The Elusive Character Of The Crusade Leader, Peter The Hermit

For a leader who possibly led over a hundred-thousand people to their deaths, historians know little solid information about the shadowy, itinerant preacher known as Peter the Hermit. Thankfully, plenty of medieval sources commented on Peter, including writers such as Anna Komnene, Albert of Aachen, William of Tyre, Robert of Rheims and Guibert of Nogent. These people, however, also viewed Peter the Hermit as a mysterious figure. Nevertheless, we have a basic sketch of his life.  He was a popular religious public speaker who charismatically rallied the masses to embark on their own crusade before the nobility could raise its professionally-trained armies. Yet, details on his motives, his background, and other finer points about his life, remain in the realm of intelligent guesswork. Nonetheless, here is some of what has been pieced together about this peculiar priest.

Peter the Hermit is believed to have been born near Amiens, France, in the early 1050s. He was likely born into nobility, and had ties to the Normans, either through birth, marriage, or a mixture of both. Eventually, because of a divine calling or possibly just politics, Peter gave up his life of affluence to devote himself to religion.

Peter may have started his religious career as a member of a monastic order, as he was often described as looking like a monk. By the 1090s, however, Peter the Hermit had abandoned the cloistered life and became a wanderer. His travels allegedly included a pilgrimage to the Holy Lands around 1093, where he was not received well by the locals. When he returned to Europe, Peter the Hermit found himself amidst a tense Christendom that was on the brink of war.

In 1095, Pope Urban II gave a speech at the Council of Clermont that ultimately launched the Crusades. No one knows exactly what he said—there are at least five major “transcriptions” of the speech, but most were written years after it occurred, and the transcriptions are in agreement agreement on what was said by the pope. Whatever the case, Pope Urban’s speech planted in the minds of many medieval Christians the seductive idea that waging war to regain the Holy Lands was in no  way a sin, but rather a righteous and spiritually rewarding act. It was a message that Peter the Hermit immediately grasped.

Peter was never seen as an archetypal leadership figure—he was frequently described with words such as short, small and slight—yet, the hermit assuredly had an uncanny way with words. He may have already been a traveling speaker prior to 1095, but it was only after Pope Urban’s speech that Peter the Hermit was launched into celebrity. He traveled through Europe, drawing huge crowds to hear him speak. While the nobility were carefully organizing and arming their forces, Peter was traveling through the countries of Europe, frenzying the masses for an immediate crusade.

By 1096, Peter the Hermit had gathered an unruly militia of zealous Christians numbering anywhere from the tens-of-thousands, to well over a hundred thousand. Peter then marched his followers toward Constantinople, now known as Istanbul. There, this People’s Crusade was witnessed by Emperor Alexios’ teenage daughter, Anna Komnene, who later described Peter’s army as “outnumbering the sand of the seashore or the stars of heaven” (The Alexiad, Book X).

Despite the emperor of Constantinople allegedly advising Peter to wait for the rest of the Crusader armies, the masses of the People’s Crusade began to meander toward Anatolia. Once the confident militias had crossed the Bosporus, Peter’s already disorganized mob fell into complete disarray. There was no order, or discipline, or even hierarchy. People from different nationalities within Peter’s army formed into separate factions, and each division did their own thing.

At this point, accounts begin to vary. In both versions of the story, Turkish soldiers easily annihilated the scattered bands of the People’s Crusade. In one account, Peter the Hermit was present when his army was destroyed and managed to flee back to the Byzantine Empire. In the other, more popular, sequence of events, Peter had already returned to Constantinople for advice and aid on how to bring the unruly crusaders back to order when the Turks overwhelmed and destroyed his fractured followers. Ultimately, in both cases, Peter the Hermit had to wait in Constantinople until 1097, when the Christian nobility arrived with their professional troops.

Peter the Hermit accompanied this better prepared and trained army of Christian soldiers on their campaign to capture the Holy Lands. Interestingly, Peter reportedly tried to desert the crusader army in early 1098, during the worst of the Crusaders’ siege of Antioch, but was captured by friendly troops and was forced to return to the camp. He remained with the crusaders for the remainder of the First Crusade and was present at the siege and capture of Jerusalem in 1099. He only stayed for a short while after the First Crusade was successfully completed, for he returned to Europe in 1100.

After his days in the Crusade, not much more was recorded about the odd character of Peter the Hermit. He is believed to have founded multiple monasteries during his life, and died in Flanders around 1115.

Written by C. Keith Hansley.

Top picture attribution: (Peter the Hermit Preaching the First Crusade - Painting by James Archer - from Cassell's History of England, Vol. I, [Public Domain] via Creative Commons).

