So what is the truth about the Crusades

So what is the truth about the Crusades? Scholars are still working some of that out. But

�� much can already be said with certainty. For starters, the Crusades to the East were in

�� every way defensive wars. They were a direct response to Muslim aggression�an attempt

�� to turn back or defend against Muslim conquests of Christian lands.

�� Christians in the eleventh century were not paranoid fanatics. Muslims really were gunning

�� for them. While Muslims can be peaceful, Islam was born in war and grew the same way.

�� From the time of Mohammed, the means of Muslim expansion was always the sword.

�� Muslim thought divides the world into two spheres, the Abode of Islam and the Abode of

�� War. Christianity�and for that matter any other non‑Muslim religion�has no abode.

�� Christians and Jews can be tolerated within a Muslim state under Muslim rule. But, in

�� traditional Islam, Christian and Jewish states must be destroyed and their lands conquered.

�� When Mohammed was waging war against Mecca in the seventh century, Christianity was

�� the dominant religion of power and wealth. As the faith of the Roman Empire, it spanned the

�� entire Mediterranean, including the Middle East, where it was born. The Christian world,

�� therefore, was a prime target for the earliest caliphs, and it would remain so for Muslim

�� leaders for the next thousand years.

�� With enormous energy, the warriors of Islam struck out against the Christians shortly after

�� Mohammed�s death. They were extremely successful. Palestine, Syria, and Egypt�once

�� the most heavily Christian areas in the world�quickly succumbed. By the eighth century,

�� Muslim armies had conquered all of Christian North Africa and Spain. In the eleventh

�� century, the Seljuk Turks conquered Asia Minor (modern Turkey), which had been Christian

�� since the time of St. Paul. The old Roman Empire, known to modern historians as the

�� Byzantine Empire, was reduced to little more than Greece. In desperation, the emperor in

�� Constantinople sent word to the Christians of western Europe asking them to aid their

�� brothers and sisters in the East.

�� That is what gave birth to the Crusades. They were not the brainchild of an ambitious pope

�� or rapacious knights but a response to more than four centuries of conquests in which

�� Muslims had already captured two‑thirds of the old Christian world. At some point,

�� Christianity as a faith and a culture had to defend itself or be subsumed by Islam. The

�� Crusades were that defense.

�� Pope Urban II called upon the knights of Christendom to push back the conquests of Islam

�� at the Council of Clermont in 1095. The response was tremendous. Many thousands of

�� warriors took the vow of the cross and prepared for war. Why did they do it? The answer to

�� that question has been badly misunderstood. In the wake of the Enlightenment, it was

�� usually asserted that Crusaders were merely lacklands and ne�er‑do‑wells who took

�� advantage of an opportunity to rob and pillage in a faraway land. The Crusaders� expressed

�� sentiments of piety, self‑sacrifice, and love for God were obviously not to be taken seriously.

�� They were only a front for darker designs.

�� During the past two decades, computer‑assisted charter studies have demolished that

�� contrivance. Scholars have discovered that crusading knights were generally wealthy men

�� with plenty of their own land in Europe. Nevertheless, they willingly gave up everything to

�� undertake the holy mission. Crusading was not cheap. Even wealthy lords could easily

�� impoverish themselves and their families by joining a Crusade. They did so not because they

�� expected material wealth (which many of them had already) but because they hoped to

�� store up treasure where rust and moth could not corrupt. They were keenly aware of their

�� sinfulness and eager to undertake the hardships of the Crusade as a penitential act of

�� charity and love. Europe is littered with thousands of medieval charters attesting to these

�� sentiments, charters in which these men still speak to us today if we will listen. Of course,

�� they were not opposed to capturing booty if it could be had. But the truth is that the

�� Crusades were notoriously bad for plunder. A few people got rich, but the vast majority

�� returned with nothing.

�� * * *

�� Urban II gave the Crusaders two goals, both of which would remain central to the eastern

�� Crusades for centuries. The first was to rescue the Christians of the East. As his successor,

�� Pope Innocent III, later wrote:

�� How does a man love according to divine precept his neighbor as himself when, knowing that

�� his Christian brothers in faith and in name are held by the perfidious Muslims in strict

�� confinement and weighed down by the yoke of heaviest servitude, he does not devote

�� himself to the task of freeing them? ...Is it by chance that you do not know that many

�� thousands of Christians are bound in slavery and imprisoned by the Muslims, tortured with

�� innumerable torments?

