The redeeming of crusading vows for money and the criticism that this practice engendered have received considerable attention from historians.Footnote 1 Yet in the period up to the middle decades of the thirteenth century there was also a growing readiness to commute vows so that, instead of fighting in the area of conflict originally intended, crusaders fulfilled their obligations by campaigning elsewhere.Footnote 2 Such commutations were rare in the twelfth century but became increasingly common in the first half of the thirteenth, only to decline in the closing decades of that century. Although popes frequently stated that the commutation of certain vows (including those of pilgrimage and abstinence) to an undertaking to fight in the Holy Land was permissible,Footnote 3 in practice most commutations of crusading vows were from the Holy Land to other areas of conflict: this was partly because an expedition to the Holy Land was for most westerners more expensive and time-consuming than campaigning on other fronts, and a further factor was the priority given at times by the papacy to crusading in other areas. In the thirteenth century, canonists maintained that the redeeming and commuting of crusading vows were the prerogative of the pope or his delegates,Footnote 4 but this was apparently already the accepted practice in the twelfth century: on some points crusading norms were being established early. Discussion of commutations must therefore inevitably focus largely on papal policy. On some occasions popes were merely responding to petitions and either allowed or rejected a request, but at times they went further and tried to persuade crusaders to alter their objective, sometimes themselves taking the initiative in seeking commutations, although more positive action by popes almost inevitably aroused opposition. It is not known how many crusaders, in fact, commuted their vows, but in the thirteenth century the redemption of vows for money appears to have been rather more common. An examination of papal action in the commutation of crusading vows does, however, throw some light on the papacy's crusading priorities, especially in the thirteenth century, and it is clear that the practice of diverting crusaders from the Holy Land to another front can be traced back at least as far as the beginning of the twelfth century and that from an early stage popes were ready to equate campaigns in other areas with expeditions to the Holy Land.
Commutations up to the End of the Twelfth Century
Up to the end of the twelfth century, on the few occasions when the subject of commutation was raised, it involved the diverting of crusaders from the Holy Land to the Iberian Peninsula, where the same spiritual rewards as those for campaigning in the East were early being granted.Footnote 5 Expeditions were, of course, also being undertaken in the Baltic region before 1200, but fighting there came only slowly to be fully accepted as being of the same spiritual merit as participation in crusades to the Holy Land, and at the time of the Second Crusade Eugenius III ruled that only those who had not taken the cross for the Holy Land should receive an indulgence for participating in the simultaneous expedition to the Baltic.Footnote 6
The issue of diverting crusaders from the Holy Land to Spain had arisen already at the time of the First Crusade. Both Urban II and Paschal II were concerned to see that the Peninsula was adequately defended when Christian Spain was confronted by the Almoravid threat. Urban II wrote to the counts of Besalú, Ampurias, Cerdaña, and Roussillon, insisting that, while warriors from other regions were going to the East, they should fight against Muslims in the Iberian Peninsula; he added “si quis vestrum in Asiam ire deliberaverit, hic devotionis sue desiderium studeat consummare,” explaining that “neque enim virtutis est alibi a Saracenis Christianos eruere, alibi Christianos Saracenorum tyrannidi oppressionique exponere.”Footnote 7 No direct reference was made to commuting, and it could be pointed out that the word deliberaverit could be translated as “considered” or “decided,” but if the latter is taken to be the meaning, the letter constitutes a very early example of a pope's seeking to persuade crusaders to commute.Footnote 8 A more clear-cut instance was provided several years later in October 1100 when Paschal II, after receiving petitions from Alfonso VI and others, warned those living in Leon and Castile that because of the Muslim threat in the Peninsula “ne occasione Jherosolimitane visionis ecclesiam et provinciam suam deserere presumant.” He reported that he had ordered some crusaders not to continue their journey to the East but to gain spiritual reward by fighting instead against Muslims in the Peninsula.Footnote 9 In a further letter, carried by crusaders who had been sent back home by the pope and addressed to both cleric and lay in Alfonso's lands, the pope repeated the injunction that they should campaign in the Peninsula and reap spiritual benefits there.Footnote 10 In these papal letters no direct reference was made to crusading vows, but the omission is not necessarily significant: the papacy was clearly seeking to divert crusaders who had made known their intention of going to the Holy Land.
It has been argued that when Pedro I of Aragon took the cross for the Holy Land in 1101, he also was told by the pope to stay in his own lands and that he fulfilled his vow by attacking the Muslim city of Zaragoza.Footnote 11 But doubts may be expressed. The dating clause of a document drawn up in 1101 certainly states that the Aragonese king Pedro I took the cross in that year to go to Jerusalem,Footnote 12 and an undated document apparently refers to the king as crucifer when he attacked Zaragoza in 1101.Footnote 13 This does not necessarily imply, however, that Pedro had commuted his vow. Nor does the statement in a further document, dated 12 February 1101, that the Aragonese king had gone to Zaragoza “cum Christi vexillo.”Footnote 14 There is in fact no documentary evidence that Paschal II had contact with Pedro about his crusading vow. If Pedro took the cross in 1101, it would have been difficult for any direct contact with the pope to have occurred before the king was attacking Zaragoza in February. It has admittedly been stated that Pedro met Richard, abbot of St. Victor of Marseille, and Gibelin, archbishop of Arles, at Barbastro in January 1101 and that these two men were carrying the letters about crusading sent by Paschal II in October 1100.Footnote 15 Yet although Pedro certainly met the archbishop of Arles at that time,Footnote 16 no evidence has been produced to indicate that the letters were in the latter's possession.
Over half a century later, in 1158, Adrian IV wrote to prelates in the provinces of Narbonne, Tarragona, and Auch, stating that, unless assistance was very quickly provided, the Templars would not be able to withstand the onslaught of the Almohades in Spain. He instructed them to persuade those who had taken the cross for the Holy Land to serve instead for the remission of their sins in the Peninsula for a year at their own expense or for two years at that of the Templars.Footnote 17 It would seem obvious to link this letter with Rodrigo Jiménez de Rada's later statement that the Templars who held the stronghold of Calatrava, “timentes quod non possent Arabum violentie obviare,” surrendered it to Sancho of Castile.Footnote 18 Yet objections have been raised to this interpretation. In the first place, it has been suggested that the threat to Calatrava was not as great as the chronicler suggested and that the Templars’ abandonment of the stronghold was a result of Castilian royal policy.Footnote 19 More importantly, it has been argued that Rodrigo Jiménez de Rada's comment refers to events in April 1157 and that Sancho's successor Alfonso VIII had assigned Calatrava to the abbot of Fitero — paving the way for the creation of the Order of Calatrava — in January 1158, some months before the pope's letter.Footnote 20 Yet it is not easy to find an alternative explanation for the pope's action, and it is possible that it was the abandonment of Calatrava that led the pope to fear further Templar losses, even though the order's holdings in Castile at that time were in fact limited.
