'tis but a scratch: fact and fiction about the Middle Ages
'tis but a scratch: fact and fiction about the Middle Ages
What Was A "Crusade"?
In this episode Ellen and Richard talk about what a "crusade" was in the Middle Ages. Richard explains what modern historians mean by the term "crusade"--and why there is so little agreement. He also offers a response to a question posed by Nicholas Morton in the previous episode: How did the medieval Church reconcile its doctrine of love of enemy and its pacifistic underpinnings with papal sponsorship of crusades?
Recommended reading:
Western Historiography of the Crusades
Riley-Smith, Jonathan. What Were the Crusades? 4th edition, Ignatius Press, 2009. When this was first published in 1977, it represented the first serious effort to explain what historians mean when they refer to crusades, and remains a key work. It is also short, 177 pages, and clearly written. As I took the title for this episode from this book, it is only fair that it is listed first. Riley-Smith's The Crusades: A History and the volume of essays he edited, The Oxford Illustrated History of the Crusades are good introductions to the subject.
Constable, Giles. Crusaders and Crusading in the Twelfth Century. Routledge, 2020. Constable is responsible for the categorization of modern crusading historiography into four schools, Traditionalists, Pluralists, Generalists, and Popularists. He is also the scholar most responsible for recognizing the importance of charters as source material for crusading history. Giles, who passed away in 2021, was a welcoming and generous scholar who helped me appreciate the importance of culture in medieval warfare.
Housley, Norman. Contesting the Crusades. Blackwell Publishing, 2006. A survey of the key historiographical debates over key crusading issues (defining the crusade, origins of the First Crusade, Intentions and Motivations, etc.).
Tyerman, Christopher. The Debate on the Crusades. Manchester University Press, 2011. From the blurb on the back cover: “This is the first book-length study of how succeeding generations from the First Crusade in 1099 to the present day have understood, refashioned, moulded and manipulated accounts of these medieval wars of religion to suit changing contemporary circumstances and interests.” It is a bit idiosyncratic—Tyerman has strong opinions about the work of fellow scholars--but the author clearly knows his stuff. Tyerman also has the distinction of being the author of one of the longest single volume histories of the Crusade (God’s War, Harvard U. Press, 2009) and one of the shortest (The Crusades: A Very Short Introduction, Oxford U. Press, 2006).
Muslim views of the Crusades
Hillenbrand, Carole, The Crusades: The Islamic Perspectives. Edinburgh University Press, 1999. This is a monumental (704 pages), groundbreaking study of how Muslims viewed the crusaders and the West in the era of the crusades, and later.
Niall Christie, Muslims and Crusaders: Christianity’s Wars in the Middle East, 1095-1382, from the Islamic Sources. Routledge, 2014. This is a concise and well thought out survey of the crusades from the contemporary Muslim perspective, with a well-chosen selection of excerpts from medieval Arabic sources.
Sivan , Emmanuel. "The Crusaders described by modern Arab historiography". Asian and African Studies , 8 ( 1972 ): 104-49. One of the few studies of modern Arab historiography of the Crusades (written, interestingly, by an Israeli scholar).
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Intro and exit music are by Alexander Nakarada
If you have questions, feel free to contact me at richard.abels54@gmail.com
welcome to the podcast, this body scratch, fact and fiction about the Middle Ages. I'm your host Professor Richard Abels. And today we're going to answer the question, what is a crusade? My co host for this episode is by partner for life, and my inspiration for all things medieval. My wife, Ellen,
Ellen Abels:Richard and I have done a couple of episodes dealing with the Crusades. One was Ansel Adams capture of Jerusalem in 1187. And another was on the assassination of the King of Jerusalem elect Conrad of Monferrato
Richard Abels:by real assassins, to be honest, those are two of my favorite episodes.
