![Sample our Humanities journals, sign in here to start your FREE access for 14 days]({"type":"image" , "src" : "/sda/5939/TOC-Subject-Sample-2021-Humanities.jpg"})
ABSTRACT
The evolution of crusading has not been thoroughly charted for the crucial period of the second half of the fourteenth century. The concept of the crusade underwent a process of transformation, from aiming to liberate the Holy Land (the traditional passagium) to being a defensive war against the Turks. While this transition is now generally accepted by scholars, it is not yet clear when exactly and through what stages it took place. The purpose of this contribution is to investigate this process from a cultural point of view and to analyze the ways in which it occurred. Three popes, directly involved in the organization of several military expeditions, played a crucial role in the shifting focus of the crusade: Innocent VI, Urban V and Gregory XI. Linguistic clues within the letters of these popes reveal the change in the objective of crusading. References to Terra Sancta never completely disappeared, but had little connection to the reality on the ground: the popes focused on the Ottoman threat; the indulgences and privileges were granted to those who fought the Turks. This mental change did not seem to be a conscious process, but a progressive and involuntary shift towards contemporary emergencies.
Acknowledgements
I would like to thank Antonio Musarra, Lorenzo Caravaggi, Anna Ornati and Theresa Lober for their fundamental aid. Dedicated to Angelo Ornati and his shining eyes, which taught me to love stories.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Notes
1 This is not the place to address this large question. It has produced a vast bibliography, which is impossible to mention here. The concept of the crusade itself is resistant to exact definitions and makes legitimate the question of what it really is. For a discussion see: Christopher Tyerman, The Debate on the Crusades, 1099–2010 (Manchester, 2011). In the attempt to trace common elements, a relevant position is the one that sees the crusade as a conscious project created by the papacy and conducted over the centuries. In this vision it was not the aim that had the preeminent role, but the papal leadership. This current has been called ‘creationism’ by Paul Chevedden, who in turn divided it into two minor schools. Paul E. Chevedden, ‘Crusade Creationism versus Pope Urban II’s Conceptualization of the Crusades’, The Historian 75/1 (2013): 1–46. On the vision of Paul Chevedden, which, however, risks going too far towards the clash of civilization paradigm: idem, ‘The View of the Crusades from Rome and Damascus: The Geo-Strategic and Historical Perspectives of Pope Urban II and Ali ibn ahir al-Sulami’, Oriens 39 (2011): 257–329; idem, ‘Pope Urban II and the Ideology of the Crusades’, in The Crusader World, ed. Adrian J. Boas (Abingdon, 2016), 7–53. See also the ‘Byzantine hypothesis’ of Peter Frankopan, who recognizes support for Constantinople as the original objective of the crusades: Peter Frankopan, The First Crusade: The Call from the East (London, 2012).
2 The phenomenon of the Later Crusades in the late Middle Ages has involved, during the last century, historians such as Nicolae Iorga, Paul Alphandéry, Alphonse Dupront, Aziz Suryal Atiya and Kenneth M. Setton. There was a renewal in the study of the topic by Norman Housley, of whose works I only cite a couple here: Norman Housley, The Avignon Papacy and the Crusades, 1305–1378 (Oxford, 1986); idem, The Later Crusades, 1274–1580: From Lyons to Alcazar (Oxford, 1992). Other works on the same argument, but with a more limited focus, are: Peter Edbury, The Kingdom of Cyprus and the Crusades, 1191–1374 (Cambridge, 1991); Jacques Paviot, Les ducs de Bourgogne, la croisade et l'Orient (fin XIVe siècle - XVe siècle) (Paris, 2003); Philippe Contamine, ‘Croisade, réformation religieuse, politique et morale de la chrétienté au XIVe siècle: Philippe de Mézières (vers 1325–1405)’, Mélanges de l’Ecole française de Rome. Italie et Méditerranée 124/1 (2012): 75–84; Philippe de Mézières and His Age. Piety and Politics in the Fourteenth Century, ed. Renate Blumenfeld-Kosinski and Kiril Petkov (Leiden, 2012). In the Italian context, I would like to cite Franco Cardini and Antonio Musarra, who proposed a sociological and cultural reading of the idea of the crusade, surviving well into the Modern Age: Franco Cardini and Antonio Musarra, Il grande racconto delle crociate (Bologna, 2019).
3 On the discussion over this complex argument, I only cite: Guy Bois, ‘Discussion: On the Crisis of the Late Middle Ages’, The Medieval History Journal 1/2 (1998): 311–21; Crisis in the Later Middle Ages Beyond the Postan–Duby Paradigm, ed. John Drendel (Turnhout, 2015); Sandro Carocci, ‘Il dibattito teorico sulla “congiuntura del Trecento”’, Archeologia Medievale 43 (2016): 17–32.
4 A significant contribution to this development also came from the Iberian struggle, at the end of the Middle Ages, of crusades involving a number of objectives, geographic fronts and enemies. Cf. José Santiago Palacios Ontalva, ‘Cruzada y cruzadas. Un fenómeno medieval proyectado hacia el el futuro’, in Antemurales de la fe. Conflictividad confesional en la Monarquía de los Habsburgo, 1516–1714, ed. Pedro García Martín, Roberto Quirós Rosado and Criztina Bravo Lozano (Madrid, 2015), 27–30; Housley, The Later Crusades, 3–4.
5 Mike Carr, Merchant Crusaders in the Aegean, 1291–1352 (Woodbridge, 2015).
6 The papal letters were firstly registered in the Registra Avenionensia, in many cases in draft form, and later copied in the more formal Registra Vaticana, at least until 1355. There are sometimes discrepancies between the letters in the Registra Vaticana and in the Avenionensia and the text does not always correspond in the two versions. From the last quarter of the nineteenth century some major projects started to publish the papal letters, both curiales and communes, often considering them in a national context (France, Poland, Belgium, Hungary). Perhaps the most important of these efforts was that of the École Française de Rome, which benefited from the work of a series of French scholars of the last century. I refer in particular to Pierre Gasnault, Paul Le Cacheux, Léon Mirot, Henri Jassemin, Anne-Marie Hayez and Guillaume Mollat, whose immense work, in numerous volumes, resulted in the publication of papal letters until the Western Schism. See the following notes for the individual editions of documents.
