Britain, Ireland and the Crusades, c.1000-1300

Kathryn Hurlock

• Publisher: Bloomsbury Academic
• Year: 2012
• ISBN:
  9781350307636
• Edition: 1
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: European Medieval History
• Index: History

From 1095 to the end of the thirteenth century, the crusades touched the lives of many thousands of British people, even those who were not crusaders themselves. In this introductory survey, Kathryn Hurlock compares and contrasts the crusading experiences of England, Ireland, Scotland and Wales. Taking a thematic approach, Hurlock provides an overview of the crusading movement, and explores key aspects of the crusades, such as: -Where crusaders came from
-When and why the papacy chose to recruit crusaders
-The impact on domestic life, as shown through literature, religion and taxation
- Political uses of the crusades
-The role of the military orders in Britain This wide-ranging and accessible text is the ideal introduction to this fascinating subject in early British history.

Chapter 1: Britain and Ireland before and during the Crusades

In the period before and during the crusades, Britain and Ireland were going through a period of significant change. By 1000 the kingdom of England, largely unified long before its smaller neighbours, was ruled by the House of Wessex, which had held sway since 871. Upon the death of Edmund Ironside in 1016, power shifted to the Dane, Sweyn Forkbeard; England was then under Danish rule until the accession of the Anglo-Saxon Edward the Confessor in 1042. When Edward died without direct heirs, in 1066, he was succeeded by Harold of Wessex, who was defeated in October of the same year by William, duke of Normandy. After William’s accession, some part of England still resisted his rule, but by the end of the eleventh century England was a largely unified and stable country. Whereas links to Scandinavia had previously been prominent, the arrival of the Normans meant that links across the Channel to France became prominent. The exceptions to this stability were the border areas facing Scotland and Wales that were still subject to land disputes and territorial attacks; but for the most part the kings of England were dominant.

Throughout the twelfth century the English kings extended justice, became more adept at tax gathering, and established a dynasty that, after 1154, stretched from the Scottish border in the north to the Pyrenees in southern France. There was a period of unrest under Stephen (1135–54), when England was plunged into civil war as the king fought for power against the supporters of the Empress Matilda, daughter of Henry I (1100–135). But when Henry II came to power in 1154, stability was soon restored, suggesting that the disruption was not as great as has been assumed. In the second half of the twelfth century, England was one of the great powers of Europe, and kings such as Henry II held power over vast swathes of land. They were also monarchs with an international outlook. Aside from holding lands in France, Henry controlled the duchy of Aquitaine through his marriage to Eleanor and was related to the house of Anjou through his father, Geoffrey of Anjou. In 1128/31, Geoffrey’s father Fulk, count of Anjou, became king of Jerusalem, so Henry had a rather close family link to the rulers of the Holy Land. As a result, he was looked on as a potential successor to the throne when its inheritance looked uncertain.¹ Richard I was also international in outlook, spending only six months of his ten-year rule in England. The rest of his time was divided between the crusade, captivity and warfare in France.

Matters changed in 1204 when King John (1199–1216) lost control of Normandy. Losing most of England’s continental possessions meant that John had more time to spend on domestic matters. This led to disaffection among his barons (who saw him as heavy-handed and an abuser of power) as well as among churchmen. In 1208 England was placed under interdict and John was excommunicated, a problem that ended when John submitted to the pope in 1213 and made England a papal fief.² His problems were not over though, and in 1215 the barons forced him to sign the Magna Carta, a document that was intended to protect their rights as well as those of freemen, merchants and lesser knights. John repudiated the document (though it was reissued in 1216, 1217, 1225, etc.) and plunged England back into war, a conflict that was only brought to an end after his death in 1216 and the accession of his nine-year-old son, Henry III.³

