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V: Financing the Crusade
- University of Pennsylvania Press
- Chapter
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CHAPTER V FINANCING THE CRUSADE The question of finance was crucial to the success of the crusade.1 Already in 1213 the pope had initiated efforts to collect money, and at die Fourdi Lateran Council he launched his tax on the clergy. The reasons for these initiatives are not difficult to find. In the late twelfth and earlythirteenth centuries, secular rulers were hard put to raise money for their wars. Aside from feudal dues and customs revenues, they depended almost entirely on the incomes from their royal domains, and these were far from sufficient to sup port extraordinary military activity. In the famous phrase of the time, they were normally expected to "live on their own." And the same was true of the feudal armies that served them. Even the citi zens of the nascent communes were expected to support diem selves, when possible, in their military service. The resources of government were stretched to the utmost when required to sustain largescale military operations for more than a few months at a time, and no ruler could support a standing army. Public obliga tions were grounded on private resources. This realitywasreflected in the fundamental structures of society, so any reordering of this military system would entail significant changes in that society. While such changes were definitely in the wind, it was still too early to consider them more than modifications of the basic system, which remained heavily dependent on private resources. Giles Constable recendy underscored the importance of private resources to the crusade movement in die twelfth century.2 Mort 90 Anatomy of a Crusade gages and loans, chiefly made by religious houses, provided the ready cash for manymembers of the feudal aristocracy to leavetheir families on this long and hazardous venture.3 Salesof property were also common. During periods of preparation for major crusades, such activity became very intense, sufficient in some regions to produce a fall in land prices.4 But most agreements included a pro vision for the resumption of the crusader's property on his return or the protection of his heirs in the event of his death. The role played by religious houses indicates the difficulty involved in raising large amounts of cash. Such efforts strained the ordinary lending sources beyond their limits. Even monasteries themselves did not always possess the ready cash and had to dispose of gold and silver ornaments and sacred vesselsto secure it. And the sums were large. One loan recorded for Peter the Venerable, abbot of Cluny, just prior to the Second Crusade, was for four thousand sous.5 Many involved the mortgage or sale of quite substantial pieces of prop erty, and such exchanges had a significant impact on the transfer of capital. Crusade expenditures had a stimulating effect on a number of industries, most notably shipbuilding. Efforts to secure support for the crusade affected numerous aspects of life, not only for the feudal aristocracy and the urban upper classes, but also for the rural peasantry. But this evidence of the deep involvement of twelfth century society in the Latin West in the financial support of the crusades also underlines the inadequacy of contemporary public fiscal administration, the limited development of sources of taxa tion, and the generally precarious nature of the economy asa whole. No more compelling example of the limitations of this approach to the financing of the crusade can be found than the experience of the participants in the Fourth Crusade.6 For a variety of rea sons, but chiefly because the numbers taking ship at Venice proved fewer than anticipated, the crusaders were unable to come up with enough money to pay the costs of transport. Donald Queller has documented their strenuous efforts to raise money among them selves.7 He has made a convincing case that their inability to solve this problem waschiefly responsible for the diversion of the crusade. The Venetians demanded crusader help in their attack on Zara asa condition of providing transport to the East. Thus a crusaderarmy was employed, against the expresscommand of the pope and under penalty of excommunication, in an attack on a Christian people, and this was merely a prelude to the crusader conquest of Con stantinople, itself an effort to gain Byzantine support for the [3.17.6.75] Project MUSE (2024-04-17 20:47 GMT) Financing the Crusade 91 crusade. Ironically, Innocent III had made substantial efforts to provide for the financial support of the Fourth Crusade, including provision of a tax of...