7 Laurent Vallière, ‘Les lettres pontificales du XIVe siècle: histoire de leur édition et questionnements actuels’, Lusitania Sacra 22 (2010): 33–4; Claudine Delacroix-Besnier, ‘Revisiting Papal Letters of the Fourteenth Century’, Medieval Encounters 21 (2015): 151.
8 On the events of those years: Kenneth M. Setton, The Papacy and the Levant, 4 vols. (Philadelphia, 1976–84), 1: 341–69.
9 Sylvia Schein, Fideles crucis. The Papacy, the West, and the Recovery of the Holy Land, 1274–1314 (Oxford, 1998). See also more recently: Antonio Musarra, Acri 1291. La caduta degli stati crociati (Bologna, 2017); idem, Il crepuscolo della crociata. L’Occidente e la perdita della Terrasanta (Bologna, 2018).
10 The treatises de recuperatione Terre Sancte have long drawn the attention of historians, especially for the number of people involved in the writing and elaboration of projects. This was evidence of the persistence of the idea of crusading, as well as of different, if not opposing, conceptions and aims. See: Jacques Paviot, Projets de croisade (v. 1290-v. 1330) (Paris, 2008); Antonio García Espada, ‘La teoría de cruzada post-acconiana (1291–1334): Operaciones sobre el tiempo y el espacio tradicional’, Medievalismo 21 (2011): 207–24; Luca Mantelli, ‘“De recuperatione Terrae Sanctae”: dalla perdita di Acri a Celestino V’, Rivista di storia della Chiesa in Italia 67/2 (2013): 397–440; and Luca Mantelli, ‘“De recuperatione Terrae Sanctae”: da Bonifacio VIII alla crisi del modello d'alleanza cristiano-mongola’, Rivista di storia della Chiesa in Italia 68/1 (2014): 45–77.
11 Antony Leopold, How to Recover the Holy Land. The Crusade Proposals of the Late Thirteenth and Early Fourteenth Centuries (Aldershot, 2000). A partial list in: Schein, Fideles crucis, 327–8.
12 Emanuele Piloti, L’Egypte au commencement du XVe siècle d’après le Traité d’Emmanuel Piloti de Crête (1422), ed. Pierre Herman Dopp (Cairo, 1950); Anthony Luttrell, ‘Emmanuele Piloti and Criticism of the Knights Hospitallers of Rhodes: 1306–1444’, Annales de l’ordre souverain militaire de Malte 20/1 (1962): 1–20; Damien Coulon, ‘Du nouveau sur Emmanuel Piloti et son témoignage à la lumière de documents d’archives occidentaux’, in Chemins d’Outre-Mer. Études d’histoire sur la Méditerranée médiévale offertes à Michel Balard, 2 vols., ed. Damien Coulon et al. (Paris, 2004), 1: 159–70; Norman Housley, ‘Emmanuele Piloti and Crusading in the Latin East’, in The Hospitallers, the Mediterranean and Europe. Festschrift for Anthony Luttrell, ed. Karl Borchardt, Nikolas Jaspert and Helen J. Nicholson (Aldershot, 2007), 139–50.
13 Cardini, ‘La crociata mito politico’, in idem, Studi sulla storia e sull’idea di crociata (Rome, 1993), 196. Regarding the important subject of the preaching of the crusade, for the first part of the century see: Constantinos Georgiou, Preaching the Crusades to the Eastern Mediterranean: Propaganda, Liturgy and Diplomacy, 1305–1352 (Abingdon, 2018).
14 About the Crusade of Smyrna, see e.g.: Mike Carr, ‘Humbert of Viennois and the Crusade of Smyrna: A Reconsideration’, Crusades 13 (2014): 237–51; Setton, The Papacy and the Levant, 1: 195–223; Alain Demurger, ‘Le pape Clément VI et l’Orient: ligue ou croisade? ‘, in Guerre, pouvoir et noblesse au Moyen Âge: Mélanges en l’honneur de Philippe Contamine, ed. Jacques Paviot and Jacques Verger (Paris, 2000), 207–14. On the crusades of Alexandria and of Amadeus of Savoy, besides the work of Setton, see also: Georg Christ, ‘Non ad caudam sed ad caput invadere: the Sack of Alexandria between Pride, Crusade and Trade Diplomacy (1365–1370)’, in Rapporti mediterranei, pratiche documentarie, presenze veneziane: le reti economiche e culturali (XIV-XVI secolo), ed. Gherardo Ortalli and Alessio Sopracasa (Venice, 2017), 153–82; Sandra Origone, ‘Una spedizione militare del tardo Medioevo: Amedeo VI di Savoia in Oriente’, in Relazioni di viaggio e conoscenza del mondo fra Medioevo e Umanesimo, ed. Stefano Pittaluga (Genoa, 1993), 451–64. On the Mahdia expedition: Urs Brachthäuser, Der Kreuzzug gegen Mahdiya 1390 (Paderborn, 2017). On Nicopolis: Aziz Suryal Atiya, The Crusade of Nicopolis (London, 1934); Tamás Pálosfalvi, From Nicopolis to Mohács: A History of Ottoman-Hungarian Warfare, 1389–1526 (Leiden, 2018).
15 Franco Cardini, ‘L’idea di crociata in santa Caterina da Siena’, in idem, Studi sulla storia e sull’idea di crociata, 424. About the foundation of the Custodia di Terra Santa: Andrew Jotischky, ‘The Franciscan Return to the Holy Land (1333) and Mt Sion: Pilgrimage and the Apostolic Mission’, in The Crusader World, ed. Adrian J. Boas (Abingdon, 2016), 241–55; Paolo Evangelisti, Dopo Francesco, oltre il mito. I frati Minori fra Terra Santa ed Europa (XIII-XV secolo) (Rome, 2020).
