5 - Political Exigencies and Gregory’s Crusade

Summary

Gregory’s Crusading Priorities

There is no way of knowing with absolute certainty what Gregory’s crusading priorities would have been had he been forced to deal with, say, the Cathar heresy, or a hostile Holy Roman emperor, as other popes had before him. These conflicts had taken equal footing with the Holy Land in the past, and had more than once absorbed the efforts of the papacy. But they were not current issues in Gregory’s time. However, there had been other substantial theatres for crusade that had taken up significant resources and time: crusades against the Byzantines, crusades against ‘pagans,’ and the Iberian reconquest. These continued to confront the papacy during Gregory’s time. At least in these cases, one may see how Gregory aligned his crusading priorities. The traditional position on this has been that Gregory was wholly devoted to the Holy Land crusade.

Gregory devoted so much energy to organising aid for the Holy Land during his papacy that it would seem at first glance that he had neither the interest nor the time for crusading anywhere else. Indeed, when pressed by Bruno of Olomouc to direct the crusade towards the pagans of north-eastern Europe (ostensibly because it would benefit his patron, King Ottokar of Bohemia), Gregory responded unfavourably. Direct evidence is lacking on the pope’s response, but given the direction of Gregory’s crusading efforts, it seems reasonable for Throop to point out that Bruno’s motives behind his recommendation for crusading in the northeast ‘must have left Gregory X unmoved in his determination to put the welfare of the Holy Land above all other considerations.’ Gregory was also not in favour of a new crusade against the Byzantines, given his work at reconciliation with Emperor Michael Palaeologus and the Greek Church. With the denial of crusade in the northeast, and the negotiations with the Greeks taking priority over Charles’ crusading hopes, Gregory had limited the crusading options in favour of that to the Holy Land.

On the surface, it would also seem that Gregory did not have much time or interest for the crusade in Iberia. This notion is supported by the fact that there are no extant letters from the early part of his reign in which he even mentioned crusading in Iberia.