The Birth of the Crusading Movement - Vocabulary Flashcards

Flashcards covering key terminology, historical figures, battles, and concepts related to the origins and preaching of the First Crusade as detailed in the lecture transcript.

Council of Piacenza

A church council held in northern Italy in March 1095 where Pope Urban II received an embassy from Byzantine emperor Alexius I requesting aid against the Turks.

Alexius I

The Byzantine emperor whose appeal for military assistance at the Council of Piacenza initiated the sequence of events leading to the First Crusade.

Selchilk

The chief of a nomadic Turkoman group east of the Aral Sea who converted to Islam in the tenth century and whose followers moved into the settled Islamic world.

Battle of DandanqaQ

A 1040 military engagement that opened Iran to the control of Selchilk's Turkoman followers.

Tughrul

The grandson of Selchilk who penetrated Armenia in 1049, entered Baghdad in 1055, and established a sultanate over Iran, Iraq, and parts of Syria.

Alp Arslan

The nephew and successor of Tughrul who brought Muslim Aleppo to heel and defeated the Byzantine army at Manzikert.

Romanus IV Diogenes

The Byzantine emperor who launched an offensive against the Turks but was defeated and captured at the Battle of Manzikert in 1071.

Battle of Manzikert

A 1071 battle in which Alp Arslan annihilated the Byzantine army and captured Emperor Romanus IV Diogenes, opening Asia Minor to Turkoman entry.

Pope Gregory VII

The pope who in 1074 proposed personally leading up to 50,000 volunteers to liberate Eastern Christians and advance to the Holy Sepulchre.

Pope Urban II

The pope, born c. 1035 and former grand prior of Cluny, who proclaimed the First Crusade at the Council of Clermont in November 1095.

Adhemar of Monteil

The bishop of Le Puy visited by Pope Urban II in August 1095 who went on to play a prominent role in the First Crusade.

Raymond of St Gilles

The count of Toulouse in whose territory Urban II stayed prior to Clermont, and who became a major leader of the First Crusade.

Council of Clermont

The church council in November 1095 where Pope Urban II formally proclaimed the crusade on 27 November to a predominantly clerical audience.

Peace of God

A Church-led movement holding popular assemblies around relics to protect non-combatants and clergy from violence and to prohibit fighting on specific days.

Fatimids

A Shi'ite dynasty that occupied Egypt in 969, established a rival caliphate, and contested control of Syria and Palestine with the 'Abbasids and Turks.

Almoravids

A zealous and puritanical Sunni Berber movement from Marrakech that took control of Moorish Spain and defeated Christian forces at Sagrajas in 1086.

Battle of Sagrajas

A 1086 clash in Spain where the Almoravids defeated Christian armies and displayed cartloads of Christian heads across Spain and North Africa.

Tarragona

A deserted town in Spain that Pope Urban II urged Catalans to rebuild as a penitential work yielding the same spiritual benefits as a pilgrimage to Jerusalem.

Holy Sepulchre

The shrine in Jerusalem housing Christ's tomb, vandalized in 1009, which became a primary goal of liberation for the First Crusade.

Hakim

The Fatimid caliph on whose orders the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem was vandalized and largely leveled in 1009.

Mathildine Scholars

A circle of intellectuals around Countess Mathilda of Tuscany who revived and developed St Augustine of Hippo's teachings on justified Christian violence.

Anselm of Lucca

A Mathildine scholar who compiled Augustine's writings on war and maintained that fighting in a just cause served as a dangerous penance.

John of Mantua

A scholar who argued that popes held authority over the sword based on Christ's command to St Peter in the Garden of Gethsemane.

Bonizo of Sutri

A writer who advanced the concept that soldiers dying in combat against infidels or in defense of justice with proper intent could attain martyrdom.

Battle of Civitate

A 1053 battle against the Normans after which Pope Leo IX referred to those killed in defense of justice as martyrs.

Sigebert of Gembloux

A conservative opponent of reform who identified Pope Gregory VII as the originator of the concept that warfare itself could be penitential.

peregrinatio religiosa

A voluntary journey of religious devotion undertaken out of piety rather than imposed as a required penance by a confessor.

Jherosolimitana expeditio

The contemporary Latin military term meaning 'Jerusalem expedition,' used alongside pilgrimage terms to describe the First Crusade.

Crusade Indulgence

Pope Urban II's authoritative pastoral declaration that the extreme hardship of crusading constituted a fully satisfactory penance for all confessed sins.

Guibert of Nogent

A contemporary historian who noted that God created holy wars so knights could achieve salvation without giving up their secular status or dress.

Ergotism

A medical condition causing insanity and death, resulting from consuming rye bread made from grain contaminated with ergot during crop shortages.

Vifgages

Property pledge agreements where lenders occupied pledged estates and retained the revenues until the principal was repaid, avoiding technical usury.

Emich of Flonheim

A South German leader who led crusader forces in May 1096 in violent pogroms and massacres against Jewish communities in Speyer, Worms, and Mainz.