�� "Crusading," Professor Jonathan Riley‑Smith has rightly argued, was understood as an "an

�� act of love"�in this case, the love of one�s neighbor. The Crusade was seen as an errand of

�� mercy to right a terrible wrong. As Pope Innocent III wrote to the Knights Templar, "You

�� carry out in deeds the words of the Gospel, �Greater love than this hath no man, that he lay

�� down his life for his friends.�"

�� The second goal was the liberation of Jerusalem and the other places made holy by the life

�� of Christ. The word crusade is modern. Medieval Crusaders saw themselves as pilgrims,

�� performing acts of righteousness on their way to the Holy Sepulcher. The Crusade

�� indulgence they received was canonically related to the pilgrimage indulgence. This goal

�� was frequently described in feudal terms. When calling the Fifth Crusade in 1215, Innocent

�� III wrote:

�� Consider most dear sons, consider carefully that if any temporal king was thrown out of his

�� domain and perhaps captured, would he not, when he was restored to his pristine liberty and

�� the time had come for dispensing justice look on his vassals as unfaithful and

�� traitors...unless they had committed not only their property but also their persons to the

�� task of freeing him? ...And similarly will not Jesus Christ, the king of kings and lord of lords,

�� whose servant you cannot deny being, who joined your soul to your body, who redeemed

�� you with the Precious Blood...condemn you for the vice of ingratitude and the crime of

�� infidelity if you neglect to help Him?

�� The reconquest of Jerusalem, therefore, was not colonialism but an act of restoration and an

�� open declaration of one�s love of God. Medieval men knew, of course, that God had the

�� power to restore Jerusalem Himself�indeed, He had the power to restore the whole world to

�� His rule. Yet as St. Bernard of Clairvaux preached, His refusal to do so was a blessing to

�� His people:

�� Again I say, consider the Almighty�s goodness and pay heed to His plans of mercy. He puts

�� Himself under obligation to you, or rather feigns to do so, that He can help you to satisfy

�� your obligations toward Himself.... I call blessed the generation that can seize an

�� opportunity of such rich indulgence as this.

�� It is often assumed that the central goal of the Crusades was forced conversion of the

�� Muslim world. Nothing could be further from the truth. From the perspective of medieval

�� Christians, Muslims were the enemies of Christ and His Church. It was the Crusaders� task

�� to defeat and defend against them. That was all. Muslims who lived in Crusader‑won

�� territories were generally allowed to retain their property and livelihood, and always their

�� religion. Indeed, throughout the history of the Crusader Kingdom of Jerusalem, Muslim

�� inhabitants far outnumbered the Catholics. It was not until the 13th century that the

�� Franciscans began conversion efforts among Muslims. But these were mostly unsuccessful

�� and finally abandoned. In any case, such efforts were by peaceful persuasion, not the threat

�� of violence.

�� The Crusades were wars, so it would be a mistake to characterize them as nothing but piety

�� and good intentions. Like all warfare, the violence was brutal (although not as brutal as

�� modern wars). There were mishaps, blunders, and crimes. These are usually

�� well‑remembered today. During the early days of the First Crusade in 1095, a ragtag band of

�� Crusaders led by Count Emicho of Leiningen made its way down the Rhine, robbing and

�� murdering all the Jews they could find. Without success, the local bishops attempted to

�� stop the carnage. In the eyes of these warriors, the Jews, like the Muslims, were the

�� enemies of Christ. Plundering and killing them, then, was no vice. Indeed, they believed it

�� was a righteous deed, since the Jews� money could be used to fund the Crusade to

�� Jerusalem. But they were wrong, and the Church strongly condemned the anti‑Jewish

�� attacks.

�� Fifty years later, when the Second Crusade was gearing up, St. Bernard frequently preached

�� that the Jews were not to be persecuted:

�� Ask anyone who knows the Sacred Scriptures what he finds foretold of the Jews in the

�� Psalm. "Not for their destruction do I pray," it says. The Jews are for us the living words of

�� Scripture, for they remind us always of what our Lord suffered.... Under Christian princes

�� they endure a hard captivity, but "they only wait for the time of their deliverance."

�� Nevertheless, a fellow Cistercian monk named Radulf stirred up people against the

�� Rhineland Jews, despite numerous letters from Bernard demanding that he stop. At last

�� Bernard was forced to travel to Germany himself, where he caught up with Radulf, sent him

�� back to his convent, and ended the massacres.

�� It is often said that the roots of the Holocaust can be seen in these medieval pogroms. That

�� may be. But if so, those roots are far deeper and more widespread than the Crusades. Jews

�� perished during the Crusades, but the purpose of the Crusades was not to kill Jews. Quite

�� the contrary: Popes, bishops, and preachers made it clear that the Jews of Europe were to

�� be left unmolested. In a modern war, we call tragic deaths like these "collateral damage."

�� Even with smart technologies, the United States has killed far more innocents in our wars

�� than the Crusaders ever could. But no one would seriously argue that the purpose of

�� American wars is to kill women and children.

�� By any reckoning, the First Crusade was a long shot. There was no leader, no chain of

�� command, no supply lines, no detailed strategy. It was simply thousands of warriors

�� marching deep into enemy territory, committed to a common cause. Many of them died,

�� either in battle or through disease or starvation. It was a rough campaign, one that seemed

�� always on the brink of disaster. Yet it was miraculously successful. By 1098, the Crusaders

�� had restored Nicaea and Antioch to Christian rule. In July 1099, they conquered Jerusalem

�� and began to build a Christian state in Palestine. The joy in Europe was unbridled. It

�� seemed that the tide of history, which had lifted the Muslims to such heights, was now

�� turning.

�� * * *

�� But it was not. When we think about the Middle Ages, it is easy to view Europe in light of

�� what it became rather than what it was. The colossus of the medieval world was Islam, not

�� Christendom. The Crusades are interesting largely because they were an attempt to counter

�� that trend. But in five centuries of crusading, it was only the First Crusade that significantly

�� rolled back the military progress of Islam. It was downhill from there.

�� When the Crusader County of Edessa fell to the Turks and Kurds in 1144, there was an

�� enormous groundswell of support for a new Crusade in Europe. It was led by two kings,

�� Louis VII of France and Conrad III of Germany, and preached by St. Bernard himself. It failed

�� miserably. Most of the Crusaders were killed along the way. Those who made it to

�� Jerusalem only made things worse by attacking Muslim Damascus, which formerly had

�� been a strong ally of the Christians. In the wake of such a disaster, Christians across

�� Europe were forced to accept not only the continued growth of Muslim power but the

�� certainty that God was punishing the West for its sins. Lay piety movements sprouted up

�� throughout Europe, all rooted in the desire to purify Christian society so that it might be

�� worthy of victory in the East.

�� Crusading in the late twelfth century, therefore, became a total war effort. Every person, no

�� matter how weak or poor, was called to help. Warriors were asked to sacrifice their wealth

�� and, if need be, their lives for the defense of the Christian East. On the home front, all

�� Christians were called to support the Crusades through prayer, fasting, and alms. Yet still

�� the Muslims grew in strength. Saladin, the great unifier, had forged the Muslim Near East

�� into a single entity, all the while preaching jihad against the Christians. In 1187 at the Battle

�� of Hattin, his forces wiped out the combined armies of the Christian Kingdom of Jerusalem

�� and captured the precious relic of the True Cross. Defenseless, the Christian cities began

�� surrendering one by one, culminating in the surrender of Jerusalem on October 2. Only a

�� tiny handful of ports held out.

�� The response was the Third Crusade. It was led by Emperor Frederick I Barbarossa of the

�� German Empire, King Philip II Augustus of France, and King Richard I Lionheart of England.

�� By any measure it was a grand affair, although not quite as grand as the Christians had

�� hoped. The aged Frederick drowned while crossing a river on horseback, so his army

�� returned home before reaching the Holy Land. Philip and Richard came by boat, but their

�� incessant bickering only added to an already divisive situation on the ground in Palestine.

�� After recapturing Acre, the king of France went home, where he busied himself carving up

�� Richard�s French holdings. The Crusade, therefore, fell into Richard�s lap. A skilled warrior,

�� gifted leader, and superb tactician, Richard led the Christian forces to victory after victory,

�� eventually reconquering the entire coast. But Jerusalem was not on the coast, and after two

�� abortive attempts to secure supply lines to the Holy City, Richard at last gave up. Promising

�� to return one day, he struck a truce with Saladin that ensured peace in the region and free

�� access to Jerusalem for unarmed pilgrims. But it was a bitter pill to swallow. The desire to

��restore Jerusalem to Christian rule and regain the True Cross remained intense throughout

�� Europe.

�� The Crusades of the 13th century were larger, better funded, and better organized. But they

�� too failed. The Fourth Crusade (1201‑1204) ran aground when it was seduced into a web of

�� Byzantine politics, which the Westerners never fully understood. They had made a detour to

�� Constantinople to support an imperial claimant who promised great rewards and support for

�� the Holy Land. Yet once he was on the throne of the Caesars, their benefactor found that he

�� could not pay what he had promised. Thus betrayed by their Greek friends, in 1204 the

�� Crusaders attacked, captured, and brutally sacked Constantinople, the greatest Christian

�� city in the world. Pope Innocent III, who had previously excommunicated the entire Crusade,

�� strongly denounced the Crusaders. But there was little else he could do. The tragic events of

�� 1204 closed an iron door between Roman Catholic and Greek Orthodox, a door that even

�� today Pope John Paul II has been unable to reopen. It is a terrible irony that the Crusades,

�� which were a direct result of the Catholic desire to rescue the Orthodox people, drove the

�� two further�and perhaps irrevocably�apart.

