Financing and Supplying Crusading Armies: How Campaigns Were Raised and Provisioned

From the First Crusade at the end of the eleventh century to the campaigns of Louis IX in the thirteenth, raising an army meant assembling money and supplies from many different sources. There was no single treasury or standard method. Participants and their families financed much of the early expense themselves; rulers and lords later called on their subjects, while the papacy developed taxes and organised collections. Italian maritime cities carried people, horses and provisions in return for payment or commercial privileges. The examples here focus on expeditions to the eastern Mediterranean, where long routes and distant battlefields made the movement of resources as important as their collection.

Funding did not stop when a force set out. Armies needed food along the route, ships or safe passage, replacement equipment and supplies for sieges. The arrangements varied from one campaign to another, and the money promised could fail to arrive in time or in full. A shortage at one stage could alter a campaign’s route, weaken its forces or leave commanders dependent on local markets and political agreements.

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Personal wealth, loans and land pledges

For the First Crusade, participants were expected to meet the cost of their own journey. Travel, equipment and the long absence from home made the undertaking expensive. A knight’s participation could cost the equivalent of several years of income. Some participants sold possessions or land; others borrowed money or received donations. Land could also be pledged to a monastery to raise funds. Such arrangements turned family property into resources for a campaign, but could leave households bearing the consequences of a prolonged absence or financial difficulty.

Those unable to finance an expedition on their own could join a noble’s retinue. This gave less wealthy participants a way to travel with a larger force, while the lord or other members of the retinue supplied some of the organisation and resources. In the twelfth century, lords also began requiring financial or military aid from their vassals, the subordinate landholders bound to them by obligations of service. Fundraising thus increasingly involved relationships within a lord’s territory as well as the resources of individual crusaders.

Royal and ecclesiastical taxes

Rulers used levies to raise money for the defence of the crusader states and for new expeditions. French kings imposed contributions in 1166, 1183 and 1185, assessed at one or two deniers per livre of property. Deniers were small monetary units; a livre was a larger unit used for reckoning sums. In 1188, France and England introduced the levy known as the Saladin tithe: ten per cent of income and movable property. Unlike the earlier contributions, this was a substantial tax on both earnings and goods, raised in response to the threat posed by Saladin.

From the end of the twelfth century, the papacy also made taxation of church revenues a regular part of crusade finance. In 1199, Pope Innocent III imposed a levy of one-fortieth, or 2.5 per cent, of clerical income for the Fourth Crusade, with a higher contribution from cardinals. The Fourth Lateran Council of 1215 set a levy of one-twentieth, or five per cent, of church revenues for three years to support the Fifth Crusade.

Church taxes were only one part of papal finance. In the Fifth Crusade, Innocent III also pledged 30,000 pounds in papal funds. Papal representatives supervised the collection of taxes and other funds, including legacies and donations. The church also encouraged people unable to travel to contribute money. An indulgence, a spiritual benefit that reduced prescribed penance, could be granted to donors who helped finance a campaign. At the Fourth Lateran Council, this benefit was extended to those who contributed to the construction of ships. Such measures made crusade finance a responsibility not limited to the people who fought.

Later campaigns continued to combine different sources. The plans for the Eighth Crusade included a three-year levy on clerical income, legacies and payments made in connection with crusading indulgences and the redemption of vows. Louis IX also supported vassals who joined him with gifts and loans. These examples show how crown, church and household finance could overlap, rather than being separate systems.

Hiring ships and negotiating passage

Sea transport required agreements made well before departure. For the Third Crusade, Genoa undertook to carry forces for Philip II of France, including 650 knights, 1,300 squires, a corresponding number of horses and provisions. A contract of this kind converted a ruler’s military plans into a shipping requirement: the carrier had to provide enough vessels and supplies for a specified force, while the crusaders had to meet the agreed cost.

The Fourth Crusade shows the risks of a large contract. Its leaders agreed that Venice would prepare a fleet to transport 33,500 people to the eastern Mediterranean. The Venetians spent a year preparing ships and crews, while the contract required them to restrict some of their ordinary commercial activity. Far fewer crusaders gathered at Venice than expected, in part because some travelled from other ports or did not fulfil their vows. The assembled force could not pay the full agreed sum.

The resulting debt became a political and military problem. The Venetian doge, Enrico Dandolo, proposed that the crusaders recover part of the cost by attacking Zara, now Zadar in Croatia, a Christian city on the Adriatic under the protection of the king of Hungary. The army captured the city in 1202 despite papal objections. It later diverted to Constantinople after the exiled Byzantine prince Alexios offered money and military support. His promises were not fully met, and the crusaders ultimately captured and plundered the city in 1204. The expedition’s financial shortfall did not by itself determine these decisions, but the unpaid transport contract gave its leaders a powerful incentive to seek alternative payment and changed the course of the campaign.

Transport also brought other forms of support. Genoese, Pisan and Venetian ships helped supply the crusader states and carry reinforcements. In return for aid, Genoese merchants could receive a share of booty, a merchant quarter in a conquered town or exemption from some local taxes. Shipping agreements therefore connected military logistics to commercial privileges and the interests of the cities providing the vessels.

Food, equipment and supplies on the route

Land and sea journeys created different supply problems. During the first two crusades, armies crossed Byzantine territory by land. The Byzantine emperor agreed to provide markets along the route, but exchanges could be difficult: crusaders complained of unfavourable rates when changing money. For the crossing of Anatolia, the army needed to plan for around twenty days of provisions. Attacks and shortages of water contributed to losses among people and animals. These difficulties helped make transport by sea more attractive to later expeditions.

Ships could carry people, horses and provisions together, and a fleet could help keep a force supplied after it arrived. During the Third Crusade, the fleet of William II of Sicily carried arms and men to the remaining crusader strongholds. For the Seventh Crusade, Louis IX’s forces gathered food and wine on Cyprus, much of it brought from Apulia in southern Italy. Genoa and Marseille supplied ships, and additional vessels were built in Scotland. Cyprus served as a staging point where stores could be accumulated before the army moved towards Egypt. An epidemic during the winter killed many crusaders while they waited to sail.

Sieges also required materials that an army might not be able to bring in sufficient quantity from home. Before the First Crusaders took Jerusalem in 1099, they lacked water, wood and weapons. An expedition to Samaria and the arrival of a Genoese fleet at Jaffa helped provide what was missing. Genoese craftsmen also contributed to the construction of siege towers. The episode illustrates how supplies could come from several directions: material gathered locally, goods carried by sea and specialist labour that turned those resources into equipment.

From fundraising to an operating army

Crusade finance linked recruitment to the practical work of campaigning. Individuals and households raised the means to join; lords and rulers drew on their dependants and revenues; church authorities collected taxes, donations and legacies; and maritime cities contracted to carry forces and supplies. Once an army was moving, it still needed access to markets, ships, provisions and equipment. The success of any one arrangement depended on the others: a fleet could be ready before the expected passengers arrived, a levy could be announced without enough money reaching the commanders, or a force could reach its destination only to find its supplies inadequate.

These systems changed over time. Early expeditions relied heavily on what participants could raise for themselves, while later campaigns drew more regularly on royal taxation, clerical levies and organised shipping contracts. Yet no financing plan guaranteed that the right resources would reach the army at the right moment. Crusade leaders had to negotiate with rulers, merchants and local authorities as well as recruit fighters, and the resulting bargains could shape the campaign as much as its original military objective.