Chapter 8 Schismatics and Crusaders: Innocent ii’s Condemnation of John Comnenus in the History of Byzantine and Papal Relations with Latin Antioch

Richard Allington

The crusader capture of Jerusalem in 1099 was a euphoric event for medieval Christians, a miraculous victory over the enemies of Christ and his Church. Understandings of the meaning and implications of this victory, however, were highly contested and differed significantly across Byzantine, crusading, and papal circles. This confusion exacerbated existing divisions and contributed to further disunity and suspicion. The popes, and their Latin supporters, saw the miraculous success of the First Crusade, against seemingly overwhelming odds, as divine benediction of the reformers’ concept of independent papal leadership of Christendom, now harnessed to the medieval desire for pious chivalry. The success of the crusade vindicated the popes’ authority to lead armies in defense of Christianity, in- dependent of secular authority, now extended in a special way to the Levant and the Holy Land. Yet in calling the crusade, Urban ii (1088–1099), had also been motivated by a desire to aid the embattled Byzantine Empire in response to Emperor Alexius Comnenus’ (1081–1118) pleas for assistance. The success of the crusade and such cooperation as was achieved between the Byzantines and the crusaders in this endeavor suggested the possibility that the reform- ers in the West might continue to extend papal influence and achieve closer union with Greek Christians by providing military support for the Byzantine Empire.1 Although Urban’s successors and Alexius along with his successor John (1118–1143) did work more closely together, they did so in pursuit of different overarching goals. The Byzantines did not view the triumph of the crusade

1 Henry Chadwick, East and West: The Making of a Rift in the Church; from Apostolic Times until the Council of Florence (Oxford, 2003), 220; Peter Frankopan, The First Crusade: The Call from the East (Cambridge, MA, 2016). Steven Runciman, The Eastern Schism (Oxford, 1955), 55–105; Paul Magdalino, “The Medieval Empire (780–1204),” in The Oxford History of Byzantium, ed. Cyril Mango (Oxford, 2002), 189; Joan Hussey, The Orthodox Church and the Byzantine Empire (Oxford, 1986), 148–168.

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220 Allington as a mandate for the extension of papal authority throughout the Christian world, but rather the action of rogue mercenaries that could help restore the Byzantine territories captured during earlier Islamic invasions.2 Their differ- ent understanding of the crusades meant that while relatively amicable rela- tions between the papacy and the Byzantine Empire persisted for almost forty years following the capture of Jerusalem, the territorial legacy of the crusade, Latin principalities in Syria and Palestine, especially the ancient and holy city of Antioch, were a consistent stumbling block to fuller union. Once Byzantine efforts to restore the Empire turned to the Levant, papal and imperial agendas would be opposed. This fundamental opposition was revealed in 1137 when the Byzantine em- peror John Comnenus attacked the crusader principality of Antioch. The next spring, on 28 March, Pope Innocent ii (1130–1143) dispatched a letter to the Latin mercenaries serving in John’s army. The pope’s letter, preserved in the Holy Sepulcher cartulary, condemned the Emperor as a schismatic, referred to him as king rather than emperor, and ordered John’s Latin soldiers to remove themselves from the imperial army under pain of damnation, a pain the pope also predicted the emperor would also suffer, if he continued to attack the Cru- sader States.3 Innocent’s letter and John’s attack on Antioch revealed that de- spite temporary compatibility, the Byzantine revival and papal reform agendas that emerged in the medieval Mediterranean in response to the First Crusade were fundamentally opposed. Reactions to this letter would continue to influ- ence the subsequent deterioration in papal-Byzantine relations, manifest in the campaigns of the Second Crusade.

2 Nicetas Choniates, O City of Byzantium: Annals of Nicetas Choniates, trans. Harry I. Magoulias (Detroit, 1984), 14; Ralph-Johannes Lilie, Byzantium and the Crusader States, trans. Jean E. Ridings (Oxford, 1988), 123. Jonathan Harris, Byzantium and the Crusades (London, 2003), 56. 3 Rudolf Hiestand, Papsturkunden fur Kirchen im Heiligen Lande (Gottingen, 1985), no. 49, 168–169, 28 March 1138: “Universis dei fidelibus Latinis qui sunt in exercitu regis Constantino- politani vel in terra sua habitant salute … Nunc autem sicut accepimus, rex Constantinopoli- tanus, qui se ab unitate ecclesie dividit et … inobediens est, Antiocham ceterasque proximas civitates nititur occupare et sue dominationi subjacere. Quia igitur nostrum est cunctos fi- deles ad sinum matris sue ecclesie recolligere et ab illicitis prohibere, universitatem vestram rogamus, monemus atque precipimus, et in peccatorum remissionem iniungimus quatinus , si prefatus rex iam dictam Antiocham vel alia loca que fideles Christiani possident occupare vel impugnare presumpserit, vos ab ipsius societate et servizio omnimodis subtrahitis ne in iam presumptuosa invasione opem ei et consilium prebeatis alioquin dampnationis sue vos noveritis esse particeps”; Lilie, Byzantium and the Crusader States, 131; Ian S. Robinson, The Papacy 1073–1198: Continuity and Innovation (New York, 1990), 182–183.