It is not until almost the end of the twelfth century that there is further evidence of the commutation of Holy Land vows to Spain. In 1196, at the request of the bishop of Pamplona, Celestine III agreed that the noble Diego López de Haro should fulfill his vow in the Peninsula rather than in the Holy Land.Footnote 21 Agreeing to the commutation of the vow of one crusader at the behest of a prelate is not necessarily very significant; but the pope in his letter alluded to the “barbariem paganorum, qui nuper Yspaniarum limites occuparunt.” The preceding year had witnessed the Christian defeat at Alarcos, followed by the loss of a number of strongholds, including Calatrava. The severity of the Muslim threat was elaborated further by Celestine in 1197, when in letters dispatched to the provinces of Bordeaux and Auch he expatiated on the savagery of the infidel in Spain and sought to persuade those who had taken the cross for the Holy Land to turn their arms instead against the Muslims in the Peninsula, promising them the same indulgence as they would have obtained by going to the East.Footnote 22
In 1197 Celestine made no reference to a petition, but it is clear that in several cases papal action before the end of the twelfth century was occasioned by requests from the Peninsula. Yet it is impossible to state how many crusaders in fact commuted their vows before 1200 in order to fight in the Peninsula instead of the Holy Land. Although Paschal II sent some crusaders back to Spain, he also later noted that others had ignored his earlier instruction; and the names of some are known who paid no heed to papal wishes and who participated in the First Crusade or traveled to the East soon afterwards. These include Girard, son of the count of Roussillon, who accompanied Raymond of Toulouse to the Holy Land, and William Jordan, the young count of Cerdaña, who went to the East in 1102 following an appeal by the count of Toulouse.Footnote 23
It appears, however, that in the twelfth century vows to the Holy Land were commuted only when the Christian states in Spain were thought to be in considerable danger, and even then only crusaders from the Peninsula itself or from neighboring territories were to be diverted. The question whether those from northern Europe who campaigned against the infidel in the Iberian Peninsula on their way out to the Holy Land should have their vows commuted seems not to have been raised in the twelfth century. Crusaders traveling by sea to the East in 1142 [?] who assisted in an unsuccessful attack on Lisbon were reported to have then continued their journey to Jerusalem.Footnote 24 At the time of the Second Crusade larger groups sailing for the Holy Land similarly gave assistance against Muslims at several places in the Iberian Peninsula, including Lisbon and Tortosa,Footnote 25 but this was apparently not seen as fulfillment of their vows. Admittedly, the bishop of Porto was reported to have said to these crusaders: “nulla ergo itineris incepti vos festinationis seducat occasio, quia non Iherosolimis fuisse sed bene interim invixisse laudabile est,” but he asked them to stay only until Lisbon had been captured and was not encouraging them to abandon their plans to continue to the East.Footnote 26 Some members of this force did fulfill their vows by continuing to the Holy Land: according to the Annales Sancti Disibodi, they eventually arrived at the Holy Sepulcher as they had vowed to do.Footnote 27 The agreement made between the crusaders and Afonso Henriques had, however, included provision for the distribution of conquered lands,Footnote 28 and some crusaders did remain in Portugal — Gilbert of Hastings became bishop of Lisbon after its conquest — while a considerable number settled in the district of Tortosa on the other side of the Peninsula after the city's capture in 1148.Footnote 29 Yet there is no evidence of petitions to have vows commuted or of any formal commutation: it has in fact been suggested that when Osbert Anglicus, a settler in Tortosa, decided to go the Holy Land in 1166, he was seeking to fulfill the crusading vow that he had taken many years earlier.Footnote 30 In 1189 some crusaders who assisted in the attack on Silves similarly remained in Portugal, but others sailed on to the East, and there is again no surviving reference to any petition for commutations. The crusaders’ attitude on this occasion is illustrated by their request to the Portuguese ruler that a tenth of the land captured should be granted to the Holy Sepulcher “ut mora nostri obsequii hoc munere compensaretur.”Footnote 31
It may also be added that when the penance of going to the Holy Land in the summer of 1176 was imposed on the English king Henry II after Becket's murder, it was stated that “si contra Sarracenos in Hispaniam pro urgenti necessitate profecti fueritis, quantum temporis fuerit ex quo arripueritis iter, tantundem supra dictum spacium Ierosolimitane profectionis poteritis prolongare.”Footnote 32 He was to be allowed to delay his departure for the Holy Land if he became involved in Spain, but his vow was not to be commuted, and he was not permitted to count his time in Spain as part of his commitment to the Holy Land, as has sometimes been suggested.Footnote 33 Yet, although commutations of crusading vows were rare up to the end of the twelfth century, from a very early stage the diversion of crusaders from the Holy Land to another area of conflict was obviously seen as an acceptable practice.
Commutations to Fight against Non-Christians, c. 1200–c. 1270
Commutations of Holy Land vows occurred much more frequently in the thirteenth than in the twelfth century. After 1200 there was, of course, a growing number of causes for which the cross was frequently preached, including expeditions against Christians. There had admittedly been earlier occasions when spiritual rewards had been offered to those taking up arms against Christians, but the practice became much more common in the first half of the thirteenth century. In that century there was also a tendency to allow and even encourage all to take the cross, irrespective of suitability: in 1213 Innocent III ruled that “quia vero subsidium Terre Sancte multum impediri vel retardari contingeret si ante susceptionem crucis examinari quemlibet oportet an esset idoneus et sufficiens ad hujusmodi votum personaliter prosequendum,” everyone who wished, except religious, could take the cross; if necessary, the vow could, on papal authority, be commuted, redeemed, or deferred.Footnote 34 The same wording was used by Gregory IX when he ordered preaching for the Holy Land in 1234.Footnote 35 Those who were not capable of undertaking a long journey to the Holy Land and then fighting there were to be given the opportunity to redeem their vows for money or participate in a less demanding campaign.
Partly as a consequence of the stance adopted by Innocent III and his successors, commutations from the Holy Land to other frontiers where there was fighting against non-Christians became more frequent. In response to a petition from Albert, bishop of Livonia, Innocent III had already in 1204 instructed prelates in the province of Bremen to permit crusaders who were too poor or infirm to go to the Holy Land to fight, instead, in Livonia.Footnote 36 Further concessions were made during the Fifth Crusade. In 1217 Honorius III permitted the archbishop of Gniezno to commute the vows of crusaders who were too poor or infirm to be of any use in the Holy Land so that they could help defend his province against pagan attacks.Footnote 37 In the following year, after a further petition, Honorius permitted the poor and infirm in several German provinces to commute their Holy Land vows and fight instead in Prussia: in one letter he stated that he was doing this “ut saltem accepto calice salutari retribuant aliquid illi, qui pro eis tradidit semetipsum.”Footnote 38 In 1221 the same pope was also prepared to allow the Polish duke Leszek, of whom it was said that “corporis gravedine gravis vix aut numquam posset in Terre Sancte subsidium transfretare,” to fulfill his vow fighting against the Prussians.Footnote 39 The commuting of Holy Land vows was not mentioned on every occasion when Innocent and Honorius ordered preaching for crusades in central and northeastern Europe,Footnote 40 but these two popes were clearly ready to divert poor and infirm crusaders.
Honorius's generosity was, however, more limited when in 1219 he received a petition from the archbishop of Toledo, Rodrigo Jiménez de Rada, who was then planning a campaign in Spain and who claimed that many of those who had taken the cross in the Iberian Peninsula could be of little assistance to the Holy Land and would be more valuable fighting against the Muslims in Spain. The pope gave the archbishop power to commute the vows of such crusaders, but he excluded nobles and knights: if these were so poor or infirm that they would be useless in the Holy Land, their vows were to be redeemed and they were, instead of fighting, to provide financial aid that was to be used in the interests of the Holy Land.Footnote 41 In 1225 Honorius also ruled that crusaders in Spain who would be useless and even burdensome in the Holy Land should be absolved from their vows in return for a money payment: he did not envisage that they might campaign in the Peninsula as an alternative.Footnote 42
In the 1230s, however, Gregory IX continued to allow poor or infirm crusaders to fight in the Baltic region rather than in the Holy Land. In 1231, for example, he gave the Dominicans who were preaching the cross against the Prussians the power to commute the vows of crusaders from Pomerania and Gotland who, because of poverty or infirmity, were unable to travel to the Holy Land: he explained his action by reiterating the words used by Honorius III in 1218.Footnote 43
The Norwegian king Hakon provided a variation on the theme of disability by asking Gregory IX in 1241 to commute his Holy Land vow to the Baltic, not only because of the great distances involved in traveling to Jerusalem and the poverty of the inhabitants of Norway but also on the grounds of ignorance of the languages of those whom they would encounter along the route. The last of these obstacles was presumably a common problem for crusaders, but the pope was nevertheless ready to agree to the request.Footnote 44 Two years later, the Norwegian duke Knut referred more vaguely to the temporis malitiam when seeking the commutation of his Holy Land vow, and Innocent IV agreed that if the Mongols threatened Hungary within the following year he could assist there; if they did not, Knut was to redeem his vow for money.Footnote 45
When Honorius III was asked to commute the Polish duke Leszek's vow in 1221, he replied that he did not know of the crusader's disabilities, although he had been informed that the duke could not drink wine or water and normally had beer or mead, and he therefore left the decision to the bishop of Wratislava, who was better informed. This reply may be compared with Innocent III's response in 1200 to an inquiry from Hubert Walter, archbishop of Canterbury, about redeeming the vows of the poor and weak: in this the pope stated that the nature of the impediments should be examined.Footnote 46 Normally, however, papal letters about commuting the vows of the poor or infirm contained no instructions about assessing the capabilities of crusaders and ensuring that their claims were genuine: as in the redemption of the vows of the poor and weak,Footnote 47 decisions about commuting were apparently left in the hands of those who were acting on the pope's behalf, and these may not always have been fully informed about an individual's difficulties and may have been subjected to local pressure.Footnote 48 Yet, as in the thirteenth century fighting in the Baltic region, as well as in Spain, was thought to merit the same rewards as campaigning in the Holy Land, there was little reason for crusaders to take the cross for the Holy Land and then commute unless they had good grounds for doing so. The Holy Land tended to have greater appeal than other fronts, and presumably many expressed a genuine desire to go there but were then hampered by financial or other difficulties.