16 According to Franco Cardini, for St. Catherine the ultimate aim of the crusade was not the crusade itself but peace among Christians: Cardini, ‘L’idea di crociata in santa Caterina da Siena’, 442. The problem of the relationship between peace and crusade in Catherine’s thought, however, is not resolved regarding the relative importance of factors. Massimo Viglione argues that not even peace in itself was the final aim of the Sienese saint, but it was an instrument (like the crusade and the reform of the Church) for a much deeper purpose, the glory of God and the salvation of souls: Massimo Viglione, ‘ … Rizzate el gonfalone de la Santissima Croce’. L’idea di Crociata in santa Caterina da Siena (Cagliari, 2007), 112–14.
17 Under Pope Gregory XI, St. Catherine insisted on taking the papacy back to Rome and on the aims of the crusade, which are set out in detail in her letters. Martyrdom as a seal of Christian chivalry occupied a fundamental place, as a way to sanctify men-at-arms who had lost their souls fighting in fratricidal wars within Christianity. The crusade was then supposed to save the Muslim infidels, as one of the true tasks of Christians: even for Catherine, preaching could not be separated from the use of force. According to her, the mere reconquest of the Holy Land had value if it was also meant to save the entire non-Christian world. The true purpose of the crusade, therefore, was achieving salvation and peace. On this: Viglione, ‘ … Rizzate el gonfalone de la Santissima Croce’, 97–105; Cardini, ‘L’idea di crociata in santa Caterina da Siena’, 431–2.
18 Carr, Merchant Crusaders, 98.
19 Housley, The Avignon Papacy and the Crusades, 118–19. Mike Carr reiterates the same idea: ‘However, for both John XXII and Philip VI, a crusade against the Turks still ranked far below one aimed at recovering Jerusalem’. Carr, Merchant Crusaders, 100.
20 Housley, The Avignon Papacy and the Crusades, 119–22.
21 Carr, Merchant Crusaders, 100–5.
22 On Demetrius Cydones, a Byzantine intellectual extremely active in attempts to unify the two Churches, attracted by Latin culture and who translated several works into Greek, including the Summa contra gentiles and the Summa theologiae of Saint Thomas Aquinas, see: Frances Kianka, Demetrius Cydones (c. 1324 - c. 1397): Intellectual and Diplomatic Relations between Byzantium and the West in the Fourteenth Century (Ann Arbor, 1981); Margarita Polyakovskaya, Demetrio Cidone. Ritratto di un intellettuale bizantino (Rome, 2019).
23 Anne of Savoy died in Thessalonica in 1365 in monastic habit, adhering completely to the Byzantine imperial tradition. Anne Paleologina’s religious views matured during the heated disputes of the time, and she remained faithful to her husband’s choices in political and religious matters even after his death. Defending the Palaiologos family, Anne faced the challenges of Cantacuzenus during the bloody Byzantine civil wars. We know her generosity towards ecclesiastical institutions and her religious intellectual commitment, which had brought her closer to Palamism. See Sandra Origone, Giovanna. Latina a Bisanzio (Milan, 1999), 152.
24 Vatican City, Archivio Apostolico Vaticano (AAV), Registra Vaticana 235, fol. 26v. Avignon, 19 January 1353. In Innocent VI (1352–1362). Lettres secrètes et curiales, 5 vols., ed. Pierre Gasnault, Marie-Hyacinthe Laurent and Nicole Gotteri (Paris, 1959–2005), 1: 24–6, no. 71.
25 The pope argued that conversion to the true faith would have strengthened the souls of the few against the multitude of Turks. Ibid.: ‘Si relictis omnium errorum et scismatum tenebris ad catholice ac indivisibilis fidei limpidam veramque lucem et unitatem ecclesie predictarum puris cordibus et sinceris mentibus redeatis, paucitatem vestram adversus multitudinem Turchorum ipsorum eo fortificabit robore’. See also: Deno John Geanakoplos, ‘Byzantium and the Crusades, 1261–1354’, in Setton, Crusades, 3: 65.
26 For the capture of Gallipoli: Setton, The Papacy and the Levant, 1: 225. I have found no mention of the capture in contemporary Western chronicles.
27 Delacroix-Besnier, ‘Revisiting Papal Letters of the Fourteenth Century’, 156.
28 Housley, The Avignon Papacy and the Crusades, 111.
29 Geanakoplos, Byzantium and the Crusades, 1261–1354, 73–4.
30 It seems very interesting to note that the intermediary chosen by John V Palaiologos to negotiate with the pope was a Genoese, Michele Malaspina. AAV, Registra Vaticana 246, fol. 348r. Avignon, 16 October 1364. In Lettres secrètes et curiales du pape Urbain V (1362–1370) se rapportant à la France, 5 vols., ed. Paul Le Cacheux and Guillaume Mollat (Paris, 1902–55), 2: 211, no. 1305. The question of the conversion of the Greeks remained anyway at the center of the negotiations. When in 1369 John V decided to embrace the Latin Catholic faith, albeit in a personal capacity, the hope for ecclesiastical union was renewed. In 1370 Pope Urban V wrote to Queen Joanna I of Naples to provide a safe-conduct to the troops of the Byzantine Emperor, at war against the Turks. AAV, Registra Vaticana 250, fol. 37v. Rome, 27 February 1370. In Lettres secrètes et curiales du pape Urbain V, 3: 524, no. 3040.
