anymore what to do with the city once it had been captured. They kept on besieging the city, however, too strong was the oath to the emperor. Two Turkish armies send from Damascus and Aleppo to relieve the city could be repelled, among others due to Bohemond’s determination, whose standing among the Crusaders rose as a consequence. When another, even larger army was approaching, Bohemond convinced the other Crusaders that the one who enabled the capture of the city should keep it. He had tried it before unsuccessfully, but only now with the approach of an army so large that the Seljuk sultan himself must have sent it looming, the others were more receptive. Bohemond played his trump card that he had made secret arrangements with the captain of one tower who would let them in, the Crusaders thus took the city on 3 June 1098, one day before the relieving army arrived.However, having had only one day, no provisions could be brought into the city and the Crusaders kept on starving. The Turkish army could now take its time to besiege Antioch. A delegation under Stephen of Blois was sent to Alexios, who probably said, Antioch is most likely lost by now. The Crusader, not wanting to starve to death and taking the discovery of the Holy Lance as sign from God, made a sortie that caught the Turkish army by surprise, who didn’t think, anybody would be so brave – or so stupid – to try to break out of the city. The knights again held their formation and managed to come out of this victorious. However, instead of moving on, which by this time would probably have occurred unopposed, they waited until the next year. The reason for this was that the Crusaders could not decide what to do with Antioch. Whereas Raymond of Toulouse insisted the oath to the emperor should be kept, Bohemond insisted the oath before the conquest of Antioch should be kept as well. The Crusade was beginning to disintegrate. A second embassy was sent to Alexios, this time led by Hugh of Vermandois. Again, Alexios did not move. A letter was sent to the pope, as his representative among the Crusaders had just died at precisely the wrong moment. He sent a new representative. At the beginning of 1099, Raymond of Toulouse had enough, he set off for Jerusalem. The other leader by now had learnt from Bohemond and demanded to be paid for their co-operation. The local rulers on the way paid of the Crusaders not to be attacked. Arqa was besieged for three months, when an envoy from Alexios arrived and demanded that they wait for him. Debate broke out whether to wait or not, when in May they abandoned the siege of Arqa and marched at full speed on Jerusalem.Having arrived there, the Crusaders did not suffer starvation this time, but thirst. Moreover, they intercepted a message from the vizier of Cairo that he would relieve Jerusalem in 15 days. Happily, Tancred had found some equipment to build siege machines. Moreover, six Genoese boats brought more materials. The Crusader build two siege towers and eventually captured the city on 15 July 1099. A slaughtering occurred over the next couple of days. Then, the Crusaders debated what to do with the city, wanting to avoid a repetition of Antioch. Quickly, they decided to elect a king. Raymond of Toulouse rejected first, Godfrey of Godfrey next accepted. The Holy City however kept on being threatened. New appeals for help were issued, in 1101 a new army of knights made its way to Constantinople and then through Asia Minor. They did however not take the direct way and were annihilated in Paphlagonia. In Jerusalem Godfrey died, and his brother Baldwin was asked to take over; he would be able to repair relations with Byzantium. Bohemond had been captured in Melitene, his nephew Tancred made inroad into Cilicia. To stop Tancred, Baldwin of Le Bourg in Edessa collected enough money to have Bohemond released, but Bohemond soon thought about expanding his territories. When Baldwin of Le Bourg was taken captive, Bohemond and Tancred only watched, Tancred subsequently took possession of Edessa. And when asked to pay a ransom for Baldwin of Le Bourg, Bohemond refused and attacked again Cilicia. He subsequently set out for southern Italy, to collect there an army. He would never return.All the returning Crusaders were celebrated in the west and saw their reputation greatly enhanced. Bohemond used his newly won influence to marry a daughter of the king of France and gathered troops in Italy for his campaign against Byzantium. He even managed to receive papal approval, even though the pope probably did not sanction an attack on Byzantium but rather expected a support mission to the Holy Land. Bohemond set off to march on Constantinople, only to be effectively blocked by Alexios once he had landed in Epirus. Alexios also had made an alliance with Italian city-states to block Bohemond’s supply lines from Italy. Again, Bohemond’s men died from hunger and disease. He had to agree to a humiliating peace treaty, he had to state that he had broken his promises to the emperor from 1097, he again had to swear an oath of fealty, and he had to accept that Antioch would fall back to Byzantium after his death. Alexios had thus now achieved all his targets when he had called for help from the west, however, this reputation would be tarnished forever. The first sources of the Crusade were written on instigation from Bohemond, who wanted to justify his taking of Antioch. Even though the Crusaders had never complained about missing resupply in their letters, in these first sources, the glory of Bohemond and the Crusaders was celebrated, whereas the emperor was described as a traitor who tried to hinder the expedition to Jerusalem and who was happy for every Crusader who died. The pope was not mentioned at all in these sources, even though after the Crusade, Henry IV had to support Urban II’s successor. Only the next generation of writers would then mention the pope as the instigator of the campaign, the emperor would still be treated as traitor. Some writers in the east who knew that they needed the support of Byzantium and Anna Komnene tried to rehabilitate her emperor, but after the disaster of the Second Crusade, the picture of Alexios as traitor would persist.Peter Frankopan does a good job rehabilitating Alexios and showing convincingly, how Alexios managed to turn things around for Byzantium, from having lost any possession in Asia Minor to fledging recovery ruled by a strengthened dynasty. I can thus only recommend this book; I might even read one day his other, more famous book.

