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FROM THE BOSPHORUS TO KHURASAN: THE TURKISH DOMINATION OF ASIA IN THE PERCEPTION OF THE CHRONICLERS OF THE FIRST CRUSADE

Year 2018, Issue: 8, 82 - 98, 09.10.2018

Abstract

Recent writing on the crusades has emphasised how much the military success of the First Crusade (1096-1099) owed to political and religious divisions within the Islamic world, which prevented any united Muslim response. Yet given the implacable rivalries between the Great Seljuk sultanate and its claim to leadership of the Sunnī world, and the Shī‘ite caliphate of Egypt, one might well question whether any co-operation between them could have been reasonably expected. Much more significant was the lack of significant co-operation between the different Turkish powers. The Seljuks of Rūm, the Danishmendids, and the Artuqids had become independent powers, while the Seljuk sub-kingdoms and emirates of Aleppo, Damascus and Antioch had a high degree of autonomy from their nominal masters in Persia. Yet apart from the Seljuk heartlands of western Persia, and areas of significant Türkmen immigration, such as the Anatolian highlands and the Jazira, the Turks constituted a small military elite ruling over majority populations of Arabs, Greeks, and Armenians.

Whereas some modern writing on the crusades claims that Westerners made few real distinctions between different Muslim groups, key sources show that the crusader leadership had a clear perception of the Turks as a distinct ethnic group separate from their subject populations. Drawing on the evidence of the Gesta Francorum, Fulcher of Chartres, Raymond of Aguilers, and Albert of Aachen, this paper will argue that, in contrast to the historical reality of political fragmentation, Western narrative sources present a picture of a powerful and unified Turkish world which extended from the Rūm-Byzantine borderlands to the original Seljuk homelands in Central Asia. In particular, the mysterious land of Corrozana (the Latin name for the historical Khūrasan) figures in chronicles as the epicentre of this empire, a constant source of military reinforcements and a place to which Christian captives are sent. It is argued that the crusaders’ perception of a vast, united Turkish world derived from an awareness of the Turks as a conquering military elite, whose organisation and training ensured an effectiveness out of all proportion to their numbers. By the second half of the twelfth century the Franks even produced a history of the Turks which recorded their conquests from Khūrasan to the Levant. Written in the style of Western origin myths, this history thus gives the Turks a similar status to historic Western peoples such as Trojans, Goths, Normans and Scandinavians. It is a further indication of the mixture of fear and admiration with which the early crusaders viewed their Turkish opponents