Petitions for the commutation of vows in the thirteenth century in order to fight non-Christians on other fronts than the Holy Land were made not only on the grounds of poverty and disability. Other particular personal circumstances could also occasion requests. In 1217 Honorius III acceded to a petition from Adolf of Holstein that at least ten of his followers should be allowed to commute their crusading vows from the Holy Land to Livonia, as they had taken the cross before they knew that Adolf was planning to campaign in the Baltic region, and it would be difficult for him to carry out his obligations if he was not accompanied by a suitable following.Footnote 49
Although in the twelfth century it was expected that those who participated in campaigns in the Iberian Peninsula on their way to the Holy Land would continue their journey and fulfill their vows in the East, in the thirteenth century the question of commuting the vows of such crusaders was raised. After the victory at Alcácer in 1217, William of Holland and several bishops and leaders of military orders in Portugal petitioned Honorius III to allow German and Flemish crusaders who had assisted at Alcácer to remain there for a year and receive a full indulgence, and also to agree that those who because of their long stay in Portugal were too poor or infirm to continue to the Holy Land should be permitted to return home with a full indulgence, implying that they were deemed to have fulfilled their vows in the Peninsula.Footnote 50 Envoys presumably elaborated on these requests, for in his reply in January 1218 the pope stated that he could not accept the proposal that those who were too poor or weak to journey to the East should give their arms and other goods for the repair of Alcácer and then go home with the full indulgence: he merely ruled that these goods should be sent to the Holy Land. He did add, however, that if crusaders who had fought at Alcácer were killed while still campaigning in the Peninsula they should receive the same indulgence as if they had died in the East: those who survived were still expected to fulfill their vows in the Holy Land.Footnote 51 A further petition to the pope stated that eight ships had been used to construct siege machinery at Alcácer and that an understanding had been given to their crews that, if they left their arms and other goods behind and returned home, the pope would be asked to absolve them from their vows. Honorius was therefore requested to absolve both these and others who were then too poor to fulfill their vows. In response, Honorius merely gave permission for this to be done; but he did not mention the grant of any indulgence.Footnote 52
The issue was raised again much later in the century, when Gregory X in 1274 criticized crusaders who considered that they had fulfilled their crusading vows to aid the Holy Land by participating in Louis IX's expedition to Tunis four years earlier and who had not continued their journey to the East. The pope ruled that they were to be compelled to fulfill their vows and aid the Holy Land. He was not prepared to accept that vows for the Holy Land had been implemented by going to Tunis;Footnote 53 and it was reported in 1277 that a papal legate was seeking to enforce the pope's decree in France.Footnote 54 But Louis IX had, of course, died before any major military activity had occurred in North Africa.Footnote 55
In the thirteenth century, popes further allowed some commutations from the Holy Land to other areas of conflict against non-Christians that were not occasioned by crusaders’ personal circumstances or by their provision of assistance on the way to the Holy Land. According to the chronicler Arnold of Lübeck, Celestine III had in the closing years of the twelfth century already allowed Holy Land crusaders to commute their vows and fight in the Baltic. Arnold asserted that they then participated in a campaign led by bishop Berthold in 1198.Footnote 56 No documentary evidence, however, survives until the thirteenth century.Footnote 57 In 1217, when it was petitioned that all Holy Land crusaders — not just the poor and infirm — in at least two Polish duchies bordering on pagan lands should be permitted to commute their vows, Honorius III left the decision to the bishop of Gniezno: he did not just reject the request.Footnote 58 In 1240 Gregory IX allowed the archbishop of Lund to commute Holy Land vows, apparently without restriction, so that crusaders could campaign in the Baltic;Footnote 59 and in a letter of uncertain date Alexander IV alluded to Gregory's concession when he sent a similar letter to the archbishop of Lund.Footnote 60 In 1255, however, when Poland was under attack by the Lithuanians and when Alexander was prepared to allow some commutations in order to provide assistance, he excluded vows for Jerusalem “et aliis similibus votis.”Footnote 61 In 1263 and 1265, when the Teutonic Order was trying to suppress serious revolts in Prussia, Urban IV and Clement IV responded to requests for commutations in a similar way.Footnote 62 Urban IV conceded that nearly 500 brothers of the Teutonic Order had been killed, but he was not willing to divert crusaders from the Holy Land to Prussia.
The western advance of the Mongols also occasioned proposals for large-scale commutations. When Gregory IX ordered friars in Germany to preach the cross against the Mongols in June 1241, he gave them — presumably on his own initiative — the power to commute the vows of crusaders who had pledged to go to the Holy Land,Footnote 63 and six years later Innocent IV informed the king of Hungary that he would, if necessary, send all crusaders who had vowed to aid the Holy Land or the Latin Empire or to campaign elsewhere to assist instead in the defense of Hungary.Footnote 64
Similar commutations were at times allowed in the Iberian Peninsula. In 1230 Gregory IX gave the archbishop of Compostela permission to commute the Holy Land vows of Leonese crusaders so that they could help to defend lands newly won from the Muslims;Footnote 65 and in 1237, when James I of Aragon was preparing to attack the city of Valencia, the pope allowed the bishop of Barcelona to commute the vows of crucesignati in the province of Tarragona,Footnote 66 while in 1245, at the request of the master of Santiago, Innocent IV gave him permission to accept “eos qui voverint Jerosolimam proficisci, si cupientes ad frugem melioris vite ordinem vestrum voluerint assumere, ac votum hujusmodi commutare.”Footnote 67 The wording of other papal bulls relating to the Iberian Peninsula is, however, ambiguous. In 1255, when Alfonso X of Castile was preparing to attack North Africa, Alexander IV allowed the bishop of Morocco to commute “abstinentie ac peregrinationis vota”; and ten years later, when the Castilian king was facing a revolt in Murcia that was supported by the Marinids of North Africa, Clement IV gave the archbishop of Seville the power to commute “ab Yspanis emissum ieiuniorum et ultramarine atque cuiuslibet alterius peregrinationis votum in negotii sepedicti subsidium.”Footnote 68 These popes may have been alluding merely to vows of pilgrimage, although Clement did refer to Alfonso's planned campaign as a peregrinatio.Footnote 69 As has been seen, however, he was reluctant at that time to allow Holy Land crusaders to fight instead in northeastern Europe.
Although it is not possible to provide full explanations of all petitions for diversions of Holy Land crusaders to other conflicts against non-Christians and of all papal actions in this sphere, some general factors — besides poverty, infirmity, and the provision of assistance on the way to the Holy Land — can be identified. The availability of forces on the various fronts was one. In northeastern and central Europe in the first half of the thirteenth century sufficient manpower was often lacking, and this helps to account both for petitions for commutation and for papal concessions. In the opening decades of the thirteenth century the only military order functioning in the Baltic region was that of the Swordbrethren, and even in the 1230s the Teutonic Order was only beginning to establish itself in Prussia: in 1232 Gregory IX acknowledged that the members of that order could not by themselves adequately provide for the defense of the Christian population of the district.Footnote 70 In the early decades of the thirteenth century there was also a lack of local manpower in Prussia and Livonia that could be summoned to fight, whereas in the Iberian Peninsula rulers could demand military service from their subjects, even though the latter's obligations were normally subject to limitations. Rodrigo Jiménez de Rada was, however, in a weaker position than Spanish kings, and this may help to explain why Honorius III was prepared to make some concessions when the archbishop of Toledo was organizing a campaign.