Henry III (1216–72) was not militarily skilled or ruthless like his father, but he was a very pious king – a fact reflected in his reverence for St Edward and Westminster Abbey as well as his interest in the crusades.⁴ This interest in crusading partially fuelled disaffection among his barons in the 1260s; they rebelled against him and established alternative rule under Simon de Montfort. His son and heir, Edward, however, ably supported Henry, and after the defeat of Simon de Montfort peace was restored. Although the peace was not perfect, it was sufficient for Edward and his brother Edmund to join the crusade of Louis IX in 1270. It was while on crusade, in 1272, that Edward learned that his father had died. As Edward I, he was quick to stamp his authority on England and the rulers of Wales and Scotland, demanding the submission of the Welsh prince Llywelyn ap Gruffydd. The prince’s refusal sparked a war between Edward and the prince of Gwynedd. Although this first war did not see all-out conquest by Edward, a second war sparked by Dafydd ap Gruffydd’s attack on Hawarden Castle in 1282 brought about the end of Welsh independence.⁵ Edward spent the last years of his reign embroiled in warfare in Scotland, where he was initially asked to arbitrate a succession dispute. He promised that he would help the Holy Land once again, but these wars took up his time and he was in no position to fulfil his new vow.

By the end of the thirteenth century, despite being embroiled in warfare, England was unified and strong. Its identity had changed from one in which the ruling elite was foreign (either Danish or Norman) to one that was firmly English, as the lines between English and Anglo-Norman had become increasingly blurred. Royal control was expanding as the king and his servants developed effective machines for justice and administration. Tighter centralised control, efficient mechanisms for administrating across England, and a strong leader meant that spreading the crusade message, recruiting crusaders and funding their activities was arguably easier in England than it was in Scotland, Ireland or Wales.

Scotland was perhaps the second-most powerful part of Britain and Ireland in this period. From c.900 it was ruled by a king of Alba, though there were also kings of Moray, Galloway, Man, the Isles, Argyll and Strathclyde who sometimes sought to claim power. The more powerful kings of Scotland, however, slowly absorbed them, and by the time of the Treaty of Perth (1266) Scotland was able to buy Man and the Isles.⁶ Eleventh-century Scotland enjoyed, for the most part, a period of peace with England. King Macbeth (1040–57) had such a peaceful rule that he was able to enjoy a pilgrimage to Rome, though he was overthrown soon after his return. His successor, Malcolm III, founded a dynasty that ruled Scotland until the death of Alexander III (1249–86).⁷ There were occasional raids into northern England as Malcolm sought to claim lands on behalf of his half-Saxon children, but in 1080 he submitted to the English crown.

Throughout the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, Scotland’s relationship alternated between peace and conflict. At the Battle of the Standard (1138), for example, the English defeated the Scottish army led by David I at Northallerton in Yorkshire, while William the Lion sought to take Northumbria after he lost it to Henry II in 1157. William’s capture at the Battle of Alnwick (1174), which he fought to try and win back his English earldom, produced strong anti-English sentiment in Scotland. However, from the reign of David I (1113–24) to that of Alexander III, the Scottish court also enjoyed several periods of favourable relations with England. This allowed the king to expand his authority. Part of this expansion involved the ‘Europeanization’ of Scotland. David I in particular, who spent several years at the English court, was singled out as favouring the Norman French at his court, and he made grants to Anglo-Normans (the Norman settlers in England) and the new international orders of Templars and Hospitallers, as well as other orders such as the Augustinians and Cistercians. He introduced the first royal coinage struck in his name, which helped to move Scotland from a barter-based to a cash economy. David’s decision to embrace European changes reflected his links to England and the continent. In the 1090s he spent some time in exile in England, and his sister married King Henry I in 1100. David became an English magnate – earl of Huntingdon – in right of his wife in c.1113, and he took the Scottish throne with the backing of his brother-in-law.⁸

Under subsequent kings, the governance of Scotland was tightened and the power of the kings increased. Alexander II (r.1214–49) introduced a strong fiscal system and spread royal power into northern and western Scotland. He ended independence in Galloway and made the first moves to bring the Western Isles under Scottish control. During the second half of Alexander III’s reign (r.1249–86), Scotland grew in strength, both politically and economically, and was more stable than it had hitherto been. This factor may have allowed for the participation of some Scottish nobles in the crusade of 1270.⁹ In 1286, however, Alexander’s death left Scotland without a clear ruler, and the last years of the thirteenth century were marred by conflict between rival factions and with Edward I of England for control.

