The Crusades, the Genoese and the Latin East - DSpace at ...

success, especially with the women of Genoa. Interestingly, there is evidence also in the wills of
several women from that year and the clear testimony of one of them to have planned to go on the
passagio de Ultramare herself. 267
This evidence, coupled with data from the other travelling acts
from 1216, enables one to determine that the Genoese had cooperated with the crusading plans
and suspended their commerce with Egypt.
Christian captives and the reasons for the crusade
Innocent's bull from 1213 begins with the famous sentence: `Quia major nunc instal necessitas
quam umquam insliterit, ut terrae sanctae necessitatibus succurralur... ' Two years later, in 1215,
the letter was followed by the ecclesiastical decree, which started with an enthusiastic war cry: Ad
liberandam Terram sanctam
The liberation of the Holy Land and especially of Jerusalem were the obvious goals of
many crusades after 1187. James Powell observed that Innocent did not mention the liberation of
Jerusalem in his letter. Powell argued that the Fifth Crusade was for Innocent not just about the
liberation of Jerusalem, but `an operation to save the Latin Kingdom from total extinction. 9268 The
second and supposedly central reason in Innocent's view was the need to liberate the thousands of
captives who were languishing in Muslim prisons.
sicut se ipsum, qui scit fratres suos, fide ac nomine christianos apud perfidos . Sarracenos
ergastulo diri carceris detineri ac iugo deprimi gravissime servitutis, et ad liberationem
eorum efficacem operam non impendit, transgrediendo illius naturalis legis mandatum.
Later in the text Innocent asks: `An forte nescitis, quod apud illos mu/ta mi/ia
christianorum in servitute ac carcere detinentur, qui tormentis innumeris cruciantur? ' [my
emphasis]
269
Were there really thousands of Christians in Muslim captivity in 1213? When were they
taken captive? Were there prisoners from the time of Ilattin and the Third Crusade still kept in
Muslim captivity? Moreover, assuming there were many Christian captives and prisoners in
Alexandria, was that an adequate reason in contemporary eyes to engage in war and to embark on
a crusade?
A recent study by Yvonne Friedman on captivity and ransoming in the Latin kingdom of
Jerusalem suggested that liberating captive crusaders or their ransoming had not always been a
priority in western Europe or in the crusading states. `Captives were not a main consideration in
267 Lanfranco 1216, no. 1319, from 21 December 1216. Montanaria, the wife of Martino de Mari, specified
in her bequest: s100 lego in servitio passagi ultramarine si non iero, si autem iero illos mecum portabo. See
more about it in the following pages.
268
James M. Powell, Anatomy of a Crusade: 1213-1221 (Philadelphia, 1986), p. 19.
269
`Qula maior', p. 90.
84