Linked to the availability of manpower was the strength of the opposition. An imbalance between the two meant that some Christian regions were under severe threat. In 1217 the archbishop of Gniezno appealed to Honorius III after his province was said to have suffered greatly from the “feritas paganorum,”Footnote 71 and in 1232 Gregory IX heard from the Teutonic Order in Prussia that more than 20,000 Christians had been killed and 5,000 enslaved, and that churches had been burned.Footnote 72 In the next decade the Mongol advance was obviously seen to put not only border territories in danger: Innocent IV argued that the threat presented by the Mongols “non est proprium, sed commune ac tangit quemlibet Christianum.”Footnote 73 In the years following the Christian victory of Las Navas de Tolosa in 1212, however, the situation in Spain was more favorable to the Christians, for the Almohad empire was in decline and then collapsed, leading to the fragmentation of Muslim power in the Peninsula. Gregory IX's concessions to the archbishop of Compostela in 1230 and to James I in 1237 were made at the time of Christian advances. Imminent danger was not always a factor. In 1245 the Order of Santiago may, however, have been experiencing recruiting problems, as a few years later it was sending brothers to Germany with powers to receive new recruits.Footnote 74 Postulants to that order were usually from the Iberian Peninsula, but it had apparently become necessary to turn elsewhere.
The situation regarding the Holy Land may have been a further factor. Arnold of Lübeck claimed that Celestine's decision to allow commutations was affected by the fact that “profectio sive peregrinatio Iherosolimitana tunc vacare videbatur,”Footnote 75 and the petition of the Norwegian duke Knut in 1243 was made partly on the grounds that a general passage was not anticipated at that time.Footnote 76 Gregory IX's concession to the archbishop of Compostela in 1230 was made shortly after Frederick II had recovered Jerusalem by treaty: Gregory did not have the cross preached for the Holy Land until 1234. It may also be noted that the permission to commute Holy Land vows granted to the archbishop of Lund in 1240 was given six months after Richard of Cornwall's expedition had set out for the East: Gregory may have felt that little was to be gained by sending a small contingent belatedly out to the Holy Land. On the other hand, on receiving petitions in 1217 from Portugal after the conquest of Alcácer, Honorius III had stated that he did not want assistance for the Holy Land to be impeded on any account: as has been seen, at the time of the Fifth Crusade he was unwilling to agree that crusaders who stayed in the Peninsula for a year and survived should be deemed to have fulfilled their vows.Footnote 77 Yet Gregory IX's decision to allow the commutation of vows for the attack on Valencia was made when expeditions were being organized both to the Holy Land and to the Latin Empire. But he did exclude from his concession the dioceses of Pamplona and Calahorra in Navarre, whose ruler, Theobald of Champagne, was preparing to go to the Holy Land. The pope was thus to some extent limiting the effect that his concession would have on recruitment for crusading in the East, and he may have thought that, in view of James's plans, few Aragonese would have traveled at that time to the Holy Land. In the earlier 1260s, when popes were refusing to allow commutations of Holy Land vows to provide assistance in northeastern Europe, even though the Teutonic Order was facing revolts, the papacy was not only ordering the preaching of the cross for the Holy Land, at a time when it was suffering at the hands of Baibars, but also deeply involved in the Sicilian affair.Footnote 78 Some factors may thus be identified, even if they do not provide a complete answer.
It is impossible to judge how frequently commutations to fight against non-Christians in the Iberian Peninsula and central and northeastern Europe in the thirteenth century actually occurred. The Polish duke Leszek is known to have participated in a Prussian expedition in 1223,Footnote 79 but evidence is usually lacking. As such commutations were often based on petitions and not initiated by the papacy, there is the likelihood that papal concessions were implemented at least in some cases, especially when particular individuals were given permission to commute. Yet poverty and infirmity were also commonly grounds for redeeming crusading vows: canonists who discussed these drawbacks, in fact, focused on the redeeming of vows for money and had little or nothing to say about fighting instead on another front.Footnote 80 No doubt many who were poor or weak did redeem their vows by making payments or by sending substitutes instead of undertaking to fight in a different area. Although for most the expense of fighting in Spain or the Baltic region was less than that of campaigning in the Holy Land, poor crusaders may have preferred to redeem their vows for a moderate payment, while the physically infirm would have been of limited use in either the Holy Land or elsewhere.
There were also other factors that at times hampered commutations. In 1241 Gregory IX's ruling about fighting the Mongols probably had little effect, because Conrad, the son of Frederick II, had decreed that contingents to resist the Mongols should assemble at Nuremburg at the beginning of July, less than two weeks after the dispatch of the pope's letter, and the expedition quickly foundered.Footnote 81 When the German army was assembling, Gregory was in fact informing Bela of Hungary that it would be easier to provide assistance once Frederick II had submitted to the Church, and early in 1242 the Hungarians were complaining about the lack of help from the papacy.Footnote 82 Because of the uncertainty of Mongol movements it was in any case difficult to provide a force at the time when it was needed. This problem is illustrated by papal requests to eastern European rulers and the Teutonic Order to inform the pope as soon as they heard of a forthcoming Mongol attack.Footnote 83
Commutations to Fight against Christians, c. 1200–c. 1270
In the thirteenth century crusaders were also diverted from the Holy Land to fight against Christian opponents, and it was in this sphere that popes were most commonly not just granting permission but also seeking to persuade crusaders to commute. At the end of the twelfth century Innocent III had threatened that if the Muslims in Sicily supported Markward of Anweiler against the young Frederick, a crusading force that was about to set out for the Holy Land would turn against themFootnote 84 — and against Markward — but it was not until the pontificate of Gregory IX that the papacy frequently sought to divert Holy Land crusaders to campaign against Christian opponents. These included not only Greeks and others who were threatening the Latin Empire but also the emperor Frederick II and later Hohenstaufen claimants, and, to a more limited degree, popular heretical movements in western Europe. The extent to which popes sought to divert crusaders to fight against Christians varied, although the measures taken were normally restricted to certain areas of western Christendom.
In the early decades of the thirteenth century, popes were loath to divert crusaders from the Holy Land to the Latin Empire. In 1205 Innocent III berated his legate Peter Capuano, who had absolved from their Holy Land vows those who, in accordance with the pact made by the crusading forces in March 1204 before their second attack on Constantinople, had stayed to help establish and defend the Latin Empire for a year up to March 1205.Footnote 85 At the time of the Fifth Crusade, Honorius III was also unwilling to divert crusaders from the Holy Land to the Latin Empire. After the capture of the emperor Peter of Courtenay by Theodore of Epirus, the pope did instruct Andrew of Hungary in July 1217 to send envoys to the ruler of Epirus seeking Peter's release, and he suggested that these should hint that Andrew's crusading army might be diverted: “innuendo te usurum viribus, si proficere nequiveris precibus apud eum.”Footnote 86 Yet this was just a diplomatic maneuver, and when later in 1217 Honorius ordered the cross to be preached in France for the Latin Empire, he stated that those who had already taken a vow to aid the Holy Land should not change their objective; the only exception he made was to allow Robert of Courtenay, the brother of Peter, to have his penance of going to the aid of the Holy Land remitted, provided that he gave assistance against the Greeks.Footnote 87 This was an understandable exception. When in the following year Honorius agreed to a request made by Geoffrey of Villehardouin, prince of Achaea, to retain Holy Land crusaders in his territories to help in the defense of his lands, this was to be only at the pope's pleasure: they were merely being allowed to delay their departure to the Holy Land.Footnote 88 Honorius was therefore scarcely exaggerating when he assured his legate Pelagius in 1219 that he had not sent any Holy Land crusaders to the Latin Empire.Footnote 89 Furthermore, in 1223 the pope merely delayed the crossing to the Holy Land for two years of those crusaders who were willing to accompany William of Montferrat on his campaign to defend the kingdom of Thessalonica; Honorius stressed that they were then to fulfill their vows, and he was prepared to grant indulgences only to those who died in the meantime.Footnote 90 In late 1224 and early 1225 the pope did, however, go further in letters addressed to barons and knights living in the Latin Empire to the west of Makri. Those who had taken the cross for the Holy Land and who were not feudatories were to be absolved from their vows and to receive a full indulgence if they assisted William of Montferrat, while those who were feudatories were to benefit similarly if they exceeded their military obligations in aiding the marquis.Footnote 91 But this was the only occasion when Honorius was permitting large-scale commutation of Holy Land vows in the interests of the Latin Empire.
