Lesson Plan: The First Crusade: Western Perspectives Date: 22.11.

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Length of Session: 50 minutes
Seminar Aims What motivated the people went on the first crusade?

Whose perspective do we have from the sources available?

Can we access alternative view-points in the sources?

Supporting Power-point.
Materials /
Handouts
Room Equipment / Projector.
Arrangement

Timing Subject/Headin Activity/Notes PP slides

g
0-3 Introduction & - Ask for any questions on the lecture 1-3
minutes housekeeping - Remind them of assessment deadlines.
- Explain seminar aims
3 – 20 What motivated - 10 minutes to read both sources, 10 minutes class 4
minutes the first discussion:
crusaders? - What do our sources suggest motivated the first
crusaders?
- Are these different in the earlier/later sources? If so,
why?
20-35 Whose - 5 minute group discussion, 10 minute class discussion 5
minutes perspective do - Whose perspective do our sources give us?
we have? - Are this group/these groups representative of the
crusade as a whole?
- Why do our sources focus on these people?
35-50 Alternative - 5 minute group discussion, 10 minute class discussion 6
minutes Views? - Can we access the views of those lower down the social
scale?
- What might have motivated these people?

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Issues to cover
Slide 4: What do our sources suggest motivated the first crusaders? Do earlier/later
sources provide different perspectives? If so, why?
- 2 main reasons really: remission of sins and protecting Jerusalem/the eastern
church. We see it quite clearly in the donation, and also in Orderic’s account of the
taking of Jerusalem where he mentions the crusade leaders sparing native
Christians.
- What’s interesting is that while the earlier source focuses more on these factors,
Orderic’s source seems to have it as less of a strong theme. Bohemond for e.g.
doesn’t seem to be doing it for pious reasons, (if anything it seems more like he
didn’t know what it was about and was swept up in it after talking to the crusading
army), and similarly the knight exiled all the way to Saracen lands for murder
doesn’t have any motivations for penance mentioned, despite such a thing being
something we might expect.
- The reasoning for this seems to be Orderic’s purpose here: giving an account of
the Norman involvement in the crusade. That seems to be suggested by his
consistent presenting of the Normans involved in this as a single entity –
references to the italo normans coming to Robert as their ‘natural lord’, despite
them being completely independent, as well as the point about the exiled norman
knight proving to be a great help to his countrymen. Shared identity seems to be
more to the fore of Orderic’s narrative alongside issues of penance and pilgrimage,
whereas in the original source these are much more important – even central to
the document – explaining why the land was being given up.

Slide 5: Whose perspective do these sources give us? Are this group/these groups
representative of the crusade as a whole? Why do we have their perspective?
- Predominantly it seems the military and political elite: counts, barons etc and their
men. Can’t really describe them as ‘ordinary’ because in the case of the grant (and
others like it) it’s by a member of the land holding classes, and in Orderic’s case he
expressly focuses on these groups.
- As a result, it’s difficult to say if they’re representative of the whole crusade as
such: for e.g. the People’s crusade sees more ordinary people whipped up by
fervour and led by firebrand priests than knights and military men, but even in the
latter group, you’ve got all the followers, hangers on, relatives and so forth of
lower rank than the people our sources either explicitly focus on, or are written
for.
- Theirs is the perspective we have though (predominantly anyway) because it’s
partly down to the nature of the sources we have – wills and grants by the landed
elites, and later chronicles which focus on the leaders of the crusade.

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Slide 6: Can we access the views of these forgotten crusaders? What might have
motivated them?
- Difficult based on these sources, but we can see evidence of their involvement and
hints at how they were, (or may have been) drawn into the crusade. Mentioning
for instance of Bohemond bringing his men along with him, and in the grant of the
grantor using his troop of knights when he unjustly seized property.
- The key thing suggested here is that alongside motivations of piety and the like,
we also see hinted at the possibility of social ties and obligations having an impact,
something explored by France. The influence of the bigger players is crucial here,
and if someone in a high position decided to go, it could have been a motivating
factor for the people in their entourage to go with them too. Thus we may have a
situation where although a lower down individual could well have been motivated
by the promise of remission of sins, greed, or adventure, so too they could’ve been
motivated (or even obliged) by their connection to a social superior.

Reflections: