THE PERCEPTIONS OF BYZANTINE AND CRUSADERS IN THE EARLY CRUSADES
İLK HAÇLI SEFERLERİ SIRASINDA BİZANS VE HAÇLILARIN BİRBİRLERİNE İLİŞKİN ALGILARI

Author : Songül DUMLUPINAR ALİCAN
Number of pages : 510-523

Abstract

Although there were many reasons for the Crusades, one of the most important of these was that the Byzantine State, which was constantly pressed by Pechenegs, Seljuks and Çaka Principality (1081-1093), requested assistance from the West. When the Byzantines asked for help from the West, they thought that they could use the Crusaders as mercenaries, that they could take back the lands they had lost against the Seljuks and then the Crusaders would return to their countries. But the process did not work that way. The Crusaders came to Anatolia not only to help the Byzantines but to settle by conquering new lands. As a matter of fact, the Crusader states established after the First Crusade were the most obvious indication of these intentions of the Crusaders. On the other hand, the problem with the Crusaders was not limited to this. They turned their places into a pile of fire and ash, causing great unrest in the Balkans. Consequently, the Byzantines revised the idea of acting with the Crusaders and refused to help them during the Second and Third Crusades. In fact, the historical data that we have shows that the Byzantines sent them to the steep routes with the guidance service they offered to the Crusaders and threw them before the Turkmens in Anatolia. It can be said that this naturally re-shaped the perceptions of Crusaders about Byzantium. In this paper, the transformation of this perception will be discussed.

Keywords

Crusaders, Byzatines, Turkomans, Cusades, Anatolia, Perception.

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