31 The recipients of the letters were the Sicilian nobles, Louis of Hungary, the Doge Andrea Contarini and John V Palaiologos. Among the Latin lords of the Levant, Francesco Gattilusio and Ranieri Acciaiuoli, the duke of Athens, were summoned to Thebes. The Genoese case is quite interesting: in addition to Doge Domenico Campofregoso, letters were also sent to the abbot of the monastery of San Siro and to the iuriesperito Leonardo Montaldo, all concerning the future congress to discuss the Turkish danger. AAV, Registra Vaticana 264, fols. 76r.–77v.; Registra Vaticana 268, fols. 85v.–88r., 94v.–95r. Avignon, 13 November 1372. In Lettres secrètes et curiales du pape Grégoire XI (1370–1378) intéressant les pays autres que la France, 3 vols., ed. Guillaume Mollat (Paris, 1962–5), 1: 161–2, nos. 1166, 1167, 1169, 1172–4, 1177.
32 Christopher Wright, The Gattilusio Lordships and the Aegean World 1355–1462 (Leiden, 2014), 326–8; William Miller, The Gattilusj of Lesbos (1355–1462) (Leipzig, 1913), 410.
33 AAV, Registra Vaticana 236, fol. 13r. Avignon, 3 November 1353. In Innocent VI (1352–1362). Lettres secrètes et curiales, 1: 208, no. 620.
34 Regarding the situation of the crusaders in occupied Smyrna: Jürgen Sarnowsky, ‘Die Johanniter und Smyrna 1344–1402’, Römische Quartalschrift für christliche Altertumskunde und Kirchengeschichte 87 (1992): 47–98; Simone Lombardo, La Croce dei Mercanti. Genova, Venezia e la Crociata Mediterranea nel tardo Trecento (1348–1402) (Paderborn, 2023), 373–84.
35 This happened, for example, in 1353 about the donations collected in the diocese of Coutances. AAV, Registra Vaticana 235, fol. 121v. Avignon, 8 June 1353. In Innocent VI (1352–1362). Lettres secrètes et curiales, 1: 116–17, no. 332.
36 The letter was addressed to the Venetian Doge, Giovanni Gradenigo, who was invited to renew the alliance. AAV, Registra Vaticana 238, fol. 119v. Avignon, 4 July 1356. In Innocent VI (1352–1362). Lettres secrètes et curiales, 4: 123, no. 2233.
37 AAV, Registra Vaticana 237, fol. 115v. Avignon, 5 June 1355. In Innocent VI (1352–1362). Lettres secrètes et curiales, 3: 122–3, no. 1626.
38 AAV, Registra Vaticana 235, fol. 221r. Avignon, 28 November 1353. In Innocent VI (1352–1362). Lettres secrètes et curiales, 1: 215, no. 642.
39 AAV, Registra Vaticana 242, fol. 167v. Avignon, 14 October 1355. In Innocent VI (1352–1362). Lettres secrètes et curiales, 3: 193–5, no. 1773: ‘Intendebamus cogere ad transferendum conventum vestrum in Turchiam’.
40 AAV, Registra Vaticana 238, fol. 142r. Avignon, 17 July 1356. In Innocent VI (1352–1362). Lettres secrètes et curiales, 4: 138–9, no. 2270.
41 AAV, Registra Vaticana 235, fol. 238v. Avignon, 1 December 1353. In Innocent VI (1352–1362). Lettres secrètes et curiales, 1: 218–20, no. 647.
42 AAV, Registra Vaticana 238, fol. 177r. Avignon, 12 September 1356. In Innocent VI (1352–1362). Lettres secrètes et curiales, 4: 180, no. 2359.
43 On the Turkish-Genoese alliance of the late fourteenth century: Michel Balard, ‘A propos de la bataille du Bosphore. L’expédition de Paganino Doria à Constantinople (1351–1352)’, in idem, Le mer noire et la Romanie génoise (XIII-XV siècles) (London, 1989), 431–69; Enrico Basso, ‘From Cooperation to Clash of Interests: Genoa and the Turks in the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Centuries’, in The Turks, 6 vols., ed. Hasan Cela^l Güzel, Cem Oğuz and Osman Karatay (Ankara, 2002), 3: 181–8.
44 AAV, Registra Vaticana 238, fol. 44r. Avignon, 1 April 1356. In Innocent VI (1352–1362). Lettres secrètes et curiales, 4: 43, no. 2006 : ‘eodem duce ac dilectis filiis commune civitatis Ianuensis dissidentibus invicem ac proinde ordinatione huiusmodi minus debite observata, memorati Turchi resumpserunt audaciam et per mare ipsum hostiliter discurrentes eisdem fidelibus gravamina et dampna plurima intulerunt et inferunt’.
45 AAV, Registra Vaticana 238, fol. 157r. Avignon, 6 August 1356. In Innocent VI (1352–1362). Lettres secretes et curiales, 4: 156, no. 2312.
46 Ibid.: ‘Requirimus et hortamur vobis in remissionem peccaminum injungentes quatinus ab omni confederatione, unione seu liga, si quam cum Turchis habetis eisdem penitus discedatis et Iohanni Paleologo, imperatori Grecorum illustri, si, ut promisit, ad fidem catholicam pure ac simpliciter revertatur, adversus illos assistatis favoribus oportunis’.
47 Ibid.
48 AAV, Registra Vaticana 236, fols. 114v.–115v. Avignon, 10 July 1354. In Innocent VI (1352–1362). Lettres secretes et curiales, 2: 117–18, nos. 1020–1. See also Giovanna Petti Balbi, ‘Il Devetum Alexandrie e i genovesi tra scomuniche e licenze (sec. XII-inizio XV)’, in Male ablata: la restitution des biens mal acquis (XIIe-XVe siècle), ed. Jean-Louis Gaulin and Giacomo Todeschini (Roma 2019): 51–86.
49 The operations of Louis of Hungary, in response to the papal appeal, began in 1365 initially against the voivodeship of Wallachia and then against the Turks. But the plans of the king fell through in the endless negotiations with Serbia, Ragusa and Venice. Setton, The Papacy and the Levant, 1: 286–91.