Gregory IX was prepared to give much stronger support to the Latin Empire at the expense of the Holy Land. He began to pursue this policy in the years following the establishment of the ten-year truce in the East by Frederick II in 1229, although in the later 1230s he continued to promote the interests of the Latin Empire at a time when recruiting was also being undertaken for the Holy Land. On several occasions he took the initiative in seeking to divert Hungarian crusaders from the Holy Land. In 1231 the pope announced that the vows of several Hungarian bishops and nobles should be commuted, and he instructed the archbishop of Esztergom to persuade them to do so; and in the following year Gregory was proposing to commute the vows of 300 Hungarian crusaders.Footnote 92 In December 1235 he again told the archbishop to commute vows in Hungary and to ensure that those who did so set out speedily to aid the Latin Empire,Footnote 93 and a further order to commute on papal authority was issued in the following month.Footnote 94 It was, however, in response to a petition from the Hungarian ruler Bela that in 1238 Gregory IX further agreed that the Dominicans and Franciscans should commute crusading vows in Hungary so that the king could have assistance against John Asen of Bulgaria:Footnote 95 although the pope's instruction contained no reference to the Latin Empire, in a letter to the emperor Baldwin Gregory clearly linked this planned campaign with the fortunes of the Empire.Footnote 96 In 1240 the pope again ordered the prior of the Dominicans in Hungary to commute crusading vows from the Holy Land to the Latin Empire.Footnote 97 Hungary had the advantage of proximity to the Latin Empire and its enemies, but Gregory also sought commutations in France in order to bring aid to the Latin Empire. In December 1235 the pope ordered his delegate to commute the vows of 400 French crusaders.Footnote 98 The possibility that Henry, count of Bar, might commute was also mentioned in a papal letter of May 1237, and in the same month Gregory instructed the bishop of Sées and crusaders in his diocese to go to the Latin Empire instead of fulfilling their vows in the Holy Land.Footnote 99
It has, however, been asserted that Gregory went further and tried to persuade not only Theobald, count of Champagne and king of Navarre, but also Richard of Cornwall, brother of the English king Henry III, to commute their Holy Land vows and go to the aid of the Latin Empire.Footnote 100 These men had vowed to go to the Holy Land in 1235 and 1236, respectively. If they had commuted their vows, they would no doubt have led a considerable force to assist the Latin emperor Baldwin II. But these claims are based on a misinterpretation of documents. On 16 December 1235 Gregory merely asked Theobald to persuade Erard of Chatenay and other kinsmen of Baldwin II to take the cross in aid of the Empire; and although in November 1236 the pope begged the count of Champagne to aid Baldwin, he only expected him to send help (“studeas destinare succursum”): the pope did not mention any commutation of Theobald's vow and did not ask him to go in person to the aid of the Latin Empire.Footnote 101 There is also no evidence that Gregory sought to persuade Richard of Cornwall to help defend the Latin Empire in person instead of going to the Holy Land. In 1238 Gregory did ask Richard — and also Simon of Montfort and William Longsword — not to go to the Holy Land, but this was on the grounds that their absence from England would be harmful at a time of political instability there. The pope merely suggested that Richard should instead send to the Latin Empire the money that he would have spent on an expedition to the Holy Land: there was never any request that he should fight in defense of the Latin Empire.Footnote 102 Nor did Gregory seek to persuade other English crusaders to commute their vows to the Latin Empire, even though preaching for the Empire was undertaken in England.Footnote 103
Gregory also allowed vows to be commuted in order to gain support against papal opponents in the West. In 1238 he gave permission to Rainald of Supino, rector of Spoleto, to fulfill his crusading vow by taking up arms against Viterbo,Footnote 104 but in the following years commutations were mainly used to obtain manpower against the Hohenstaufen. A letter from Albert Behaim, archdeacon of Passawa, to the abbot of Zábrdovice and others suggests that the diversion of crusaders from the Holy Land and Prussia was being envisaged in 1240, but the full text of the document apparently does not survive.Footnote 105 In the following year, however, when Gregory IX ordered the preaching of the cross in Hungary against Frederick II, he was informed that the undertaking was being hampered by preaching for the Holy Land: he therefore gave permission for Holy Land vows there to be commuted and employed for the defense of the Church.Footnote 106 Yet later in the decade, after sentence of deposition had been passed on Frederick at the Council of Lyon, Innocent IV's conflict with the emperor coincided with the preparations for Louis IX's crusade to the East, and the pope was more wary of allowing commutations, especially in the border areas of France and the Empire. In the summer of 1246 Innocent had decreed that Frisian crusaders should set out for the Holy Land with Louis IX in 1248, and in a letter to the bishop of Tusculum, who was involved in the preparations for the French king's crusade, the pope, in July 1247, stated that as Louis was in need of support, no one who had taken the cross for the Holy Land in the dioceses of Cambrai, Liège, Toul, Utrecht, Metz, and Verdun should commute his vow, despite any papal letters to the contrary: the pope appears to have been withdrawing earlier concessions, presumably under pressure from the French king.Footnote 107 This order was repeated in October of that year,Footnote 108 but in the following month, on receipt of a petition from William of Holland that the vows of some Frisian crusaders should be commuted and fulfilled by fighting against Frederick, Innocent told his legate, the archbishop of Prussia, to act in accordance with oral instructions received from him and with the counsel of Peter Caputius, who was also a papal legate, and William of Holland.Footnote 109 Apparently some commutations were to be allowed, although a few days later Innocent excluded Holy Land vows when he permitted commutations in the Empire.Footnote 110 In a further letter sent shortly afterwards, Innocent stated more precisely that to assist William of Holland, who was in need of troops, he would allow the commutation of the vows of twenty crusaders, of whom five were to be from the kingdom of France and fifteen from the Empire.Footnote 111 In April 1248 he responded to another petition from William of Holland for the commutation of the vows of Frisian crusaders by telling his legate to commute these vows as the latter saw fit;Footnote 112 but in June of that year he gave instructions to the prior of the Dominicans in Germany to ensure that crusaders from Frisia, Holland, and Zeeland set out for the Holy Land in March of the following year.Footnote 113 Lastly, in November 1250 he ruled that crusaders from Frisia and Norway should travel to the East on the next passage.Footnote 114 In these years Innocent had to try to assist William of Holland while not unduly hindering Louis IX's crusading plans; and in 1247, when Louis offered to come to the pope's aid against Frederick II, Innocent told him not to do so until he heard further from him, although any intervention by the French king would probably have led to a delay in fulfilling his crusading vow rather than to its commutation.Footnote 115
In 1251 Innocent threatened to preach a crusade against Ezzelino of Romano and to invoke the aid of all crusaders, whatever their original destination,Footnote 116 but after Frederick II's death, attention became increasingly focused on the succession to the throne of the South Italian kingdom. When in 1253 Innocent IV entered into negotiations for the cession of that realm to the English king Henry III or his son, he gave his envoy permission to commute to Sicily the vow for the Holy Land that Henry had taken in 1250. Yet by the time that Henry's representatives were seeking to have his vow commuted, in the spring of 1254, the situation had been changed by the death of Frederick II's son Conrad in May of that year: Innocent stated that as a consequence Sicily could more readily be gained and that when this was done it would be easier to bring aid to the Holy Land. He was therefore reluctant to allow the commutation, although he was willing to agree if the English king felt very strongly about it.Footnote 117 Henry was, however, at this time also conducting negotiations with Alfonso X of Castile, and these included a proposal that he should commute his vow to assist the Castilian king in North Africa: the English king did not therefore press the pope about Sicily.Footnote 118 But the new pope, Alexander IV, in March 1255 refused the commutation to North Africa.Footnote 119 He argued that the Holy Land was in need of urgent assistance. Yet in May, faced by the threat from Manfred, Frederick's illegitimate son, he also gave his legates permission to allow Henry to fulfill his vow in Sicily, and in a subsequent letter he went further and stated that Henry's assistance in Sicily was to be invoked.Footnote 120 At the same time, the pope sought to have the crusading vows of the Norwegian king and of other Norwegian crusaders commuted so that they could assist in Sicily.Footnote 121
