Why Did The Military Recruit In The First Crusade?

Through recruitment of the soldiers an evolution to the process of change to crusading can be credited. In the First Crusade the leaders managed to accumulate forces of 100,000 according to Riley and Smith, however it is said only 10 per cent were knights and the army was mainly made up from common men , women and children, this clarifies how the first expedition resembled more of an inefficient armed pilgrimage than an army. What further weakened the First Crusade was that there were no Kings, as Tyerman claims it was “dominated by provincial lords, not Kings”. Due to the more official document of the Quantum Praedecessores of the Second Crusade, the Bull inspired the King of Germany, Conrad, to take up the cross along with 80,000 men and King

Barbarossa, the Holy Roman Emperor raised 100,000 knights and infantry by himself, Philip II gathered 2,000 troops and from Richard I 6,000 .The fact that these monarchs individually raised such extensive numbers supports Tyerman’s observation that it was indeed the “leadership of monarchs” that strengthened the crusading forces. However, there were monarchs in the previous Crusades who succeeded in creating vast forces, this illustrates that this could be down to the evolution of crusading that encouraged more people to take up the cross, rather than fall of Jerusalem being a ‘turning point’. Furthermore, leadership continued to develop after the fall of Jerusalem signifying that Jerusalem itself was not a key turning point to the nature of crusading. This can be shown with the Fourth Crusade which had appointed a leader before they got to the Holy Land, this is different when comparing Raymond and Bohemund who arrived at the Levant who then assumed control, this is further illustrated with Richard in the Third Crusade. This eradicated the threat of a lack of control over the Crusaders and added to the competence of the