References

  • PRIMARY SOURCES
  • Albert of Aachen, Historia Ierosolimitana: History of the Journey to Jerusalem, ed. and trans. Susan B. Edgington, 2 vols (Oxford, 2007)
  • Baldric of Dol, ‘Baldrici episcopi Dolensis Historia Jerosolimitana’, in Recueil des Historiens des Croisades: Historiens Occidentaux, ed. Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres, 5 vols (Paris, 1841-1906), 4: 1-111.
  • Chanson d’Antioche, ed. Suzanne Duparc-Quioc (Paris, 1976).
  • Fulcheri Carnotensis Historia Hierosolymitana, ed. Heinrich Hagenmeyer (Heidelberg, 1913)
  • Gesta Francorum et aliorum Hierosolimitanorum: The Deeds of the Franks and the Other Pilgrims to Jerusalem, ed. and trans. Rosalind Hill (London, 1962)
  • Peter Tudebode, ‘Petri Tudebodi seu Tudebovis, sacerdotis Sivracensis, Historia de Hierosolymitano itinere’, in Recueil des Historiens des Croisades: Historiens Occidentaux, ed. Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres, 5 vols (Paris, 1841-1906), 3: 1-117
  • Raymond of Aguilers, ‘Raimundi de Aguilers canonici Podiensis historia Francorum qui ceperunt Iherusalem’, in Recueil des Historiens des Croisades: Historiens Occidentaux, ed. Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres, 5 vols (Paris, 1841-1906), 3: 231-309.
  • William of Tyre, Chronicon, ed. R. B. C. Huygens, 2 vols (Turnhout, 1986)
  • SECONDARY SOURCES
  • Agadshanow, Sergei, Der Staat der Seldschukiden und Mittelasien im 11.-12. Jahrhundert (Berlin, 1994)
  • Bennett, Matthew, ‘First Crusaders’ Images of Muslims: The Influence of Vernacular Poetry?’, Forum for Modern Language Studies 22 (1986), 101-22
  • Cahen, Claude, Pre-Ottoman Turkey: A General Survey of the Material and Spiritual Culture and History c. 1071-1330 (London, 1968)
  • Cambridge History of Iran, 5: The Saljuq and Mongol Periods, ed. J. A. Boyle (Cambridge, 1968)
  • Cowdrey, H. E. John, ‘Pope Urban II’s Preaching of the First Crusade’, History 55 (1970), 177-88
  • Dajani-Shakeel, Hadia, ‘Diplomatic Relations between Muslim and Frankish Rulers 1097-1153 A.D.’, in Crusaders and Muslims in Twelfth-Century Syria, ed. Maya Shatzmiller (Leiden, 1993), pp. 190-215
  • Edbury, Peter W., and John Gordon Rowe, William of Tyre: Historian of the Latin East (Cambridge, 1988).
  • Flori, Jean, La Guerre sainte: La Formation de l’idée de croisade dans l’Occident chrétien (Paris, 2001)
  • Forse, James H., ‘Armenians and the First Crusade’, Journal of Medieval History 17 (1991), 13-22
  • France, John, Victory in the East: A Military History of the First Crusade (Cambridge, 1994
  • Graus, František, ‘Troja und trojanische Herkunftssagen im Mittelalter’, in Kontinuität und Transformation der Antike im Mittelalter, ed. Willi Erzgräber (Sigmaringen, 1989), pp. 25-43
  • Hillenbrand, Carole, ‘1092: A Murderous Year’, The Arabist: Budapest Studies in Arabic 15-16 (1995), 281-96;
  • Hillenbrand, Carole, ‘The First Crusade: The Muslim Perspective’, in The First Crusade: Origins and Impact, ed. Jonathan Phillips (Manchester, 1997), pp. 130-41.
  • Hillenbrand, Carole, A Muslim Principality in Crusader Times (Leiden, 1990).
  • Hillenbrand, Carole, The Crusades: Islamic Perspectives (Edinburgh, 1999) Kangas, Sini, ‘Inimicus Dei et sanctae Christianitatis? Saracens and Their
  • Prophet in Twelfth-Century Crusade Propaganda and Western Travesties of Muhammad’s Life’, in The Crusades and the Near East, ed. Conor Kostick (London, 2011), pp. 131-60.
  • MacEvitt, Christopher, The Crusades and the Christian World of the East: Rough Tolerance (Philadelphia, 2007).
  • Morgan, David, Medieval Persia, 1040-1797 (London, 1988)
  • Munro, Dana C., ‘The Speech of Pope Urban II at Clermont, 1095’, American Historical Review 11 (1906), 231-42
  • Murray, Alan V., ‘Franks and Indigenous Communities in Palestine and Syria (1099-1187): A Hierarchical Model of Social Interaction in the Principalities of Outremer’, in East Meets West in the Middle Ages and Early Modern Time: Transcultural Experiences in the Premodern World, ed. Albrecht Classen (Berlin, 2013), pp. 291-309.
  • Murray, Alan V., ‘The Siege and Capture of Jerusalem in Western Narrative Sources of the First Crusade’, in Jerusalem the Golden: The Origins and Impact of the First Crusade, ed. Susan B. Edgington and Luis García-Guijarro (Turnhout, 2014), pp. 191-215.
  • Peacock, A. C. S., The Great Seljuk Empire (Edinburgh, 2015)
  • Riley-Smith, Jonathan, The Crusades: A History, 2nd edn (London, 2005)
  • Tolan, John V., Saracens: Islam in the Medieval European Imagination (New York, 2002)
  • Wolfram, Herwig, ‘Le genre de l’origo gentis’, Revue belge de philologie et d’histoire 68 (1990), 789-801

