page_title: First Crusade
section_title: Situation in Europe
hierarchical_section_title: First Crusade / Historical context / Situation in Europe
caption_attribution_description: Español: Al_Andalus &amp; Christian Kingdoms
context_page_description: The First Crusade was the first of a series of religious wars initiated, supported, and sometimes directed by the Latin Church in the medieval period. The initial objective was the recovery of the Holy Land from Islamic rule. These campaigns were subsequently given the name crusades. The earliest initiative for the First Crusade began in 1095 when the Byzantine Emperor, Alexios I Komnenos, requested military support from the Council of Piacenza in the Byzantine Empire's conflict with the Seljuk-led Turks. This was followed later in the year by the Council of Clermont, during which Pope Urban II supported the Byzantine request for military assistance and also urged faithful Christians to undertake an armed pilgrimage to Jerusalem.
  This call was met with an enthusiastic popular response across all social classes in western Europe. Mobs of predominantly poor Christians numbering in the thousands, led by Peter the Hermit, a French priest, were the first to respond. What has become known as the People's Crusade passed through Germany and indulged in wide-ranging anti-Jewish activities and massacres.
context_section_description: Early Christians were used to the use of violence for communal purposes. A Christian theology of war inevitably evolved from when Roman citizenship and Christianity became linked. Citizens were required to fight against the Empire's enemies. Dating from the works of the 4th-century theologian Augustine a doctrine of holy war developed. Augustine wrote that an aggressive war was sinful, but a "just war" could be rationalised if proclaimed by a legitimate authority such as a king or bishop, it was defensive or for the recovery of lands, and a it did not involve excessive violence. The breakdown of the Carolingian Empire in Western Europe created a warriors caste who now had little to do but fight among themselves. Violent acts were commonly used for dispute resolution , and the papacy attempted to mitigate it. Historians, such as Carl Erdmann, believed that the Peace and Truce of God movements restricted conflict between Christians from the 10th century and the influence of these is apparent in Pope Urban II's speeches. But later historians, such as Marcus Bull, assert that the movements' effectiveness were limited and had died out completely by the time of the First Crusade.
  By the start of the 11th century, the influence of the papacy had declined to that of little more than a localised bishopric. In the period from around 1050 until 1080 it was the Gregorian Reform movement that developed increasingly assertive policies, eager to increase its power and influence. This prompted conflict with eastern Christians rooted in the doctrine of papal supremacy. The Eastern church viewed the pope as only one of the five patriarchs of the Church, alongside the Patriarchates of Alexandria, Antioch, Constantinople and Jerusalem. In 1054 differences in custom, creed and practice spurred Pope Leo IX to send a legation to the Patriarch of Constantinople, which ended in mutual excommunication and an East–West Schism.
  Pope Alexander II developed recruitment systems via oaths for military resourcing that Gregory VII further extended across Europe.  These were deployed by the Church in the Christian conflicts with Muslims during in the 11th century in the Iberian Peninsula and in campaign against the Emirate of Sicily Gregory VII went further in 1074,  planning a display of military power to reinforce the principle of papal sovereignty in a holy war supporting Byzantium against the Seljuks, but was unable to build support for this. Theologian Anselm of Lucca took the decisive step towards an authentic crusader ideology, stating that fighting for legitimate purposes could result in the remission of sins.
  On the Iberian Peninsula there was no significant Christian polity. The Christian realms of León, Navarre and Catalonia lacked a common identity and shared history based on tribe or ethnicity so they frequently united and divided during the 11th and 12th centuries. Although small, all developed an aristocratic military technique and in 1031 the disintegration of the Caliphate of Córdoba in southern Spain created the opportunity for the territorial gains that later became known as the Reconquista. In 1063 William VIII of Aquitaine led a combined force of French, Aragonese and Catalan knights to take the city of Barbastro that had been in Muslim hands since the year 711. This had the full support of Pope Alexander II, a Truce of God was declared in Catalonia and indulgences were granted to the participants. It was a holy war but differed from the First Crusade as there was no pilgrimage, no vow and no formal authorisation by the church. Shortly before the First Crusade, Pope Urban II had encouraged the Iberian Christians to take Tarragona, using much of the same symbolism and rhetoric that was later used to preach the crusade to the people of Europe.
  The Italo-Normans were successful in seizing much of Southern Italy and Sicily from the Byzantines and North African Arabs in the decades before the First Crusade. This brought them into conflict with the Papacy leading to a campaign against them by Pope Leo IX who they defeated at Civitate, altho
caption: Islamic rule: Map of al-Andalus and the Iberian Christian Kingdoms c. 1000
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