Further commutations were envisaged in the following decade after the Sicilian throne had been assigned to Charles of Anjou. In May 1264 Urban IV gave his legate power to commute the vows of Alphonse of Poitiers and other crusaders from France and elsewhere so that they would fight in Sicily rather than the Holy Land.Footnote 122 This instruction was repeated in March of the following year by Clement IV, who shortly afterwards issued a further appeal to Alphonse of Poitiers to commute his Holy Land vow.Footnote 123
Popes were more occasionally prepared to commute crusading vows in order to counter the threat of popular heresy in the West.Footnote 124 This did not happen, however, in the early decades of the thirteenth century during the Albigensian Crusade. In 1208, when offering indulgences for those taking up arms against Albigensian heretics, Innocent III stated that “hii, qui se ad Terre Sancte subsidium devoverunt, votum suum fideliter prosequantur, nec per hoc impediatur devotio in ejusdem terre succursum volentium et valentium proficisci, cum circa utriusque necessitatis articulum ea sit discretio adhibenda ut sic utiliter provideatur utrique quod neutri per alteram graviter derogetur.”Footnote 125 After claiming in 1213 that the measures taken to combat heresy in Provence had been largely successful,Footnote 126 Innocent in fact sought to persuade those who had taken the cross against the Albigensians, but who had not by then fulfilled their vows, to go instead to the Holy Land, because an expedition to the East was of greater merit.Footnote 127 At that time, Innocent, however, was seeking to promote a major expedition to the East and somewhat exaggerated the degree of success achieved in Provence. Honorius III, who inherited Innocent's plans for crusading in the eastern Mediterranean, was similarly reluctant to divert Holy Land crusaders to fight against heretics. In January 1218 he wrote to Philip Augustus and to French prelates, stating that he did not want the Fifth Crusade to be impeded in any way: he was, of course, willing to have the cross preached against the Albigensians, but those who had vowed to go to the Holy Land were not to be recruited to fight against heretics but were to set out on the next passage to the East.Footnote 128 A similar message was conveyed to Amaury of Montfort in August of that year.Footnote 129 In 1219 Honorius III assured his legate Pelagius that he had not diverted crusaders to fight against the Albigensians, and he was able to claim that in letters he had made it clear that no one who had taken the cross for the Holy Land was to be allowed to commute his vow and campaign against heretics. He further stated that “licet multi de novo crucem contra ipsos Albigenses assumpserint, nullos tamen crucesignatos pro sepedicte Terre Sancte succursu contra illos credimus processisse.”Footnote 130 Admittedly, at the end of 1218 Honorius had released the archbishop of Auch from his vow to go to Jerusalem so that he could assist in the “negotium pacis et fidei” in the region of Toulouse, but this was an exception made for a cleric who would not have been engaging in fighting.Footnote 131 In 1221 the pope was still insisting that Holy Land vows should not be commuted and fulfilled by fighting against heretics.Footnote 132
In 1251, however, when Innocent IV instructed the Dominicans to act against heretics in Cremona, he stated that if they faced opposition he would invoke the assistance of crusaders who had vowed to go to the Holy Land or elsewhere.Footnote 133 In 1254 he further allowed those who had taken the cross in France to fulfill their vows by taking up arms against heretics, but on this occasion he excluded those who had vowed to go to the Holy Land.Footnote 134
Perhaps the most unexpected proposed commutation to fight against Christians is found in attempts to provide support for the English crown against its opponents within the kingdom. According to the Barnwell annalist, this happened in 1217, when the young Henry III was confronted by Louis of France and English rebels: “qui votum peregrinationis Jerosolimitane habuerant, aut illud commutabant in istud aut differebant propter istud.”Footnote 135 Yet in a letter sent by Honorius III to his legate Guala in January 1217 the pope merely stated that Holy Land crusaders were to be allowed to delay the fulfillment of their vows until the situation in England had improved: in the meantime they were to give assistance to the king.Footnote 136 Ranulf, earl of Chester, did, at the request of the legate, delay his participation in the Fifth Crusade,Footnote 137 but no evidence survives to support the Barnwell annalist's comment about commutations.Footnote 138 Clearer evidence of a proposed commutation of vows was provided nearly fifty years later, in instructions sent by Urban IV in 1263 to his legate Guy Fulquois, and in those dispatched in May 1265 by the latter, after he had become Clement IV, to his legate Ottobuono: in these the legates were not only ordered to preach the cross, if necessary, in support of the English king Henry III against rebels (Clement's letter lists various countries in which this was to be done), but also given permission to commute crusading vows, even those for the Holy Land, if the situation became very serious. The only limitation was that Clement excluded vows of those who had undertaken to fight against Manfred in South Italy and Sicily.Footnote 139
The arguments used to justify the commutation of Holy Land vows to campaigns against Christians were usually similar to those employed by popes when ordering the preaching of the cross against Christian opponents. Aiding the Latin Empire was deemed to be necessary for the survival of the Holy Land. In 1234, when proposing that some French crusaders should go to aid the Latin Empire rather than the Holy Land, Gregory IX asserted that “in ipsius [imperii] conservatione Terre Sancte subsidium noscitur promoveri,” and that if the Latin Empire was lost “de facili ejusdem Terre [Sancte] discidium sequeretur.”Footnote 140 In other letters Gregory similarly pointed to the danger for the Holy Land if the Latin Empire were lost.Footnote 141 Crusaders could feel that they were aiding the Holy Land by diverting to the Latin Empire. In fact, of course, the fortunes of the crusader states were dependent mainly on the political situation in the neighboring Muslim world: the Latin Empire was never capable of providing assistance to the Holy Land, and the survival of a weak Latin Empire was irrelevant. As crusading armies increasingly traveled to the Holy Land by sea it could not even provide assistance to them on their journey out. Nor would a restored Greek Empire have presented a serious threat to the crusader states. Despite papal claims, the defense of the Latin Empire probably became increasingly an end in itself.
A link was also made in papal letters between the ousting of Hohenstaufen claimants from Sicily and the welfare not only of the Holy Land but also of the Latin Empire.Footnote 142 When proposing the commutation of Alphonse of Poitiers's crusading vow, for example, both Urban IV and Clement IV asserted that the furthering of the interests of both the Holy Land and the former Latin Empire depended to a large extent on a favorable outcome of the Sicilian affair.Footnote 143 It is, of course, true that the kingdom of South Italy and Sicily was an important staging post for crusaders going to the Holy Land, but this was hardly the main reason for crusading in southern Italy: Hohenstaufen rule would not have prevented crusaders from using facilities there. Some contemporaries, not all of them Hohenstaufen supporters, argued that papal involvement in wars in Italy in fact hindered the cause of the Holy Land.Footnote 144 Although it was commonly maintained that peace in the West was a necessary prerequisite for a successful crusade to the Holy Land,Footnote 145 the papacy was promoting war in the Italian peninsula. Nor was the papal claim about links between Manfred and the Muslims of Sicily very significant:Footnote 146 the Hohenstaufen were certainly not the only Christian rulers who employed Muslim troops or entered into agreements with Muslims. Manfred was, however, further described as a “pestis” to the Roman church, just as earlier the diverting of crusaders to fight against Frederick II was seen to be justified by the threat he presented to the church. A crusade against the emperor was regarded as “negotium ecclesie” and Gregory IX, when encouraging commutations in Hungary in 1241, stated that “ipsa mater et caput fidei in gravius Christianitatis periculum impugnatur.”Footnote 147 The threat to the papacy was the main reason for commuting the vows of crusaders so that they could fight against the Hohenstaufen. When Innocent IV threatened to use Holy Land and other crusaders against those accused of heresy in Italy, he also maintained that it was more important to defend the faith in places near at hand than in more distant regions:Footnote 148 a threat to the faith in Italy was more dangerous than one on the borders of Christendom. The reference to a threat near at hand could equally have been used when crusaders were diverted against the Hohenstaufen.Footnote 149 Yet, although the papacy often claimed to be seeking to further the interests of the Holy Land, the proposal to commute vows in order to assist the English king Henry III was justified merely by reference to the disturbed state of the kingdom: no attempt was made to link this situation with recruitment for the Holy Land.