⭐It was good to read a book that stayed with the non-European point of view as most crusader material in the popular vein gives the West gold start. But since the beginnings of the crusades are so bound into Istanbul/Constantinople history, we sometimes forget that even then wars were started over issues that had been unsettled for a long time — this book is a good review of the issues that were going on before the West ‘liberated’ the Holy Land (ahem).

⭐This is a fantastic book, and groundbreaking for the historiography of the First Crusade. A must read for anyone who wants to do any serious study about the First Crusade.

⭐Different and critically important perspective on the origins of the First Crusade.

⭐A very readable summary of the First Crusade and how it originally started with strategy by the emperor of the Byzantine empire to get assistance to ward off the Turks who were threatening his reign. A good story of political intrigue with good insights.

⭐Finally what really happened.

⭐The book needs a map to follow the comings and goings of all the different conflicts under discussion.A pronunciation guide would also help.

⭐History buffs will find little in this book that they did not already know: that the First Crusade really was the answer to a call for help from the Byzantine Emperor, who was quickly losing groud to the Turks who had already conquered most of present-day Turkey and and had come to no more than a two day’s march from the gates of Constantinople. It is also fairly well known that the Pope saw this as a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to in return reunite the Orthodox and the Roman Catholic churches, with himself of course as supreme Pontiff. The stories spread about ill-treatment of pilgrims to Jerusalem was no more than clever PR: travel to Jerusalen was hardly more dangerous than any other far journey in those days. The local Arab population was only too happy to help you see the sights and they would point out the original burning bush, the olive garden and the original table of the Last Supper to you. Pieces of the true Cross could be had at very reasonable prices as a souvenir.Still, the book turns all this into an eminently redable story and those with a not too detailed knowledge of the subject will find much to surprise and amuse them.

⭐This is a fascinating account of the first crusade. The first half of the book sets the launching of the crusade in context – both in Western Europe where the papacy was in schism, and in Byzantine empire, where things were beginning to fall apart, and from where the cry for help emanated. The second half deals with the crusade itself, and its aftermath on the region and, briefly, on western EuropeThis is a short book at just over 200 pages, but packed with information, and written in a an accessible manner which entertains and informs. Excellent stuff. I bought this having enjoyed the Silk Roads so much, and I am now looking forward to Peter Frankopan’s next book

⭐Difficult sometimes to follow all the names and personalities in the narrative. Is there an alternative version of events? After all, this is history at one, or several, removes. A fascinating tale all the same.

⭐As with his book, The Silk Road, Peter Frankopan takes an objective view of how the first crusade played out by cutting through Western European myths and instead through the use of 100s of sources weaves together a very compelling story. It is told from multiple side’s view which makes it a very interesting read. Highly recommended.

⭐Very interesting and useful book which gives one a better idea of the role of the Byzantine Court in the Crusades.

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