FROM THE BOSPHORUS TO KHURASAN: THE TURKISH DOMINATION OF ASIA IN THE PERCEPTION OF THE CHRONICLERS OF THE FIRST CRUSADE

Year 2018, Issue: 8, 82 - 98, 09.10.2018

Abstract

Yakın dönemde Haçlı Seferleri üzerine yapılan çalışmalarda Birinci Haçlı Seferi’nin (1096-1099) askeri başarısında Müslümanların birlikte hareket etmesinin önüne geçen İslam dünyasındaki siyasi ve dini bölünmelerin ne denli önemli olduğu vurgulanmaktadır. Ne var ki, Büyük Selçuklu Devleti’nin Sünni dünyasında liderlik iddiası ile Mısır’daki Şii Halifelik arasındaki amansız rekabet göz önüne alındığında, aralarında herhangi bir işbirliği olmasını beklemenin makul olup olmadığı tartışılır. Ancak bundan daha da önemlisi, farklı Türk güçleri arasında belirgin bir işbirliği olmamasıydı. Selçukluların Halep, Şam ve Antakya’daki eyaletleri İran’daki sözde yöneticilerinden yüksek ölçüde özerklik elde etmiş, Anadolu Selçukluları, Danişmendliler ve Artuklular bağımsız birer güç haline gelmişti. Ne var ki, Selçukluların İran’ın batısındaki merkezi ile Anadolu yaylaları ve Cezire gibi çok sayıda Türkmen göçmenin bulunduğu bölgeler dışında Türkler, Arap, Yunan ve Ermenilerden oluşan çoğunluk topluluklarını yöneten küçük, askeri bir elit kesimi teşkil ediyordu.
Haçlı Seferleri hakkındaki bazı modern çalışmalarda, Batılıların farklı Müslüman grupları arasında gerçekte pek ayrım yapmadığı iddia edilmesine rağmen, konuya ilişkin ana kaynaklar Haçlı liderlerinin Türkleri yönettikleri topluluklardan ayrı, müstakil bir etnik grup olarak algıladıklarını göstermektedir. Gesta Francorum ile Chartres’lı Fulcherus, Aguilers’li Raimundus ve Aachen’lı Albertus’un eserlerindeki kanıtlara dayanarak, bu tebliğde, Batılı yazılı kaynaklarda, siyasi parçalanmanın tarihsel gerçekliğinin aksine, Anadolu Selçukluları ile Bizans arasındaki sınırdan Büyük Selçukluların Orta Asya’daki vatanına uzanan güçlü ve birleşik bir Türk dünyası ortaya koyulduğu iddia edilmektedir. Vakayinamelerde, özellikle gizemli Corrozana (tarihsel Horasan kentinin Latince adı) bu imparatorluğun merkez üssü olarak yer almakta; Horasan’dan sabit askeri takviye kaynağı ve Hristiyan tutsakların gönderildiği yer olarak bahsedilmektedir. Haçlıların engin ve birleşik Türk dünyası algısının ardında ise sayıca az olmalarına rağmen örgütlenmeleri ve eğitimleri sayesinde beklenmedik bir etkinlik gösteren Türklerin Haçlılar tarafından fetheden, askeri bir elit olarak görülmelerinin yattığı ileri sürülmektedir. On ikinci yüzyılın ikinci yarısında Franklar tarafından Horasan’dan Levant’a Türklerin fetihlerini kayıt altına alan bir Türk tarihi dahi kaleme alınmıştır. Batının köken efsaneleri tarzında yazılan bu tarihi anlatı, böylelikle Türklere Troyalılar, Gotlar, Normanlar ve İskandinavlar gibi tarihsel Batılı halklarınkine benzer bir statü vermektedir. Bu da, erken dönem Haçlıların Türk hasımlarına karşı duyduğu korku ve hayranlık karışımının bir diğer göstergesidir.

