Western Assistance to Outremer

We have seen how the Franks of Outremer were limited in their military forces. With a lack of troops and no naval
force, it was difficult to expand the Christian lands, and in particular to take control of the coastline. If the crusader
states were going to survive, they needed to maintain support from Europe. Not only could Europeans provide the
naval ships necessary to capture ports, but the flow of new crusaders from the West helped to offset the lack of
Frankish manpower.
The Levantine nobility specifically called for European help on four occasions: in 1101, 1106-8, 1120-24, and 1127-
29. Though the military success was not always spectacular, Western aid provided critical support when the Easterners
were under pressure that helped to allay their situation.

1101 After the success of the First Crusade, a call for support was dispatched to Europe. The Follow-up Crusade
The Follow- formed the third wave of the First Crusade and was full of enthusiastic crusaders. This was a massive
up Crusade expedition, perhaps on a similar scale as the Princes’ Crusade, but it was disorganised and failed to unite its
forces, which were annihilated in Anatolia. The survivors limped on to the Holy Land.

May 1102: British and German pilgrims helped to save Jaffa, providing some 8,000 troops. They were shipwrecked on
Jaffa their way home and sold into slavery.

1102: The remnants of the Follow-up Crusade fought alongside the Baldwin I. Most were slaughtered, including the
Ramla II unfortunate Stephen of Blois.

1105-7: Bohemond travelled to Europe in 1105 to raise forces for an attack on Byzantium. He was welcomed as a
Bohemond’s hero, and even married the daughter of the King of France, Constance. However, Bohemond’s crusade was
Crusade destroyed in the Balkans by Byzantine forces and he was forced to become the vassal of Byzantium via the
Treaty of Devol. This folly of a mission ruined relations with the Byzantines.

1107-11: Sigurd brought 60 ships and 5000 men to the Holy Land and helped in the siege of Sidon in 1110. He returned
King Sigurd to Europe a hero.

1119/20: Fulk arrived in the East with 100 knights to join the Knights Templar and fought alongside them for a year. It
Fulk V of is possible that this was a response to Pope Calixtus’ crusade call of 1119.
Anjou
1123/4: After the debacle of the Battle of the Field of Blood (1119) Baldwin II sent a call for assistance to the Europe.
Tyre 1124 Pope Calixtus responded by authorising a crusade. At the time the Genoese and Pisans were at war, so the
Venetians headed east with 120 ships and 15,000 men. They were critical in destroying the Byzantine fleet at
Ascalon in 1123 and capturing Tyre in 1124.

1129-30 In 1128 Hugh de Payns, Master of the Temple, was sent to Europe to recruit forces for an attack on
Damascus. He returned with an abundance of recruits, including Fulk V of Anjou, Normans, Flemish,
Provencals and even British. They carried out a major attack on Damascus, but it failed due to the weak
control of William Dures and terrible weather conditions.

Aid from Europe was also organised through marriage alliances. These were important in developing long-term links
to the West as the original crusaders died off, as they brought with them troops and money. This can be witnessed
with the marriage of Fulk V of Anjou to the Melisende of the kingdom of Jerusalem and Raymond of Poitiers to
Constance of Antioch, whose links to Western noble houses aided the flow of manpower and funds from West to East.
Indeed, Fulk’s son Geoffrey had married into the English royal family, and it is for that reason that there was
increased crusading from England after Fulk’s arrival in the Levant.
That said, historians have demonstrated that the influx of Westerners could cause problems to the crusader states,
mainly as the Europeans had little understanding of the precarious political situation of the Levant. When they arrived
in Outremer, westerners generally sought to attack and kill Muslims, They were horrified to find that Muslims were
not slaughtered after sieges and the crusader states even held alliances with the Muslims. To make matters worse,
many Franks were even assimilating in clothing, language and diet. Desperate to live up to the ideals of the First
Crusaders, westerners did not always adhere to the Levantine plans, slaughtering Muslims and breaking peace treaties.
This caused issues for the crusader states, who needed to sustain the population of the urban areas to develop
commerce and increase income, the reason why Baldwin I was still offering privileges to settlers in the city of
Jerusalem as late as 1115.
The influx of Europeans into the Levant also created problems between the monarchs and their nobles. This was most
significantly witnessed during the reign of King Fulk, as he brought his Angevin supporters from the West and raised
them to positions of power to bolster his support in the kingdom of Jerusalem. This caused antagonism with the
prominent Franks, due to the limited patronage available in the small kingdom, which led to the 1134 revolt of Count
Hugh of Jaffa. In addition, the arrival of Bertrand of Toulouse to the East in 1108 created a succession crisis in the
county of Tripoli that had to be resolved by the king.
The greatest problem with European assistance, however, was that it was not regular. The West may well have been
critical in the expansion of the Holy Land, yet since the Levantines did not always know when European assistance
would arrive, it was impossible to develop a coherent and consistent expansion strategy based around it.