50 AAV, Registra Vaticana 245, fol. 246r. Avignon, 4 September 1363. In Lettres secrètes et curiales du pape Urbain V, 1: 80, no. 596.
51 AAV, Registra Vaticana 245, fol. 168v. Avignon, 25 May 1363. In Lettres secrètes et curiales du pape Urbain V, 1: 63–4, no. 487.
52 AAV, Registra Vaticana 246, fol. 348r. Avignon, 16 October 1364. In Lettres secrètes et curiales du pape Urbain V, 2: 211, no. 1305.
53 AAV, Registra Vaticana 261, fols. 5v–6v. Avignon, 31 March 1363. In Lettres secrètes et curiales du pape Urbain V, 1: 40, nos. 344–5.
54 AAV, Registra Vaticana 261, fol. 6v. Avignon, 31 March 1363. In Lettres secrètes et curiales du pape Urbain V, 1: 40–1, no. 346.
55 AAV, Registra Vaticana 245, fol. 147v. Avignon, 1 May 1363. In Lettres secrètes et curiales du pape Urbain V, 1: 53, no. 387: ‘Carissimi in Christo filii nostri Iohannes Francie, et Petrus Cipri reges illustres, qui ad recuperationem Terre Sancte ut Christi pugiles anhelantes transfretare infra certum terminum in nostris manibus promiserunt, tam hujusmodi favore passagii quam pro pace et quiete Romane Ecclesie et partium Lombardie’.
56 AAV, Registra Vaticana 262, fol. 85v. Avignon, 31 March 1364. In Lettres secrètes et curiales du pape Urbain V, 1: 129–30, no. 868 : ‘Ad recuperationem Terre Sancte, que per hostes crucis, in totius Cristianitatis opprobrium, longis temporibus detenta extitit, prout presentialiter detinetur, et ad deffensionem fidelium partium Orientis, qui ab ipsis hostibus iugitur impugnantur, apostolice sollicitudinis studia convertentes, hodie, de fratrum nostrorum consilio, auctoritate apostolica ad dictas Terram et partes indiximus passagium generale’.
57 AAV, Registra Vaticana 245, fol. 168v. Avignon, 25 May 1363. In Lettres secrètes et curiales du pape Urbain V, 1: 63–4, no. 487: ‘Recuperationis Terre Sancte negotium fuit hactenus, quod dolenter referimus, pretermissum, tam perfidi Saraceni quam illi crudeles pagani, Turchi appellati vulgariter, qui in orientis partibus viciniores populis Christianis existunt, ad extintionem fidei catholice anhelantes, sic potenter, sic intrepite, quasi nullis vel paucis resistentibus eis, fines eorumdem fidelium invaserunt, quod regnum Armenie olim inclitum et christiana professione catholicum ac nonnulla provincias, insulas et civitates et castra, proth dolor, occuparunt et continue occupare nituntur, eas depopulantes immaniter ac ecclesias Dei aliaque sanctuaria prophanantes, christianos trucidantes vel vendentes ut pecudes et retinentes sub miserabilissima servitute’.
58 AAV, Registra Vaticana 246, fol. 166r. Avignon, 17 April 1364. In Lettres secrètes et curiales du pape Urbain V, 1: 134–5, no. 891 : ‘Pro recuperationem Terre Sancte, in qua dominus noster Ihesus Christus dignatus est nostram operari salutem, […] ac pro defensione fidelium et impugnatione infidelium, de partibus Orientis ad dictam Terram Sanctam indiximus passagium generale’.
59 AAV, Registra Vaticana 246, fol. 271r. Avignon, 10 July 1364. In Lettres secrètes et curiales du pape Urbain V, 2: 169–70, no. 1080: ‘Dudum attendentes quod, peccatis exigentibus, Terram Sanctam Agarenorum gens perfida, salvatoris nostri domini nostri Iesu Christi et sue orthodoxe fidei inimica, a longis retro temporibus, non absque damnosa negligentia christiani populi, occupaverat et detinuerat, prout detinet, occupatam, eam polluendo abominandorum patratione scelerum ac pro ancilla tenendo, que domina gentium debet esse; quodque ex oppressione Turcorum crudelium multas calamitates patiebatur, prout patitur, christianus populus Orientis’.
60 AAV, Registra Vaticana 245, fol. 168v. Avignon, 25 May 1363. In Lettres secrètes et curiales du pape Urbain V, 1: 63–4, no. 487.
61 Western studies on the Turkish emirates include: Paul Wittek, The Rise of the Ottoman Empire: Studies into the History of Turkey (London, 1938); Paul Lemerle, L’émirat d’Aydin, Byzance et l’Occident: Recherches sur la ‘Geste d’Umur Pacha’ (Paris, 1957); Elizabeth Zachariadou, Trade and Crusade: Venetian Crete and the Emirates of Mentese and Aydin (1300–1415) (Venice, 1983); Mehmet Fuat Köprülü, The Origins of the Ottoman Empire, trans. Gary Leiser (New York, 1992).
62 Carr, Merchant Crusaders, 32–62.
63 AAV, Registra Vaticana 245, fol. 76r. Avignon, 2 February 1363. In Lettres secrètes et curiales du pape Urbain V, 1: 23, no. 197.
64 AAV, Registra Vaticana 246, fols. 240r.–240v. Avignon, 27 June 1364. In Lettres secrètes et curiales du pape Urbain V, 1: 163, nos. 1047–9.
65 AAV, Registra Vaticana 246, fol. 238r. Avignon, 24 June 1364. In Lettres secrètes et curiales du pape Urbain V, 2: 161, no. 1033. A similar letter was sent a few days later to the Venetian bailo of Negroponte, with the same concession of indulgence in the fight against the Turks. AAV, Registra Vaticana 246, fol. 238v. Avignon, 27 June 1364. In Lettres secrètes et curiales du pape Urbain V, 2: 163, no. 1046.
66 AAV, Registra Vaticana 248, fol. 264r. Avignon, 6 October 1366. In Lettres secrètes et curiales du pape Urbain V, 3: 424, no. 2416.