References

  • PRIMARY SOURCES
  • Albert of Aachen, Historia Ierosolimitana: History of the Journey to Jerusalem, ed. and trans. Susan B. Edgington, 2 vols (Oxford, 2007)
  • Baldric of Dol, ‘Baldrici episcopi Dolensis Historia Jerosolimitana’, in Recueil des Historiens des Croisades: Historiens Occidentaux, ed. Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres, 5 vols (Paris, 1841-1906), 4: 1-111.
  • Chanson d’Antioche, ed. Suzanne Duparc-Quioc (Paris, 1976).
  • Fulcheri Carnotensis Historia Hierosolymitana, ed. Heinrich Hagenmeyer (Heidelberg, 1913)
  • Gesta Francorum et aliorum Hierosolimitanorum: The Deeds of the Franks and the Other Pilgrims to Jerusalem, ed. and trans. Rosalind Hill (London, 1962)
  • Peter Tudebode, ‘Petri Tudebodi seu Tudebovis, sacerdotis Sivracensis, Historia de Hierosolymitano itinere’, in Recueil des Historiens des Croisades: Historiens Occidentaux, ed. Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres, 5 vols (Paris, 1841-1906), 3: 1-117
  • Raymond of Aguilers, ‘Raimundi de Aguilers canonici Podiensis historia Francorum qui ceperunt Iherusalem’, in Recueil des Historiens des Croisades: Historiens Occidentaux, ed. Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres, 5 vols (Paris, 1841-1906), 3: 231-309.
  • William of Tyre, Chronicon, ed. R. B. C. Huygens, 2 vols (Turnhout, 1986)
  • SECONDARY SOURCES
  • Agadshanow, Sergei, Der Staat der Seldschukiden und Mittelasien im 11.-12. Jahrhundert (Berlin, 1994)
  • Bennett, Matthew, ‘First Crusaders’ Images of Muslims: The Influence of Vernacular Poetry?’, Forum for Modern Language Studies 22 (1986), 101-22
  • Cahen, Claude, Pre-Ottoman Turkey: A General Survey of the Material and Spiritual Culture and History c. 1071-1330 (London, 1968)
  • Cambridge History of Iran, 5: The Saljuq and Mongol Periods, ed. J. A. Boyle (Cambridge, 1968)
  • Cowdrey, H. E. John, ‘Pope Urban II’s Preaching of the First Crusade’, History 55 (1970), 177-88
  • Dajani-Shakeel, Hadia, ‘Diplomatic Relations between Muslim and Frankish Rulers 1097-1153 A.D.’, in Crusaders and Muslims in Twelfth-Century Syria, ed. Maya Shatzmiller (Leiden, 1993), pp. 190-215
  • Edbury, Peter W., and John Gordon Rowe, William of Tyre: Historian of the Latin East (Cambridge, 1988).
  • Flori, Jean, La Guerre sainte: La Formation de l’idée de croisade dans l’Occident chrétien (Paris, 2001)
  • Forse, James H., ‘Armenians and the First Crusade’, Journal of Medieval History 17 (1991), 13-22
  • France, John, Victory in the East: A Military History of the First Crusade (Cambridge, 1994
  • Graus, František, ‘Troja und trojanische Herkunftssagen im Mittelalter’, in Kontinuität und Transformation der Antike im Mittelalter, ed. Willi Erzgräber (Sigmaringen, 1989), pp. 25-43
  • Hillenbrand, Carole, ‘1092: A Murderous Year’, The Arabist: Budapest Studies in Arabic 15-16 (1995), 281-96;
  • Hillenbrand, Carole, ‘The First Crusade: The Muslim Perspective’, in The First Crusade: Origins and Impact, ed. Jonathan Phillips (Manchester, 1997), pp. 130-41.
  • Hillenbrand, Carole, A Muslim Principality in Crusader Times (Leiden, 1990).
  • Hillenbrand, Carole, The Crusades: Islamic Perspectives (Edinburgh, 1999) Kangas, Sini, ‘Inimicus Dei et sanctae Christianitatis? Saracens and Their
  • Prophet in Twelfth-Century Crusade Propaganda and Western Travesties of Muhammad’s Life’, in The Crusades and the Near East, ed. Conor Kostick (London, 2011), pp. 131-60.
  • MacEvitt, Christopher, The Crusades and the Christian World of the East: Rough Tolerance (Philadelphia, 2007).
  • Morgan, David, Medieval Persia, 1040-1797 (London, 1988)
  • Munro, Dana C., ‘The Speech of Pope Urban II at Clermont, 1095’, American Historical Review 11 (1906), 231-42
  • Murray, Alan V., ‘Franks and Indigenous Communities in Palestine and Syria (1099-1187): A Hierarchical Model of Social Interaction in the Principalities of Outremer’, in East Meets West in the Middle Ages and Early Modern Time: Transcultural Experiences in the Premodern World, ed. Albrecht Classen (Berlin, 2013), pp. 291-309.
  • Murray, Alan V., ‘The Siege and Capture of Jerusalem in Western Narrative Sources of the First Crusade’, in Jerusalem the Golden: The Origins and Impact of the First Crusade, ed. Susan B. Edgington and Luis García-Guijarro (Turnhout, 2014), pp. 191-215.
  • Peacock, A. C. S., The Great Seljuk Empire (Edinburgh, 2015)
  • Riley-Smith, Jonathan, The Crusades: A History, 2nd edn (London, 2005)
  • Tolan, John V., Saracens: Islam in the Medieval European Imagination (New York, 2002)
  • Wolfram, Herwig, ‘Le genre de l’origo gentis’, Revue belge de philologie et d’histoire 68 (1990), 789-801
There are 35 citations in total.