The Italian City States

With a lack of naval power in the East, the Franks were dependent on the Italian City
States of Venice, Pisa and Genoa to take over the ports of the Levant. As maritime
powers, the Italians knew the seas and developed enormous purpose-built fleets that
supported Frankish sieges. Without this assistance, the Christians would have been
unable to consolidate their position on the coastline, which was imperative to the
long-term survival of the crusader states. Ports not only provided communication
lines back to Europe, through which funding and manpower could flow, but they
developed into important commercial centres through which trade, and thus taxation,
expanded. The sea route offered by the Italians was even more important at the start
of the twelfth century, for the failure of the Follow-up Crusade and the breakdown of
Byzantine relations closed off the land passage to the East, meaning that it was the
only safe way of reaching Outremer.
Italian support in the sieges:
1098: Laodicea and Gibelet captured - large fleet of 120 vessels which came with Archbishop
Pisa Daimbert.

1099: Haifa captured – 200 ships, which increased the manpower in the East by ten times
Venice

1101: Arsuf and Caesarea captured – 30 ships with c. 8,000 soldiers brought
Genoese

1103-4: Gibelet in 1103 and Acre in 1104 - 40 Genoese ships with c. 8,0000 men helped to take
Genoese

1109: Tripoli, captured with assistance from Genoa

Genoese

1122: 120 vessels and 15,000 men, carrying the papal banner. They destroyed the Muslim armada
The Venetian that had been blockading Jaffa. They then blockaded Tyre and helped to capture it in 1124 –
Crusade which was done while Baldwin was in captivity.

Problems associated with the Italian City States

Whilst the Italian City States brought many benefits, they have traditionally been seen to have created several issues
for the Levant. Since the Kings of Jerusalem were desperate for naval assistance to capture the ports, it offered the
Italians a strong bargaining position, enabling the Italians to demand substantial privileges in return for their help.
These were not merely focused on trade rights, but also extended to personal law and the administration of justice
within specific areas of different cities. The Pactum Warmundi (1124), for example, gave the Venetians a street in
every town in the Levant, a third of all booty collected from Tyre, and a quarter in the city. The size of these privileges
has been viewed as detrimental to the kingdom of Jerusalem, as the Italian privileges negatively impacted on the
taxation received by the Crown. The Italian City States’ monopoly of the seas also stifled the expansion of a Frankish
commercial class, who could not compete with the trading power of their European rivals.

Yet historians such as Riley-Smith, Phillips and Richard have criticized this interpretation, suggesting that the
relationship was mutually beneficial for the Italians and Franks. To begin with, it must be remembered that without
the Italian naval power, the Christians would have had no ports and thus no access to any trade or manpower from
Europe. Moreover, there were many ways to collect taxes, which were not only dependent on trade within the cities.
Income flowed through the ports in the form of levies on ships, gate taxes, pilgrim taxes and storage taxes, whilst tax
was also taken from merchants bringing their produce and goods into the towns to trade, all of which limited the
losses to the Italians. The Italians also transported pilgrims who not only paid a third of their passage cost in tax, but
provided useful troops to supplement the Levantine armies. It should also be recognised that, as Richard has shown,
just because the Italian City States had been offered the privileges, did not mean that they were able to apply them. It
must be recognised that the increased trade brought by the Italians generated a mass of taxation for the Crown, which
paid for fortifications, mercenaries and the survival of the crusader states.
More important for the Levantines was that by giving the Italians permanent positions in the Levant, they had an
incentive to increase the volume of commerce to the East and also to protect it, and so they provided a navy without
the Jerusalem crown having to build its own. Therefore, as the Christians extended their hold on the coastline with the
support of the Italians, they reduced the naval range of the Fatimids, which protected both the trade routes and the
Crusader States.
Task: Utilising the information above, what were the benefits / strengths of western aid to the survival of the
Crusader States from 1100-45? It will be important to first identify separate reasons / themes before supporting
with specific evidence.

Reason / Theme: Historical Evidence:

Tax Collections Riley Smith mentions that Port cities collected taxes in the form of levies, gate taxes,
pilgrim taxes and etc

Naval Support The States of Genoa, Venice and Pisa provided the kingdom of Jerusalem with Naval
Support and Port Control. This made it harder for the Fatimids to be able to strike at
Christian lands in the Levant. Treaty of Deval means that

Pilgrim inflow Tax on pilgrims demonstrates that migration was occurring into the Levant, this
provided the badly needed manpower for the security of the Kingdom
Commercial Competition between Sicily and Genoa , they are not allies and face conflict
in the Outremer

Military Support Bohemond crusade in 1105, King of Norway Sigmund arrived, 1131 Lombard’s Arrive
and then get destroyed due to their arrogance

Military Flow The enthusiasm for the crusades dies down, the states weren’t fully dependent as the
number of incoming soldiers was irregular. Therefore, we cannot really plan for future
attack

Arguments / evidence
of the limitations of
western aid.

What problems did it

cause?

Conclusion: How important was western aid to the Outremer from 1100-45? Explain your answer.