Ellen Abels:In Richards last episode was a conversation with Nick Morton about crusading warfare. If you haven't listened to them, I hope you do. But you might want to wait until after listening to this one, which we ought to have done first, it struck us that Nick was talking less about what I thought of as crusading warfare, that is the armies and campaigns of the First Crusade. And those are the other numbered crusades that traveled from Western Europe to the Middle East, for the Christian recovery of or in defense of the Holy Land. Then it was about the warfare practiced by the Latin states created in the wake of the First Crusade. So I asked Richard, what I thought would be an easily answered question where the military expeditions with these Latin states crusades, and we're the European settlers in them Crusaders, and that raised a broader question. When historians write about the Crusades, what exactly do they mean by crusade? And
Richard Abels:it hit me that I should have asked Nick those questions, because I didn't, I will try to answer them myself. And the answers are not as clear as one might expect. I'm going to begin with a couple of non historians who clearly believe that they knew exactly what a crusade was, because one of them was fighting a crusade and the other resisting it. Probably the only thing that President George W. Bush, and who sama Bin Laden ever agreed on was that the American War on Terror was a crusade. On September 16 2001, President Bush gave a press conference on the White House loan. In his prepared remarks, he praised and reassured the American people saying, quote, and on this day of on the Lord's day, I say to my fellow Americans, thank you for your prayers. Thank you for your compassion. Thank you for your love for one another. And tomorrow, when you get back to work, work hard, like you always have. But we've been warned, we've been warned. There are evil people in this world. We've been warned so vividly. And we'll be alert, your government is alert, the governors and mayors are alert, that evil folk still lurk out there and quote, then in response to a reporter's question, Bush said the following.
Unknown:We haven't seen this kind of barbarism in a long period of time. And we're this is a new kind of a new kind of evil. And we all we all we understand. And American people begin to understand that this is this this this this, this crusade. This war on terrorism
Ellen Abels:is going to take a while, it seems pretty clear to me that bush described the war on terror as a crusade, because he saw it as a righteous struggle against evil doors, not a religious
Richard Abels:expression. Yeah, that was in fact, the explanation given by the White House press secretary Ari Fleischer.
Ellen Abels:He used the word once in passing and it required an explanation from the press secretary
Richard Abels:I did. Because Bush's characterization of the war on terror is a crusade created a stir both in Europe and the Middle East. At a press briefing two days later, Fleischer was asked to explain what President Bush meant when he used the word crusade, given the consternation and it created, quote, in a lot of Muslim countries, end quote. The reporter continued, did the President now regret having used that word? I think what the President was saying Fleischer responded, had no intended consequences for anybody, Muslim or otherwise, other than to say that this is a broad cause that he is calling on America and the nations around the world to join. That was the point purpose of what he said, to the degree that the word has any connotations that would upset any of our partners or anybody else in the world. The President would regret if anything like that was conveyed, but the purpose of his conveying it is in the traditional English sense of the word. Its broad kind
Ellen Abels:of ironic given the history of the Crusades that a Jewish press secretary had to defend the use of Word crusade.
Richard Abels:Yeah, it is. But I wonder if Eric Fleischer was conscious of the RT. At
Ellen Abels:any rate, you said that this is one thing that bush and bin Laden agreed on. So what to bin Laden mean by crusade? And I assume it wasn't just a war against evildoers? No,
Richard Abels:though, Osama bin Laden leaped on Bush's remarks to condemn any Muslim leader who offered support to what he characterized as this new Christian crusade against Islam. He declared, and I quote, our goal is for our nation to unite in the face of the Christian crusade. This is the fiercest battle. Muslims have never faced anything bigger than this. Bush said it in his own words crusade. When Bush says that they tried to cover up for him. They say that he said he didn't mean it. But he did say crusade. Bush is the leader. He carries the big cross and walks. I swear that everyone who follows bush in his scheme have given Islam in the word of the Prophet. Those who follow Bush, in his crusade against Muslims have denounced all of this is a recurring war. The original crusade brought Richard from Britain, Louie from France, and barbarous from Germany, by which he meant Frederick Barbarossa. Today, the crusading countries rushed as soon as bush raised the cross, they accepted the rule of the cross. What do Arab countries have to do with this crusade? Everyone that supports Bush, even with a word is an act of great treason?
Ellen Abels:Well, at least Osama bin Laden seems to have known something about the Crusades. And how did President Bush respond?