67 AAV, Registra Avenionensia 162, fol. 466v. Avignon, 27 April 1366. In Urbain V (1362–1370). Lettres communes analysées d’après les registres dits d’Avignon et du Vatican, 12 vols., ed. Pierre Gasnault, Michel and Anne-Marie Hayez, Marie-Hyacinthe Laurent, Janine Mathieu and Marie-France Yvan (Paris-Rome, 1954–89), 5: 8, no. 15882.
68 AAV, Registra Vaticana 256, fol. 54v. Avignon, 14 June 1367. In Urbain V (1362–1370). Lettres communes analysées d’après les registres dits d’Avignon et du Vatican, 6: 202, no. 19800.
69 Ibid.: ‘Conceditur licentia ducendi seu duci faciendi semel duntaxat de ipsa insula tres galeas ad Alexandrie et alias partes et terras ultramarinas que per soldanum Babilonie detinentur, cum nautis et aliis personis ad conductionem galearum predict. opportunis, per se seu alios cives Januen., mercimoniis oneratas et cum mercatoribus dictorum exceptis armis, ferro, lignaminibus et aliis prohibitis’. The citizens who had addressed the petition to the pope were the Doge Gabriele Adorno, Francesco seniore, Nicolò, Tommaso, Paolo, Andreolo, Francesco juniore and Pietro, all of them ‘dictis Iustinianis’; then the brothers Bartolomeo and Nicola de Caneto de Casanova, and finally the three brothers Francesco, Andrea and Tommaso, sons of the dead Raffaele Giustiniani. The Giustiniani’s albergo had been established only a few years earlier, between 1362 and 1364. Philip P. Argenti, The Occupation of Chios by the Genoese and their Administration of the Island (1346–1566), 3 vols. (Cambridge, 1958); Andrea Lercari, ‘La vicenda storica dell’albergo Giustiniani: dalla fazione popolare al patriziato sovrano della Repubblica di Genova’, in Dai Giustiniani all’Unione Europea: un percorso continuo, ed. Enrico Giustiniani (Bassano Romano, 2005); Michel Balard, ‘I Giustiniani: un modello degli “alberghi”?’, Quaderni della Società Ligure di Storia patria 7 (2019): 131–40.
70 AAV, Registra Vaticana 256, fol. 54v. Viterbo, 14 June 1367. In Urbain V (1362–1370). Lettres communes analysées d’apres les registres dits d’Avignon et du Vatican, 6: 202, no. 19800.
71 Isolda de Parewascell had been a pilgrim in the Holy Land for three years and was then imprisoned by the Mamluks before 1366: AAV, Registra Supplicationum 45, fol. 55v. Avignon, 20 January 1366. John de Werchin, himself a pilgrim, had been a prisoner of the Mamluks for a long time: AAV, Registra Supplicationum 37, fol. 48r. Avignon, 4 January 1363. In: Alphonse Fierens, Suppliques d’Urbain V 1362–1370. Textes et analyses, Analecta Vaticano-Belgica 7 (Rome-Brussels-Paris, 1914), 146, no. 486.
72 The Order of Mercedarians was very active in this. AAV, Registra Vaticana 254, fol. 101v. Avignon, 27 February 1365. In Urbain V (1362–1370). Lettres communes analysées d’après les registres dits d’Avignon et du Vatican, 4: 249, no. 14403.
73 Anthony Luttrell, ‘Gregory XI and the Turks: 1370–1378’, Orientalia Christiana Periodica 46 (1980): 391–417.
74 Ibid., 394.
75 The edition of the letter sent by Gregory XI after the Genoese embassy’s visit is in: Odoricus Raynaldo, Annales Ecclesiastici ab anno MCXCVIII, Tomus VII (Lucca, 1752), 202. Original in: AAV, Registra Vaticana 263, fol. 89r. Avignon, 1 August 1371. In Lettres secrètes et curiales du pape Grégoire XI (1370–1378) relatives à la France, 5 vols., ed. Léon Mirot, Guillaume Mollat, Henri Jassemin and Jeanne Vielliard (Paris, 1935–57), 1: 122, no. 334.
76 Raynaldo, Annales Ecclesiastici ab anno MCXCVIII, Tomus VII, 201.
77 AAV, Registra Vaticana 264, fol. 96v. Avignon, 8 March 1372. In Lettres secrètes et curiales du pape Grégoire XI (1370–1378) relatives à la France, 1: 230–3, no. 687.
78 AAV, Registra Vaticana 269, fol. 40r. Avignon, 4 April 1373. In Lettres secrètes et curiales du pape Grégoire XI (1370–1378) intéressant les pays autres que la France, 1: 232, no. 1651.
79 AAV, Registra Vaticana 263, fol. 90r. Avignon, 1 August 1371. In Lettres secrètes et curiales du pape Grégoire XI (1370–1378) relatives à la France, 1: 122, no. 335.
80 AAV, Registra Vaticana 263, fol. 90v. Avignon, 6 August 1371. In Lettres secrètes et curiales du pape Grégoire XI (1370–1378) relatives à la France, 1: 124, no. 342.
81 AAV, Registra Vaticana 263, fol. 99v. Avignon, 6 August 1371. In Lettres secrètes et curiales du pape Grégoire XI (1370–1378) intéressant les pays autres que la France, 1: 40, no. 266. Kenneth M. Setton reports a citation from the letter, found in: Oskar Halecki, Un Empereur de Byzance à Rome (1355–1375) (London, 1972), 251 n. 2.
82 AAV, Registra Vaticana 268, fols. 4r.–4v. Avignon, 22 January 1372. In Lettres secrètes et curiales du pape Grégoire XI (1370–1378) intéressant le pays autres que la France, 1: 73, nos. 517, 519.
83 AAV, Registra Vaticana 268, fol. 32v. Avignon, 15 May 1372. In Lettres secrètes et curiales du pape Grégoire XI (1370–1378) intéressant les pays autres que la France, 1: 104, no. 745.