Medieval Ireland was a country of rival kingdoms and Viking enclaves in Dublin, Wexford, Waterford, Cork and Limerick. It was made up of local rulers (túath), overkings (rí túaithe) and those who claimed to be ‘king of overkings’ (rí ruirech), though by c.1000 this system was becoming blurred. Unlike England after 1066, Ireland did not have a feudal system but one of clientage, which was similar but divided men into those who would provide military service and those who worked the lands. The power of those who claimed kingship varied, but it was not as complete as in England or Scotland. Kings could not, for example, enforce justice, though they did collect church taxes and, at least by the mid-twelfth century, were sufficiently organised and powerful enough to collect secular dues too.¹⁰

From c.1000, the old order in Ireland began to break down. The kingdom of Munster was rising in power under the newcomer Brian Boru, who forced his rival Máel Sechnaill to recognise his control of all Ireland in 1002. He continued to be the most powerful ruler in Ireland. After his death in 1014 he was succeeded by his former enemy, Máel, but after Máel’s death in 1022 no other candidate could claim kingship over all of Ireland; this period, up to 1072, was known as one of ‘High kings with opposition’. In 1072 Tairdelbach Ua Briain took control as king of Munster and for 14 years stood a powerful figure in Irish politics. On his death, in 1086, his eldest son, Muirchertach, succeeded, though two other sons sought power. During his lifetime Muirchertach Ua Briain was a powerful king, making alliances with Welsh princes and the Norman Montgomery family, contacting the pope and Lanfranc of Canterbury, engaging in Church reform, and taking control of the Isle of Man from c.1095 to 1111. By the time of his death, in 1119, he had arguably changed to outlook of Irish politics by attempting to make himself king of a wider swathe of land in the model of the Anglo-Norman kings, William Rufus and Henry I.

In the 50 years before the Anglo-Norman conquest of Ireland, power shifted to the northern half of the country under the Ua Conchobair dynasty. The weakening of the Ua Briain dynasty in the south and warfare between the two sides weakened Ireland, dividing Munster. During this ongoing conflict, Diarmaid Mac Murchada, king of Leinster, was forced to go into exile by Ruaidhrí Ó Conchobhair, the newly declared high king of Ireland. In 1166 he fled to Henry II to ask for assistance and returned to Ireland with a force of Normans, predominantly from Wales, under the leadership of Richard FitzGilbert de Clare, earl of Pembroke (known as Strongbow).¹¹ Richard married Diarmaid’s daughter Aiofe and, on the Irishman’s death, assumed kingship. This was a state of affairs Henry II could not tolerate – to have one of his vassals claim the status of kingship was problematic – so in 1171 he set sail for Ireland and received the homage of the new lords of Ireland.

For the rest of the medieval period (and beyond), Ireland was subject to piecemeal conquest by English incomers. After Henry II took overlordship of Ireland, these conquests were often backed with royal armies, though they were by no means universally successful, and there were periods of resurgence when the native Irish succeeded in regaining lands. The period after 1169 was thus one of ongoing Hiberno-English warfare and a struggle for control as the English crown sought to impose its suzerainty over the Irish. After the loss of Normandy, King John was able to expend more energy in Ireland, visiting in 1210 and helping to secure power in the country.¹²

The conquest of 1169 and the shift in governance and landholding from native Irish to settlers brought Ireland into greater contact with the affairs of England and some parts of the continent. Ireland had never been isolated as such, as there was a long tradition of Irish influences in Europe and vice versa, but before 1169 people in Ireland had tended to look more to Scotland and the Irish Sea world. After this time, with English governance and settlers with estates in England, Wales and Normandy, large parts of Ireland were brought into greater contact with events on the continent. The settlers in Ireland built new castles and established their own lordships, and established new towns and monasteries, all of which brought the newly settled parts of Ireland into greater contact with continental norms.