Sources:

• The Alexiad by Anna Komnene, translated by E. R. A. Sewter. New York: Penguin Classics, 2009.  
• The First Crusade: The Chronicle of Fulcher of Chartres and Other Source Materials (Second Edition) by Edward Peters. Pennsylvania: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1998. 
• https://www.britannica.com/biography/Peter-the-Hermit  
• http://lib.dr.iastate.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=3438&context=etd 
• http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/11775b.htm  
• http://www.historytoday.com/richard-cavendish/peter-hermit-dies-flanders 
• http://www.encyclopedia.com/history/encyclopedias-almanacs-transcripts-and-maps/peter-hermit  
• https://www.britannica.com/event/Council-of-Clermont

A Clever 12th-Century Woman May Have Thwarted The Byzantine Navy in Otranto, Italy

The Normans that rose to power in Italy, most notably Robert Guiscard and Bohemond, were a constant thorn in the side of Alexios I Komnenos, the Emperor of Constantinople from 1081-1118. Guiscard’s initial Norman invasion into the Byzantine Empire lasted from around 1081-1085 and was very destructive and threatening, but proved ultimately unsuccessful. The death of Robert Guiscard in 1085 signaled the end of the invasion, and Guiscard’s son, Bohemond, was eventually pushed back to southern Italy.

When Pope Urban II (r. 1088-1099) announced the First Crusade in 1095, Bohemond joined the ranks of the crusaders and became one of the movement’s leaders. After a long siege lasting from October 1097 to June 1098, Bohemond seized for himself the city of Antioch. The First Crusade officially ended in 1099, with the successful capture of Jerusalem by the crusaders.

Although he had brought new lands under his control, Bohemond was in a precarious situation. His actions in the 1080s had already made him an enemy of the Byzantine Empire, and the crusade had brought upon him the ire of the Muslim monarchs surrounding the Holy Lands. Bohemond made his situation worse by launching a failed invasion against one of his Islamic neighbors, resulting in his untimely capture. When Bohemond was released from captivity around 1103, he wisely fled from the Middle East and returned to Italy by 1105 to recruit more soldiers.

With Bohemond back in Italy, Emperor Alexios Komnenos wisely began to worry about his coastal land holdings. Therefore, according to Alexios’ daughter, Anna Komnene (c. 1088-1153), the emperor tasked a fleet under the command of Isaac Kontostephanos to sail to Dyrrakhion (modern Durrës, Albania) and patrol for suspicious Norman activity.

When Isaac Kontostephanos arrived at Dyrrakhion, he decided to do more than just patrol the shoreline. Instead, he took his fleet and crossed over to Italy, where he laid siege to the city of Otranto, over which Bohemond was a prince. According to Anna Komnene, none of the usual male leaders of Norman Italy were present at Otranto when the Byzantine Navy arrived. The person supposedly in charge of the town was a woman named Emma of Hauteville, daughter of Robert Guiscard and brother of Bohemond.

This female leader of Otranto impressed Anna Komnene so much that she described her as a “woman gladiator” in her history, The Alexiad (Book XII, chapter 8). If Anna’s story is correct (although, corroborating sources are scant), Emma of Hauteville dealt with the situation in a calm, brilliant manner.

As portrayed in The Alexiad, Emma of Hauteville managed to send messengers that were carrying requests for reinforcements around the blockade and siege set up by Isaac Kontostephanos. At the same time, she surrendered the city of Otranto to the Byzantine Empire—the only condition was that the city gates would not be opened until she and Kontostephanos came to a suitable peace agreement. Through the use of additional messengers the besiegers and the besieged kept up a correspondence while the siege continued. The total surrender of the city seemed nigh, but Emma of Hauteville allegedly kept finding little details that needed to be discussed further. If Anna’s tale is correct, Emma of Hauteville played her part perfectly by keeping her enemy confident enough to continue negotiations instead of violently storming the city Otranto.

In this clever way, Emma of Hauteville reportedly was able to stall long enough to allow Norman reinforcements to arrive and relieve the city. According to Anna Komnene, Isaac Kontostephanos’ men were not prepared for the newly-arrived force. She wrote that the sailors of the Byzantine Navy fled for the sea and that Kontostephanos’ hired mercenaries (probably Pechenegs) deserted from the army to loot the surrounding countryside. Bohemond was said to have brought many of these captured deserters with him to Rome when he met with Pope Paschal II (r. 1099-1118) before launching his next invasion of the Byzantine Empire in 1107.

