Społeczeństwo gotowe do krucjaty?

Abstract

Historiarum libri quinque ab anno incarnationis DCCCC usque ad annum MXLIV by Radulphus Glaber sometimes is called a mirror on the roads of Europe around the year 1000. The author – a Burgundian Benedictine monk who spent a few years in the famous monastery of Cluny – presented a vivid description of Latin society in the first half of the 11th century. Glaber described religious enthusiasm, the pilgrimage movement, processes of social and economic transformation, the fear of Muslims, growing interest in the situation in the Holy Land, and other factors that laid the groundwork for the crusading movement. Fifty years after Glaber’s death, Pope Urban II made his famous appeal in Clermont, launching the era of the Crusades, which lasted for more than 200 years. The enthusiastic response of thousands of knights, priests and civilians suggests that European society was ready for a holy war to liberate Christ’s tomb and the Holy Land from the hands of the infidels. The concept of the Crusades must have been growing for decades before 1095. Historiarum libri quinque… is the best proof that Europeans were mentally prepared for the Crusades long before 1095.