ABSTRACT
Crusader historians and Byzantinists have traditionally not agreed on very much but on one point they have generally seen eye to eye. Crusading origins, notwithstanding the role of Emperor Alexios Komnenos in manipulating Western military aid. must be sought in the West, not the East. "The origins of the First Crusade lay in developments that took place within Catholic Christendom," as a recent historiographical survey of crusading lias underlined. 1 and Byzantinists have agreed that crusading as a practice and set of ideals lay outside the Byzantine temper and understanding. 2 In the synthesis accepted by most historians. Alexios' appeal for Western military support was intended to serve the aim of reconquering the lost territories of Asia Minor. Although the appeal to Pope Urban II at Piacenza in the spring of 1095 was only part of a network of contacts that he had already established with influential leaders of Western society, 3 it remained for the pope to transform that appeal into an armed pilgrimage for the liberation of Jerusalem. That Urban II was able to do so is indicative of the orientation of Western piety in the late eleventh century, which looked toward Jerusalem. The increasing frequency of organized pilgrimage to Jerusalem, much of it deriving from Benedictine inspiration the interest of reforming popes both in the physical relics of the Holy Land and in an ideology of liberation, and the aspirations of the laity to fulfil the requirements of penances, all appear to have combined to produce the crusade. 4