Written by C. Keith Hansley.

Top picture attribution: (Byzantne Fleet led by Thomas the Slav illustrated in the Madrid Skylitzes, c. 11th-13th centuries, [Public Domain] via Creative Commons).

Sources:

• The Alexiad by Anna Komnene, translated by E. R. A. Sewter. New York: Penguin Classics, 2009.  
• https://www.britannica.com/biography/Bohemond-I
• https://www.geni.com/people/Emma-de-Hauteville/6000000003827587033  

While Alexios I Komnenos Focused On War, He Gave His Mother Administrative Control Of The Byzantine Empire

When Alexios Komnenos became emperor of the Byzantine Empire in 1081, he immediately handed over the governance of the realm to his mother while he went off to fight the Norman invader, Robert Guiscard. Alexios’ decision is hardly surprising once you begin to learn about her. After all, his mother, Anna Dalassena (or Dalassene), was the mastermind behind the rise to power of the Komnenos Dynasty.

Anna Dalassena’s affiliation with the Komnenos family began when she married John Komnenos, a powerful lord in the Byzantine Empire who, unfortunately for his wife, was a content man who felt no need to climb any higher in the imperial hierarchy. John’s complacency was so complete that when his extremely ill brother, Emperor Isaac Komnenos (r. 1057-1059), literally handed him the imperial throne, John Komnenos declined the offer. Anna Dalassena watched in horror as the crown passed over her husband and fell to Constantine X Doukas (r. 1059-1067). Anna would have a life-long grudge against the Doukas family because of this incident.

In 1067, Constantine X Doukas, and Anna Dalassena’s husband, John Komnenos, both met their deaths. Anna, now the matriarch of the Komnenos family, would spend the next fourteen years navigating through enough audacious court drama to fill an HBO miniseries, but will try to keep it brief. Here is a taste of what happened: Constantine’s widow, Eudokia, became regent of the Byzantine Empire while her son, Michael VII Doukas, grew to adulthood. Instead of remaining a single widow, she married a general named Romanos IV Diogenes (r. 1067-1071) and named him the new emperor. While most of the empire disapproved of Romanos, Anna Dalassene supported the new imperial couple, if only to harm the Doukas family. Nevertheless, Romanos IV was captured by the Turks in the 1071 Battle of Manzikert, allowing Michael VII Doukas (r. 1071-1078) to take the throne. For her support of the now blinded and executed Romanos, Anna Dalassena was momentarily exiled, but quickly returned and was restored to a favorable position in the empire.

The drama continued when Emperor Michael VII abdicated to become a monk, leaving the throne to the elderly Emperor Nikephoros III Botaneiates (r. 1078-1081). Awkwardly, Maria Doukas of Alania, who was the former wife of Michael VII (now a monk), agreed to marry the new emperor, likely hoping her son, Constantine Doukas, would become the next heir. Yet, things did not go according to plan—Botaneiates wanted to crown his nephew as his heir, instead of Maria’s son. Fortunately for Empress Maria Doukas, her elderly husband was a poor leader, and she had a lot of upstarts and rebels that she could throw her support behind. She eventually sided with Anna Dalassena’s sons, Isaac and Alexios Komnenos, who had been making names for themselves by fighting foreign armies and rebels.

By the end of Emperor Botaneiates’ reign, the Komnenoi brothers were household names in the Byzantine Empire, with Alexios Komnenos being especially prestigious. He increased his power further when he (to his mother’s annoyance) forged an alliance with the Doukas family by marrying the young Eirene Doukiana. In 1081, Anna Dalassena succeeded in convincing her sons to rebel against the emperor. It was not hard to convince the Komnenoi, because the emperor, in fear of Alexios’ power, had been plotting to have both brothers blinded. In Alexios’ 1081 uprising, he sacked the empire’s capital of Constantinople and took the throne, forcing Nicephoros III Botaneiates to become a monk.

Although he had the throne, Alexios’ challenges were far from over. Within the year (1081), Robert Guiscard led an army of Normans in an invasion of the Byzantine Empire. While Alexios faced off against this formidable foe, he left the empire in the hands of the best organizer and administrator he knew—his mother.

