Frontier Societies and Crusading in the Late Middle Ages

There is general agreement amongst historians that during its ‘classical period’ (1095-1291), crusading was influenced to only a limited degree by Christendom’s frontier societies. The First Crusade had its origin in the interaction between a reforming papacy and a warrior aristocracy concerned for its own salvation, which occurred within the heartlands of post-Carolingian Europe in the late eleventh century. Research since 1945 has played down the importance of events in the Byzantine-Muslim East, relegating them essentially to the role of catalyst. ¹ Recently doubt has also been cast on the importance of the Catholic-Muslim frontier in Iberia, which was nearer at hand and used to be credited with considerable formative influence on ‘the idea of crusade’. One British historian has argued against the traditional role of the Reconquista as a ‘dress rehearsal’ for the First Crusade. ² Another has asserted that far from originating in Spain, the crusading idea had to be implanted there, and that this occurred as late as the second quarter of the twelfth century. ³