Essay On The First Crusade

The First Crusade was a well documented key event in Christian, European, Islamic and Medieval history. There were many significant literary works produced in and around the time of the First Crusade, by the many scholars of both the Muslim and Roman Catholic factions. The authors of these sources came from diverse backgrounds and religions, and therefore wrote about the same historic event with different perspectives and audiences in mind. Ibn al-Athir, a Muslim intellectual from Mosul, writes from an Islamic perspective, with his account based upon earlier sources. While al-Athir wasn’t born until some sixty plus years after the First Crusade, he expanded upon previous sources with his own accounts of wars wages against Christians under Saladin, a Muslim leader who fought against the Crusaders in the later crusades. Anna Comnena, the daughter of Byzantine emperor Alexius I, also wrote a comprehensive account of the Crusades, but from the Hellenic point of view of an Eastern Christian. Comnena was a princess as well as a scholar, and she wrote The Alexiad, a retelling of her father’s period of influence, which contains much insight on the First Crusade.

Alexius I inherited the Byzantine Empire in shambles, and was faced with continuous conflict throughout his time in power against both the Seljuk Turks and the Normans before bringing an end to the Byzantine decline and thus beginning a period of restoration in his realm. The growing tension in the realm led to Alexius I to send a letter to Robert of Flanders, a Norman knight, as well as Pope Urban II, asking for help to remove the Seljuk Turks, Muslims, from his eastern lands, likely influencing the Pope’s push for the need of the First Crusade. Meanwhile, during this tenu...

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...ristian account of the Crusades written by Anna Comnena in The Alexiad, due to their conflicting viewpoints. While her proximity to the events of the Crusades forms a reliable, detailed account, Comnena’s desire to exalt her father’s reign, combined with the anti-western view of the Byzantine Empire, puts her impartiality into question. This can be seen in several unwarranted statements, not only about her Muslim enemies, but also her Christian allies.

When considered in the contexts that they were written, these primary sources, written by Ibn al-Athir and Anna Comnena, provide an unparalleled glimpse into the chaotic, changing world at this time. Historians must read between the lines of all such works, taking into account the differing perspectives and intentions of the authors, in order to piece together the factual puzzle of an event like the First Crusade.