In his chrysobull (golden bull) of August 1081, Alexios Komnenos gave his mother, Anna Dallassena, incredible powers to rule in his stead. Anna Komnene (Alexios’ daughter, c. 1083-1153) recorded the short, but substantial, four-paragraph document in the history she wrote about her father, The Alexiad. In the chrysobull, Alexios decreed that his mother would be given complete control over his empire’s political and civil affairs. Her power included the ability to appoint and promote tribunals, government positions and offices, as well as distribute gifts and honors to subjects she deemed worthy. Furthermore, she had the unquestionable right to adjust the empire’s tax rates, salaries, and to make any other similar decisions that were in the best interest of the empire’s economy. Finally, all of the decisions that Anna Dalassena made were to be treated as if they were coming directly from the hand or mouth of Emperor Alexios, and would remain permanent and unaltered, even after Alexios regained full control of the empire’s administration.

Anna Komnene, who admired both her father and her grandmother greatly, summarized Alexios’ early government philosophy in an interesting statement:

“Wars against the barbarians, with all their attendant trials and tribulations, he was prepared to face himself, but the entire administration of affairs, the choice of civil magistrates, the accounts of the imperial revenues and expenditure he left to his mother.”

(Anna Komnene, The Alexiad (Book III), trans. E. R. A. Sewter, 2009).

Written by C. Keith Hansley.

Top picture attribution: Medieval illustration of Emperor Alexios Komnenos (r. 1081-1118), [Public Domain] via Creative Commons. Yes, it has been cropped and augmented.

Sources:

•   The Alexiad by Anna Komnene, translated by E. R. A. Sewter. New York: Penguin Books, 2009.
• http://www.encyclopedia.com/women/encyclopedias-almanacs-transcripts-and-maps/anna-dalassena-c-1025-1105 
• http://www.roman-emperors.org/annadal.htm 
• http://www.womeninworldhistory.com/dalassena.html 
• http://www.gutenberg.us/articles/anna_dalassena  

Princess Anna Komnene of Constantinople Recorded Impressive Feats Of Divination In Her History, The Alexiad

(Flammarion Engraving by Camille Flammarion, L'Atmosphère- Météorologie Populaire (Paris, 1888), pp. 163, [Public Domain] via Creative Commons)

When Anna Komnene neared the end of her historical account detailing the war between her father, Emperor Alexios I Komnenos (r. 1081-1118), and the Norman invader, Robert Guiscard, she diverged from politics and battle to comment on the emerging popularity of astrology and divination. She quickly told her readers that she thought the ‘sciences’ of astrology and occult divination to be foolish distractions, and she emphasized that her father, the emperor, had supported the more beneficial sciences, mathematics, philosophies and histories. Nevertheless, Anna Komnene went on to describe—with hesitant admiration—several astrologers and diviners who attempted to predict future events during her father’s imperial reign.

Anna proposed that a man named Eleutherios Zebelenos was possibly the most prominent astrologer in the Eastern Roman Empire of Constantinople. Yet, she did not mention many of his accomplishments other than agreeing that the man’s predictions were often accurate. She also named Symeon Seth, a philosopher, scholar and writer who dabbled heavily in astronomy. In The Alexiad, Anna Komnene claimed that Seth predicted the death of Robert Guiscard. He wrote the prophecy down on paper and sent the prediction in a sealed envelope to the confidants of Emperor Alexios. Seth told them to keep the letter sealed, but when the death of Robert occurred, he ordered them to open the envelope. Inside was a fortune-cookie-like statement that many believed accurately predicted the death of Robert Guiscard. Anna Komnene claimed Seth’s prophecy stated: “A great enemy from the west, who has caused much trouble, will die suddenly” (Anna Komnene, The Alexiad, Book VI).

The next astrologer Anna showcased was an Athenian known as Katanankes. Like Seth, Katanankes attempted to predict the deaths of important figures. First, he boldly stated that Emperor Alexios would die on a certain day. Fortunately for Alexios, the astrologer’s prediction was flawed and the emperor survived the day—yet, a majestic lion that happened to be held in the palace did die on the specified date, causing the masses to proclaim that Katanankes’ prediction came true. The astrologer quickly rebounded from his bittersweet victory. The Athenian astrologer attempted to prophesy Alexios Komnenos’ death again, stating yet another date on which the emperor would surely die. The day came—and yet again—Emperor Alexios lived. The emperor’s mother, Anna, however, died on the predicted date, once more causing the masses to praise Katanankes’ skill.

After Anna Komnene concisely told the stories of Seth, Eleutherios and Katanankes, she quickly returned back to her main narrative concerning her father’s successful reign as emperor of Constantinople.

Written by C. Keith Hansley.

Sources:

• The Alexiad by Anna Komnene, translated by E. R. A. Sewter. New Yok: Penguin Books, 2009.  
•   The Occult Sciences in Byzantium, by Paul Magdalino and Maria Mavroudi. Geneva: La Pomme d’or, 2006.