�� The remainder of the 13th century�s Crusades did little better. The Fifth Crusade (1217‑1221)

�� managed briefly to capture Damietta in Egypt, but the Muslims eventually defeated the army

�� and reoccupied the city. St. Louis IX of France led two Crusades in his life. The first also

�� captured Damietta, but Louis was quickly outwitted by the Egyptians and forced to abandon

�� the city. Although Louis was in the Holy Land for several years, spending freely on defensive

�� works, he never achieved his fondest wish: to free Jerusalem. He was a much older man in

�� 1270 when he led another Crusade to Tunis, where he died of a disease that ravaged the

�� camp. After St. Louis�s death, the ruthless Muslim leaders, Baybars and Kalavun, waged a

�� brutal jihad against the Christians in Palestine. By 1291, the Muslim forces had succeeded

�� in killing or ejecting the last of the Crusaders, thus erasing the Crusader kingdom from the

�� map. Despite numerous attempts and many more plans, Christian forces were never again

�� able to gain a foothold in the region until the 19th century.

�� * * *

�� One might think that three centuries of Christian defeats would have soured Europeans on

�� the idea of Crusade. Not at all. In one sense, they had little alternative. Muslim kingdoms

�� were becoming more, not less, powerful in the 14th, 15th, and 16th centuries. The Ottoman

�� Turks conquered not only their fellow Muslims, thus further unifying Islam, but also

�� continued to press westward, capturing Constantinople and plunging deep into Europe itself.

�� By the 15th century, the Crusades were no longer errands of mercy for a distant people but

�� desperate attempts of one of the last remnants of Christendom to survive. Europeans began

�� to ponder the real possibility that Islam would finally achieve its aim of conquering the entire

�� Christian world. One of the great best‑sellers of the time, Sebastian Brant�s The Ship of

�� Fools, gave voice to this sentiment in a chapter titled "Of the Decline of the Faith":

�� Our faith was strong in th� Orient,

�� It ruled in all of Asia,

�� In Moorish lands and Africa.

�� But now for us these lands are gone

�� Twould even grieve the hardest stone....

�� Four sisters of our Church you find,

�� They�re of the patriarchic kind:

�� Constantinople, Alexandria,

�� Jerusalem, Antiochia.

�� But they�ve been forfeited and sacked

�� And soon the head will be attacked.

�� Of course, that is not what happened. But it very nearly did. In 1480, Sultan Mehmed II

�� captured Otranto as a beachhead for his invasion of Italy. Rome was evacuated. Yet the

�� sultan died shortly thereafter, and his plan died with him. In 1529, Suleiman the Magnificent

�� laid siege to Vienna. If not for a run of freak rainstorms that delayed his progress and forced

�� him to leave behind much of his artillery, it is virtually certain that the Turks would have

�� taken the city. Germany, then, would have been at their mercy.

�� Yet, even while these close shaves were taking place, something else was brewing in

�� Europe�something unprecedented in human history. The Renaissance, born from a strange

�� mixture of Roman values, medieval piety, and a unique respect for commerce and

�� entrepreneurialism, had led to other movements like humanism, the Scientific Revolution,

�� and the Age of Exploration. Even while fighting for its life, Europe was preparing to expand

�� on a global scale. The Protestant Reformation, which rejected the papacy and the doctrine

�� of indulgence, made Crusades unthinkable for many Europeans, thus leaving the fighting to

�� the Catholics. In 1571, a Holy League, which was itself a Crusade, defeated the Ottoman

�� fleet at Lepanto. Yet military victories like that remained rare. The Muslim threat was

�� neutralized economically. As Europe grew in wealth and power, the once awesome and

�� sophisticated Turks began to seem backward and pathetic�no longer worth a Crusade. The

�� "Sick Man of Europe" limped along until the 20th century, when he finally expired, leaving

�� behind the present mess of the modern Middle East.

�� From the safe distance of many centuries, it is easy enough to scowl in disgust at the

�� Crusades. Religion, after all, is nothing to fight wars over. But we should be mindful that our

�� medieval ancestors would have been equally disgusted by our infinitely more destructive

�� wars fought in the name of political ideologies. And yet, both the medieval and the modern

�� soldier fight ultimately for their own world and all that makes it up. Both are willing to suffer

�� enormous sacrifice, provided that it is in the service of something they hold dear, something

�� greater than themselves. Whether we admire the Crusaders or not, it is a fact that the world

�� we know today would not exist without their efforts. The ancient faith of Christianity, with its

�� respect for women and antipathy toward slavery, not only survived but flourished. Without the

�� Crusades, it might well have followed Zoroastrianism, another of Islam�s rivals, into

�� extinction.

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