Details

Primary Language English
Journal Section Articles
Authors

Alan V. Murray This is me

Publication Date October 9, 2018
Published in Issue Year 2018 Issue: 8

Cite

APA Murray, A. V. (2018). FROM THE BOSPHORUS TO KHURASAN: THE TURKISH DOMINATION OF ASIA IN THE PERCEPTION OF THE CHRONICLERS OF THE FIRST CRUSADE. Selçuk Üniversitesi Selçuklu Araştırmaları Dergisi(8), 82-98.
AMA Murray AV. FROM THE BOSPHORUS TO KHURASAN: THE TURKISH DOMINATION OF ASIA IN THE PERCEPTION OF THE CHRONICLERS OF THE FIRST CRUSADE. usad. October 2018;(8):82-98.
Chicago Murray, Alan V. “FROM THE BOSPHORUS TO KHURASAN: THE TURKISH DOMINATION OF ASIA IN THE PERCEPTION OF THE CHRONICLERS OF THE FIRST CRUSADE”. Selçuk Üniversitesi Selçuklu Araştırmaları Dergisi, no. 8 (October 2018): 82-98.
EndNote Murray AV (October 1, 2018) FROM THE BOSPHORUS TO KHURASAN: THE TURKISH DOMINATION OF ASIA IN THE PERCEPTION OF THE CHRONICLERS OF THE FIRST CRUSADE. Selçuk Üniversitesi Selçuklu Araştırmaları Dergisi 8 82–98.
IEEE A. V. Murray, “FROM THE BOSPHORUS TO KHURASAN: THE TURKISH DOMINATION OF ASIA IN THE PERCEPTION OF THE CHRONICLERS OF THE FIRST CRUSADE”, usad, no. 8, pp. 82–98, October 2018.
ISNAD Murray, Alan V. “FROM THE BOSPHORUS TO KHURASAN: THE TURKISH DOMINATION OF ASIA IN THE PERCEPTION OF THE CHRONICLERS OF THE FIRST CRUSADE”. Selçuk Üniversitesi Selçuklu Araştırmaları Dergisi 8 (October 2018), 82-98.
JAMA Murray AV. FROM THE BOSPHORUS TO KHURASAN: THE TURKISH DOMINATION OF ASIA IN THE PERCEPTION OF THE CHRONICLERS OF THE FIRST CRUSADE. usad. 2018;:82–98.
MLA Murray, Alan V. “FROM THE BOSPHORUS TO KHURASAN: THE TURKISH DOMINATION OF ASIA IN THE PERCEPTION OF THE CHRONICLERS OF THE FIRST CRUSADE”. Selçuk Üniversitesi Selçuklu Araştırmaları Dergisi, no. 8, 2018, pp. 82-98.
Vancouver Murray AV. FROM THE BOSPHORUS TO KHURASAN: THE TURKISH DOMINATION OF ASIA IN THE PERCEPTION OF THE CHRONICLERS OF THE FIRST CRUSADE. usad. 2018(8):82-98.

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