“Europe” and the First Crusade

Abstract

The great restructuring of power in the Christian west at the beginning of the second millenium did not change the meanings of the notion of Europe as inherited from the two previous centuries. That transformation of power, rather, brought forth other concepts describing the unity of western Christians, thus marginalizing Europe as a notion in which, at least in retrospect, we can see a potential bearer of collective identity. Foremost among those new unitary concepts was Christendom - a concept whose formation and triumph were closely linked with the rise of the papal monarchy and the launching of the First Crusade as the pope's own war. By analyzing eleventh-century sources and literature connected with the First Crusade, the author shows how remote from practical and spiritual obsessions of the time was the notion of Europe. Its use, either as an uninvolving geographical concept or in reference to the legend of Japheth and the ancient myth, was inspired by literary conventions rather than by any mundane need or interest.