84 About the preaching of the crusade against the Turks in Hungary: AAV, Registra Vaticana 265, fols. 30v.–32v. Avignon, 23 March 1373. In Lettres secrètes et curiales du pape Grégoire XI (1370–1378) intéressant les pays autres que la France, 1: 226, no. 1610.
85 The crusade of 1373 was preached even in Germany, despite the wars there: AAV, Registra Vaticana 269, fol. 40r. Avignon, 4 April 1373. In Lettres secrètes et curiales du pape Grégoire XI (1370–1378) intéressant les pays autres que la France, 1: 232, no. 1651.
86 Ibid.: ‘Ubi autem ad hoc nolles seu non posses intendere, devotam serenitatem tuam rogamus et hortamur attente quatenus provide cogitans, quod ipsi Turchi contra Christianos, quamvis schismaticos, magnas habuerunt victorias, et amplas terras etiam occuparunt, et quod olim quidam infideles, videlicet Tartari, regnum Ungarie invaserunt, et ecclesias et fideles ipsius regni miserabiliter dissiparunt; et quod, si dictus rex, non munitus potentia necessaria, in bello succumberet, quod Deus avertat, magnum Christianitatis posset periculum evenire, et strenua militia Theutonica sit ipsi regi opportuna quamplurimum’. Several parts of the letter addressed to Emperor Charles IV are very interesting.
87 AAV, Registra Vaticana 269, fol. 59r. Avignon, 22 March 1373. In Lettres secrètes et curiales du pape Grégoire XI (1370–1378) intéressant les pays autres que la France, 1: 226, no. 1606.
88 During May 1373, Lascaris was in Hungary: AAV, Registra Vaticana 269, fol. 43v. Avignon, 8 May 1373. In Lettres secrètes et curiales du pape Grégoire XI (1370–1378) intéressant les pays autres que la France, 1: 258, no. 1773. In July he arrived in Genoa to persuade the doge and the city government to take part in the joint venture: AAV, Registra Vaticana 269, fol. 61r. Avignon, 29 June 1373. In Lettres secrètes et curiales du pape Grégoire XI (1370–1378) intéressant les pays autres que la France, 1: 272, no. 1946.
89 Luttrell, ‘Gregory XI and the Turks’, 400.
90 Ibid., 407.
91 Halecki, Un Empereur de Byzance à Rome, 390–1.
92 In 1373, 43 Genoese galleys had been sent to Cyprus in a great show of strength. About the 1373–4 events and the war between Genoa and Cyprus, see: Peter W. Edbury, ‘Cyprus and Genoa: the Origins of the War of 1373–1374’, in idem, Kingdoms of the Crusaders: From Jerusalem to Cyprus, (Aldershot, 1999): 109–26. The subsequent Cypriot Maona was analyzed in: Giovanna Petti Balbi, ‘La maona di Cipro del 1373’, Rassegna storica della Liguria 1 (1974): 269–85; Catherine Otten-Froux, ‘I Maonesi e la Maona vecchia di Cipro’, in La Storia dei Genovesi, 12 vols. (Genoa, 1994), 12: 95–118.
93 AAV, Registra Avenionensia 193, fol. 502r. Avignon, 30 September 1374. Also in 1375, 8000 florins were allocated to them: AAV, Registra Avenionensia 197, fol. 40r. Avignon, 25 January 1375.
94 In Gregory’s project, the knights destined for the Mediterranean enterprise against the Turks were as follows: in addition to those already in Rhodes, 38 would have been from England and Ireland, 33 from the priory of France, 10 from Champagne, 15 from Aquitaine, 24 from Auvergne, 18 from Toulouse, 30 from Saint-Gilles, 32 from Catalonia, 5 from Navarre, 22 from Castile, 14 from Germany, 14 from Portugal, 18 from Bohemia, 20 from the priory of Venice, 20 from Lombardy, 13 from Pisa, 13 from Rome, 13 from Capua, 16 from Barletta, 2 from Messina. The total number of knights theoretically expected would have been 370. AAV, Registra Vaticana 267, fols. 46v.–48r. Avignon, 8 December 1375. In Lettres secrètes et curiales du pape Grégoire XI (1370–1378) intéressant les pays autres que la France, 2: 169, no. 3634.
95 Viglione, ‘ … Rizzate el gonfalone della Santissima Croce’, 50–81.
96 AAV, Registra Vaticana 271, fol. 33r. Avignon, 18 May 1375. In Lettres secrètes et curiales du pape Grégoire XI (1370–1378) relatives à la France, 2: 609–12, no. 1896.
97 Ibid.: ‘Hii quidem et etiam quidam alii in hoc imo concordant, quod Sarraceni quamplurimi Terre Sancte et Egipti, nescimus qua revelatione seu cujus timoris incursione attoniti, asserunt legem execrabilem Machometi de proximo defecturam, passagiumquefidelium, quos Francos appellant, nimia timiditate, formidant, ita quod timor ipsorum incubuit super eos, quorum alii ad defensionem, alii ad fugam, alii vero ad professionem catholice fidei se disponunt’. In the letter one of the main subjects is the recommendation to make peace between French and English.
98 Housley, The Avignon Papacy and the Crusades, 115.
99 After the proclamation of the crusade, the friar and theologian Tommaso de Bozolasco was sent to the Genoese archbishop to convince the city council to participate in the expedition: AAV, Registra Vaticana 271, fols. 67r.–67v. Avignon, 27 October 1375. In Lettres secrètes et curiales du pape Grégoire XI (1370–1378) intéressant les pays autres que la France, 2: 156–7, no. 3539. The Venetian Doge Andrea Contarini was invited to help Mary, queen of Armenia: AAV, Registra Vaticana 244, fol. 17r. Avignon, 22 January 1376. In Lettres secrètes et curiales du pape Grégoire XI (1370–1378) intéressant les pays autres que la France, 3: 1, no. 3701.