The conquest and settlement of Ireland appeared more successful than it was, as large tracts of land were still under the control of powerful native leaders and, in reality, the English influence was only strong in the area around Dublin. Thirty years after the conquest there was no centralised authority in Ireland, government in Dublin was comparatively weak, and there were none of the mechanisms for royal governance found in England. All of this meant that organising and recruiting for a crusade would be potentially problematic. In the thirteenth century, some of these problems were rectified as methods used in England – sheriffs, coroners and county courts – and further parts of Ireland were conquered, but even then Ireland was never anglicised and some parts were never subdued.¹³

Wales was similar to Ireland in terms of its rule by rival dynasties. In c.1000, Wales was made up of four kingdoms: Gwynedd, Deheubarth, Morgannwg (Glamorgan) and Powys. There was rivalry between these lands, and within them, for power over large parts of Wales, but there was nothing like the order of high kings and lesser kings that existed in Ireland. Attempts were made by several rulers to expand control beyond the bounds of their original kingdoms from the ninth to the middle of the eleventh century, but successes were limited and never sustainable. The Anglo-Saxon kings of England sought control over Wales not through actual conquest but by exercising suzerainty over Welsh leaders.¹⁴

This changed with the coming of the Normans, as they sought to conquer parts of Wales and part of their post-1066 expansion. The marcher lordships were set up along the Anglo-Welsh border by 1071 to create stability, and from here adventurous Normans were able to move into Wales the following year. In north Wales Robert of Rhuddlan (d.1093) conquered most of the land east of the River Conwy, while in the south the death of Rhys ap Tewdwr at the hands of the Normans in 1093 brought to an end independent kingship in Deheubarth. Parts of Gwent and Morgannwg were overrun and, though some of these losses were reversed, many lordships were established under Norman overlords that were to survive throughout the medieval period.

Henry led two successful campaigns into Wales (in 1114 and 1121) and settled large parts of the country by giving land to Anglo-Norman magnates and inviting the Flemings to settle in Pembrokeshire. Under Stephen, however, largely thanks to civil war, Welsh leaders were able to win back some of this territory.¹⁵ Henry II tried to make further forays into Wales in 1157 and 1165 but had no success. He ultimately made peace with the ruler of Deheubarth, Rhys ap Gruffydd (the Lord Rhys), appointing him Justiciar of South Wales. This friendship perhaps helped to facilitate the tour of Wales in 1188 that was intended to recruit fighters for the crusade. With Rhys’s death from the plague in 1197, the stability of Deheubarth finally collapsed, and in the thirteenth century the principality was no longer the power it had once been.¹⁶

Gwynedd, on the other hand, was rising in power. It had grown in strength from 1135, but under Llywelyn ap Iorwerth, who held power by 1200, Gwynedd rose to pre-eminence in Wales and, despite defeats by King John in 1212, developed strong links with England, first through John’s illegitimate daughter Joan (who married Llywelyn) and then through friendly relations with the earldom of Chester. The principality also arguably developed a more European outlook, as the prince adopted European ideas and sought to deal directly with the king of France and the pope.¹⁷ By the time of his death, in 1240, he held sway over much of Wales. Under Llywelyn’s successors (his son Dafydd and grandson Llywelyn), Gwynedd continued to grow in power to the extent that Llywelyn ap Gruffydd called himself ‘Prince of Wales’ in 1258, claiming superiority over the other Welsh rulers. He had been successful in forcing Henry III to favourable terms in the Treaty of Montgomery (1267), and for most of his rule he was strong enough to maintain favourable relations with England.¹⁸ This all changed with the accession of Edward I. When Llywelyn ap Gruffydd refused to do homag...