Popes no doubt expected the arguments contained in their letters to be used by prelates and friars who were delegated to persuade crusaders of the need to commute, but they probably also hoped that they would be voiced by some leading nobles, as is suggested by Gregory's appeal to Theobald of Champagne to send help to the Latin Empire in 1236. It has, however, been claimed that the papacy also employed stronger measures to pressure crusaders into commuting their vows and fighting against Christians. Gregory IX is said to have tried to coerce Theobald of Champagne not only by threatening excommunication for the count's encroaching on the rights of church courts in Champagne, but also by placing an interdict on two towns when Theobald declined to settle cases brought against him by merchants at the papal curia and by withholding funding for Theobald's expedition to the Holy Land until a late stage.Footnote 150 Yet, as there is no evidence to indicate that Gregory was trying to persuade Theobald to commute his vow, these incidents can hardly be interpreted as evidence of pressure to do so. It has also been claimed that in 1237 Gregory tried to induce Henry, count of Bar, to go to the Latin Empire rather than the Holy Land by assigning him some of the redemption money collected in the province of Reims: but the money was in fact to be paid whether he went to the Latin Empire or the Holy Land.Footnote 151 The further assertion has been made that the pope might threaten to withdraw the crusading privileges of those who were reluctant to commute.Footnote 152 Yet the papal letter of 1237 quoted in support of this claim merely ordered crusaders not to set out to the East before the date fixed for the general passage to the Holy Land.Footnote 153 Those who had taken crusading vows were certainly at times threatened with excommunication, but crusaders who failed to commute their vows were not among these: the penalty was usually reserved to those who did not fulfill their vows or who did not set out at the agreed time.Footnote 154 Apparently the only occasion when ecclesiastical censure was linked to commutation was when Innocent IV gave orders in 1247 that no one in the border dioceses should commute Holy Land vows; but in this instance the threat of excommunication in the pope's letter was for commuting without permission and not for refusing to commute.Footnote 155 In 1231 Gregory had admittedly stated that Hungarian crusaders who intended to go to the Holy Land and who could not be persuaded to go instead to the aid of the Latin Empire should redeem their vows, with the payments to be used in support of the Latin Empire, and he ordered the archbishop of Esztergom to use all his powers to achieve this end; but the pope did not threaten to penalize those who declined.Footnote 156 Papal letters about the commutuation of vows in fact not infrequently include clauses such as “dum ad id consentiant” and “si eorum ad id consensus accesserit,”Footnote 157 and in 1232 Gregory IX wrote of commuting the vows of Hungarian crusaders who were willing to go to aid the Latin Empire rather than the Holy Land.Footnote 158 In a letter to the bishop of Worcester, Innocent IV in 1247 further stated that no one in England, Wales, and Ireland who had taken the cross for the Holy Land “ratione ipsius voti impugnare alios quam sarracenos adversarios ecclesie compellatur.”Footnote 159 The decision was to be left to individual crusaders, and there is no evidence to suggest that those who refused to commute were penalized by the papacy.
The numbers of those who commuted their Holy Land vows to fight against Christian enemies are not known, but certainly some did. In 1234 Gregory IX was informed that some Hungarian crusaders had commuted their vows to the Latin Empire but had not then set out.Footnote 160 According to the Menkonis Chronicon, large numbers of Frisians participated in the siege of Aachen in 1248, after their vows had been commuted on the pope's authority.Footnote 161 References also survive to individual commutations. In December 1237 it was reported that the bishop of Sées had commuted his vow and was going to the Latin Empire, and in the following year Gregory IX ordered that Humbert of Beaujeu and his followers, who had decided to go to the Latin Empire rather than the Holy Land, should receive a full crusading indulgence.Footnote 162 A similar letter was sent two years later in favor of Geoffrey of Villehardouin, prince of Achaea, and those under his command.Footnote 163 In 1238 Rainald of Supino was also said to have agreed to aid the Latin Empire instead of going to the Holy Land, although he eventually fulfilled his vow in Italy.Footnote 164 Later, in 1266, Odo of Corpelay was reported to be going to the aid of Charles of Anjou in Sicily instead of campaigning in the Holy Land, and Barrallus, lord of Baux, who had petitioned for the commutation of his Holy Land vow in 1265, led a force of 300 knights and archers in support of Charles.Footnote 165
Yet, despite papal wishes, many vows were not commuted in order to fight against Christians. In some instances commutations were hampered or prevented by changing political circumstances. The threat made by Innocent IV in 1251 against Ezzelino of Romano was not implemented,Footnote 166 and when the cross was preached against him both in 1255 and in 1258 by Alexander IV no reference was made to the commutation of vows.Footnote 167 In 1264, when trying to cross to England after Henry III had been captured at the battle of Lewes, Guy Fulquois could not gain entry to the country, and in the following year action by Ottobuono was forestalled by the royal victory at Evesham and the death of Simon of Montfort.Footnote 168 Although nearly a decade earlier, in 1254, Henry III had asked the pope to commute his crusading vow to Sicily,Footnote 169 the treaty with Alfonso X agreed upon in April of that year, which included a commitment to seek to commute his vow to North Africa, prevented him from actually doing so, as he could not afford to alienate the Castilian king.Footnote 170
Yet many crusaders had the opportunity to commute but refused to do so. Gregory IX had been aware of the likelihood of resistance at an early stage of his attempts to persuade crusaders to assist the Latin Empire instead of going to the Holy Land: as has been seen, in 1231 he told the archbishop of Esztergom that those who refused should be persuaded to redeem their vows for money, and in the next year the pope decreed that the 300 Hungarian crusaders who were to have had their vows commuted to the Latin Empire should fulfill them either in the Holy Land or in the Latin Empire.Footnote 171 In 1237, Gregory IX himself commented that some crusaders for the Holy Land, “metu commutationis vel redemptionis votorum,” had set out for the East before the appointed time for the passage,Footnote 172 and Matthew Paris reported that two years later English crusaders meeting at Northampton swore to go to the Holy Land “ne … honestum votum eorum impediretur, nec ad effusionem sanguinis Christiani vel in Greciam vel in Italiam, prout instillatum in auribus eorum fuerat, distorqueretur.”Footnote 173 The petition by the bishop of Worcester to the pope in 1247 that no crusader from the British Isles should be forced to fight against anyone other than Muslims provides further indication of hostility to commutation.Footnote 174 Some resistance was obviously provoked by rumors rather than by what the papacy actually did, but there was clearly a reluctance on the part of many crusaders to abandon the Holy Land for conflicts against Christians. Among individuals who are known to have refused to commute their vows to fight against Christians were Henry, count of Bar, who took part in the 1239 crusade to the Holy Land, and Alphonse of Poitiers, who declined to commute his Holy Land vow in order to assist his brother against Manfred, while Hakon of Norway had earlier not commuted his vow in order to help conquer Sicily.Footnote 175
There were even some instances when crusaders sought to commute their vows from fighting against Christian opponents to campaigning in the Holy Land. Peter of Brittany and the count of Mâcon had undertaken to assist the Latin Empire, but went instead to the Holy Land.Footnote 176 Nearly thirty years later, following the defeat and death of Manfred at Benevento, Clement IV agreed to a petition from some who had taken the cross to assist Charles of Anjou but had still to fulfill their vows and wanted to go, instead, to the Holy Land. Other crusaders continued to fight for Charles in Tuscany in 1267–68, but these presumably felt that the cause for which they had taken the cross had been achieved.Footnote 177
Although the preaching of the cross against Christians was criticized in some quarters by a considerable number who commented on papal crusading policy,Footnote 178 the diverting of Holy Land crusaders to campaign against Christian opponents occasioned only limited written censure. When discussing the English parliament held in 1255, the Burton annalist wrote that the Sicilian business had been undertaken by Henry III “stulte et incircumspecte,” but he was not alluding explicitly to the commutation of the English king's crusading vow.Footnote 179 In 1264, however, a list of gravamina presented to Louis IX when he was to arbitrate between Henry III and his opponents commented on the crusading vows taken by the English king and others in England by stating that “voto ipsius et tocius populi, contra spem et propositum, contra Saracenorum crucis Christi inimicorum in fratres eiusdem Christiane religionis regnicolas scilicet irracionabiliter commutato.”Footnote 180 These vows had not in fact been commuted, and this is the last in the list of grievances against Henry; and although commutations of this kind were obviously seen to be worthy of censure, the king's opponents were pursuing their own interests and not objecting in principle to the diverting of crusaders from the Holy Land. According to Matthew Paris, in 1258 the nobles in parliament had in fact suggested, again in their own interests, that all crusading vows should be commuted in order to assist Henry III in gaining the south Italian kingdom.Footnote 181 Critics who were involved in fighting in the East did, however, express concerns about the welfare of the Holy Land. Honorius III's letter to Pelagius indicates that the latter, who was then participating in the Fifth Crusade, had in correspondence expressed opposition to the commuting of vows from the Holy Land,Footnote 182 and the Templar poet Ricaut Bonomel complained in the mid-1260s that
Yet those who did comment on the diversion of crusaders to fight against Christians often displayed greater hostility to the redemption of crusading vows. In 1265 the archbishop of Tyre wrote that it was hard enough (“satis durum”) that the pope should commute Holy Land vows in order to aid Apulia, but he considered it even harder (“durius”) that money given for the Holy Land should be used for the Angevins in Italy;Footnote 184 and although Matthew Paris referred to the chicanery (“cavillationes”) of the Roman church when he reported the meeting at Northampton in 1239, he was much less outspoken about the commutation of crusading vows than about their redemption for money. Some of those who criticized the latter practice, such as Gilbert of Tournai in his Collectio de scandalis ecclesie, were silent about the commutation of crusading vows to campaigns against Christians.Footnote 185 The redeeming of vows for money was a more continuous and pervasive practice, with pressure being applied both by those collecting redemption money and by those to whom grants from this source had been promised; and the situation was made worse by the activities of impostors. On the other hand, crusaders were apparently under less pressure to commute their vows, and obviously many refused to do so.