100 Text of the letter in: Francesco Cerasoli, ‘Gregorio XI e Giovanna I Regina di Napoli: documenti inediti dell’Archivio Vaticano’, Archivio Storico per le Province Napoletane 25 (1900): 6–8.
101 AAV, Registra Vaticana 271, fol. 77r. Avignon, 2 December 1375. In Lettres secrètes et curiales du pape Grégoire XI (1370–1378) intéressant les pays autres que la France, 2: 167, no. 3622.
102 Luttrell, ‘Gregory XI and the Turks’, 414: ‘Gregory did at least succeed in turning the Hospital’s attention away from its traditional spheres of action in Mamluk Egypt and Syria or in the Turkish emirates of the Anatolian seaboard towards the more urgent and fundamental problem of defending Greece and the Balkans against the major long-term threat from the Ottomans’.
103 AAV, Registra Vaticana 264, fol. 77v. Avignon, 20 November 1372. In Lettres secrètes et curiales du pape Grégoire XI (1370–1378) intéressant les pays autres que la France, 1: 165, no. 1202.
104 Carr, Merchant Crusaders, 149.
105 Housley, The Avignon Papacy and the Crusades, 112. The plenary indulgences were granted ‘pro defensione insulae Chio et terrarum adiacentium, contra Turcos’: AAV, Registra Avenionensia 18, fol. 380r. Avignon, 20 February 1323. In Jean XXII (1316–1334). Lettres communes, 31 vols., ed. Guillaume Mollat (Paris, 1904–47), 4: 240, no. 16977. Another similar indulgence ‘contra Turchos’ was granted in 1325: AAV, Registra Avenionensia 22, fol. 450v. Avignon, 28 April 1325. In Jean XXII (1316–1334). Lettres communes, 5: 357, no. 22117.
106 Housley, The Avignon Papacy and the Crusades, 113.
107 AAV, Registra Vaticana 287, fol. 215r. Rome, 30 January 1378. In Lettres secrètes et curiales du pape Grégoire XI (1370–1378) intéressant les pays autres que la France, 3: 27, no. 3910.
108 AAV, Registra Vaticana 287, fol. 215r. Rome, 30 January 1378. In Lettres secrètes et curiales du pape Grégoire XI (1370–1378) intéressant les pays autres que la France, 3: 28, no. 3911.
109 Carr, Merchant Crusaders, 115.
110 Ibid., 118.
111 Anthony Luttrell, ‘Popes and Crusades: 1362–1394’, in Genèse et débuts du Grand Schisme d’occident. Colloques internationaux du C.N.R.S. No. 586. Avignon 25–28 septembre 1978, ed. Jean Favier (Paris, 1980): 580–3.
112 For the results of this enquiry concerning the priories of France, see Anne-Marie Legras, L’enquête pontificale de 1373 sur l’Ordre des Hospitaliers de Saint-Jean de Jérusalem. Volume I. L’enquête dans le prieuré de France (Paris, 1987).
113 Indeed, in 1373 the Genoese offered the availability of two galleys for an expedition, in response to the pope’s request of 28 June: Ibid, 22.
114 Norman Housley, ‘The Mercenary Companies, the Papacy, and the Crusades, 1356–1378’, Traditio 38 (1982): 253–80.
115 Ibid, 275–77.
116 The letter to John Hawkwood is in: Viglione, ‘ … Rizzate el gonfalone della Santissima Croce’, 122–3.
117 On this theme: Lombardo, La Croce dei Mercanti, passim.
118 Some scholars proposed this interpretation, insisting that the place of Jerusalem and the crusade, in the collective Western imagination, was progressively replaced by the possibilities of ‘domestic pilgrimages’, also thanks to the Jubilees and the local reproductions of the Holy Places. The Italian bibliography on this theme is quite interesting. Cf. Franco Cardini, ‘L'eclisse di Gerusalemme: fallimento della crociata in Terrasanta, nascita del giubileo’, in La Storia dei Giubilei, 4 vols. (Rome-Florence, 1997–2000), 1: 56–69; Come a Gerusalemme. Evocazioni, riproduzioni, imitazioni dei luoghi santi tra Medioevo ed Età Moderna, ed. Anna Benvenuti and Pierantonio Piatti (Florence, 2013).
119 The defeat of Nicopolis actively involved private Genoese (and Venetians to a lesser extent) as intermediaries for the ransom of the French noblemen taken prisoner by the Turks. On this question, see: Christopher Wright, ‘An Investment in Goodwill: Financing the Ransom of the Leaders of the Crusade of Nikopolis’, Viator 45/3 (2014): 261–97. Also: László Veszprémy, ‘Some Remarks on Recent Historiography of the Crusade of Nicopolis (1396)’, in The Crusades and the Military Orders: Expanding the Frontiers of Medieval Latin Christianity. In memoriam Sir Steven Runciman (1903 - 2000), ed. Zsolt Hunyadi and József Laszlovszky (Budapest, 2001), 223–30.
120 Cardini, ‘La crociata mito politico’, 209.
121 Ibid., 210; Jiří Špička, ‘Petrarca e il suo sogno dell’Oriente’, in Oriente e Occidente nel Rinascimento. Atti del XIX Convegno Internazionale (Chianciano Terme-Pienza 16–19 luglio 2007), ed. Luisa Secchi Tarugi (Florence, 2009), 251–4; Simone Lombardo, La crociata dopo la peste. Metamorfosi di un’idea (secolo XIV) (Milan, 2023), 181–91.
122 On this theme: Marco Pellegrini, La crociata nel Rinascimento. Mutazioni di un mito 1400–1600 (Florence, 2014); The Crusade in the Fifteenth Century. Converging and Competing Cultures, ed. Norman Housley (London-New York, 2017); Reconfiguring the Fifteenth-Century Crusade, ed. Norman Housley (London, 2017).