The Later Thirteenth Century
While the commuting of crusading vows was clearly becoming more common by the middle decades of the thirteenth century, evidence of the practice diminishes in the later years of that century.Footnote 186 The threat to the papacy from the Hohenstaufen was past, and after the pontificate of Urban IV the restoration of the Latin Empire by force was not a priority for most popes. Furthermore, after the pontificate of Clement IV the papacy tended to leave recruitment for Baltic expeditions in the hands of the Teutonic Order.Footnote 187 Yet there were still occasions when commutations might have been expected. Although in the Iberian Peninsula the frontier became stabilized in the second half of the century, in the 1270s there were Marinid invasions from North Africa and a Muslim revolt in Valencia. Fighting continued in the Baltic region, and in Prussia the Teutonic Order in the last quarter of the thirteenth century was apparently no longer receiving assistance from Gastritter.Footnote 188 Pedro III of Aragon's seizure of Sicily prompted a French crusade against Aragon in 1285, and later there were plans to oust the Aragonese ruler of Sicily. Yet there is little evidence either of petitions for commutation submitted to the papacy or of papal attempts to divert crusaders. It has admittedly been implied that there was a commutation of Charles of Anjou's crusading vow for the Holy Land by Martin IV after the latter's election in 1281. The pope is said to have approved of Charles of Anjou's projected expedition to Constantinople “as a pious crusade against schismatics” and to have diverted “papal crusading policy from the Holy Land to other places,” including Byzantium.Footnote 189 Yet, although the pope excommunicated Michael Palaeologus toward the end of 1281, no surviving papal letters ordered the preaching of the cross against Constantinople at this time or mentioned the commutation of the Holy Land vow that Charles had earlier taken.Footnote 190 It is not even certain that Martin diverted revenues intended for the Holy Land, as has sometimes been asserted.Footnote 191 In a letter of 18 March 1282 in which the pope granted Charles of Anjou the six-year tenth from Sardinia and Hungary, the pope stated that funds were to be assigned to Charles only when he set out for the Holy Land.Footnote 192 Twenty years later, in 1302, Boniface VIII expressly forbade anyone participating in Charles of Valois's planned Sicilian expedition to commute any existing vow to fight in the Holy Land.Footnote 193 Although in the same decade both Benedict XI and Clement V were allowing Holy Land vows to be commuted in order to provide assistance for Charles of Valois's attempt to restore the Latin Empire, they both imposed important limitations.Footnote 194 Benedict allowed commutations, provided that in the meantime a general passage in aid of the Holy Land did not take place, while Clement ruled that those who survived the planned campaign against the Greeks were still to be obliged to fulfill their vow to aid the Holy Land: only those who died in the cause of the Latin Empire were to be released from their Holy Land vows.
The attitudes of individual popes obviously have to be taken into account, but the decline of commutations may be partly attributable to more general influences. One possible factor is a decline in the numbers of Holy Land crusaders who might be deployed elsewhere, especially in the closing decades of the thirteenth century: Gregory X's attempt to bring assistance to the Holy Land in 1274 had not led to any major expedition, and similarly Nicholas IV's later appeals for aid were of little practical consequence.Footnote 195 This could have affected both the readiness to petition for commutations and the papacy's ability to divert crusaders. Crusaders’ reluctance in the past to commute their Holy Land vows and fight instead against Christians may also have been a factor. The repeated setbacks suffered in the Holy Land in the later thirteenth century may also have made popes more reluctant to countenance the commutations of vows. But the sources themselves provide no information, and explanations must remain a matter of speculation.
Conclusion
The commuting of vows provides some insight into papal priorities in crusading matters, although clearly not all popes pursued the same policies. In the period up to the end of the twelfth century they sought only occasionally to divert crusaders from the Holy Land to the Iberian Peninsula when the latter was under threat. In the thirteenth century some poor and weak crusaders were allowed to fulfill their vows nearer to home, and it was in the thirteenth century that Holy Land crusaders were used against Christians. Innocent III and Honorius III were reluctant to use them against the Greeks or the heretics in the south of France, but commutations were more frequent in the time of Gregory IX and Innocent IV. The Latin Empire of Constantinople was given the greatest priority in the pontificate of Gregory IX, while from the 1240s more attention was paid to the threat posed by Frederick II and his heirs. Popes in the central decades of the thirteenth century were certainly prepared, at least in some instances, to give campaigns against Christians priority over the Holy Land, even if they did claim that their actions would enable aid to be brought to the crusader states. Commutations for any purpose, however, became rare in the closing decades of the century. Yet there were very few attempts at any time to divert all who had taken the cross for the Holy Land. Innocent IV was prepared to use all crusaders against the Mongols, and he threatened to call upon all to serve in Italy; but, although concern to provide an adequate defense against the Mongol advance was inevitable, the proposed diversions of all crusaders to Italy or Sicily were probably intended to be no more than threats; and the same may be said about the permission to commute vows in order to provide assistance to Henry III against his opponents in England.Footnote 196 Certainly none of the proposals to divert all crusaders against Christian opponents was ever implemented. Usually papal encouragement of commutation was on a more limited scale and restricted to certain regions; and there were many campaigns outside the Holy Land for which there is no evidence of commutations. Nor did popes seek to force crusaders to commute. They relied upon persuasion rather than coercion. Many crusaders, however, refused to be persuaded and adhered to their original intention of going to the aid of the Holy Land.
The commutation of crusading vows provides, however, only a partial indication of the crusading policies and priorities of the papacy. It should not be assumed that all papal activity in the crusading sphere was consistent, or that the actions of individual popes were always uniform. Although in the thirteenth century commutations of vows from the Holy Land to the Baltic appear to have been more common than diversions of crusaders to Spain, the papacy was more prepared to assign crusading taxes intended for the Holy Land to the Iberian Peninsula than to northeastern Europe;Footnote 197 and while popes were reluctant to commute the vows of Holy Land crusaders so that they could fight against heretics in southern France, Honorius III was willing to divert some Holy Land taxes so that they could be used for the Albigensian Crusade.Footnote 198 To gain a comprehensive understanding of papal policies and priorities, evidence relating to the commutation of crusading vows therefore needs to be viewed in conjunction with research on other aspects of papal crusading activity.