Richard Abels:He didn't. At least he didn't in public. He just dropped the word crusade from his speeches and comments to reporters. I suspect that Bush was surprised and confused by the controversy. By using the word crusade he meant to convey the War on Terror was a selfless struggle against evil. This is what Dwight D Eisenhower meant when he entitled his wartime memoirs crusade in Europe. It's also what the British Prime Minister Lloyd George meant when he entitled A collection of speeches he had given during the First World War, the Great Crusade. And every flesh was right in saying that the word has or at least had before we got involved in a series of wars in the Islamic Middle East, a broad meaning in the US. It's been used as a metaphor for movements against various social ills. We've had crusades against poverty, crusade against illiteracy crusade against alcohol and crusades against drugs. Crusade has been used as a label for spiritual revival movement, most notably Billy Graham's evangelical Campus Crusade, which preserves the words religious have not military connotations. But
Ellen Abels:it is clear that crusade meant something very different to Osama bin Laden. It sounds like he used Bush's statement as a call to arms to all Muslims to resist against what he saw as continuing religious and cultural imperialist aggression of the Christian West against the Islamic east as part of the centuries old clash of cultures and religions, but I agree with you. I don't think Bush meant that when he called The War on Terror crusade despite the religious rhetoric and Evan Jellicle tone of his prepared comments, I'm gonna guess that you think that bin Laden was closer to what medieval historians mean by crusade than Bush? No, no,
Richard Abels:you don't you get wrong. Again, unless the medieval historians you have in mind are 19th century Frenchman, like France won the show, okay, though, they wouldn't have used the term aggression. But it celebrated the crusade as the triumph of a superior civilization. The French civilization are right. Yeah. For historians of the Middle Ages in America, in Europe, neither Bush nor Osama got it right, in their usage of the word crusade, that what they called a crusade has very little to do with crusading as a historical movement.
Ellen Abels:Why are you limiting this to American and European academics? Good, you caught that you can't slip anything by me.
Richard Abels:We've been married too long. Actually, I was counting on you to catch it. You could have added German and Italian historians of the Crusades to that list. And in fact, all Western academic historians of the Crusades, modern Islamic historiography of the Crusades, however, is a lot different. Though it also has a Western pedigree. Bin Laden was drawing upon the thought of 19th century French nationalist historians indirectly. The idea that the Crusades were the beginning of European imperial aggression against the Muslim world became the dominant theme in modern Arabic historians interpretation of the Crusades.
Ellen Abels:I'm not a big fan of historiography, but I have to ask, Why did modern Arabic historians need to Use 19th century French historians interpretations of the Crusades. Why didn't they use the medieval Arab historians works? After all, we do have contemporary accounts of the Crusades. Yeah,
Richard Abels:especially for the Third Crusade because of the contemporary prominence of solitude. The works of Arab historians like immunotherapy, you bye about Aldine and Beyhadh. De, are critical sources for the Third Crusade and for solid Dean's career in general. But as odd as it sounds after the fall of acre in 1291, the Crusades pretty much disappeared from the writings of Muslim historians. That is until 1899. Okay,
Ellen Abels:you need to explain that I would have thought that the Crusades would have been celebrated by Muslim historians after all they want.
Richard Abels:Yeah, exactly. They won. And because they won, it wasn't a problem for Muslim historians. It was for the Muslim world a historical blip. The Crusader States at their height formed only a narrow strip along the Levantine coast. Well, Western historians, both Catholic and Protestants regarded the Crusades as a critical historical event for different reasons. Historians in the Muslim world didn't. That is, until the very end of the 19th century.
Ellen Abels:I suspect I know what changed. The once powerful Islamic Ottoman Empire had become the sick man of Europe. And instead of being an empire, it was being targeted by European imperialists. Exactly.
Richard Abels:The first modern Muslim account of the Crusades was entitled, splendid accounts in the wars of the cross by the Egyptian historian, Saeed Ali Al Hariri. All Hariri began it by quoting the Ottoman Sultans remarked that, quote, Europe is now carrying out a crusade against us in the form of a political campaign and quote, although very accepted what the 19th century nationalist French historians had written about the Crusades, they were Western imperialistic wars against the Islamic world. And Arabic history of the Crusades was timely, because European imperialist powers will reviving the crusades against the Ottoman Empire. But, you know, it really wasn't until 1948 that the Crusades became an important theme in Muslim historiography.
Ellen Abels:1948 Let me guess, the foundation of Israel.
Richard Abels:Exactly. Israel was denounced as a new Crusader state. That's perverse.
Ellen Abels:Israel was founded as a Jewish state and the Jews of the Rhineland were the first victims of the First Crusade. Yes,
Richard Abels:but by labeling Israel, a crusader state. What they meant was that it was an imperialist European colony established on Arab territory, which
Ellen Abels:is a current trope of people who don't want to know any better.
Richard Abels:Okay, I know, I know. Your position is clear on this
Ellen Abels:one, and don't hold back. Tell me what you really think. Yeah. What made
Richard Abels:the comparison inevitable is the location of Israel, that it was a Jewish state was downplayed? Yeah, it was downplayed in 1948 and was downplayed in the fall and in the following decades, because in those decades, religion was eclipsed by Arab nationalism in Arabic accounts of the Crusades. A cinematic example of this is the 1963 Egyptian epic on that ser Salah Aldine, which was released in Britain and the US as solid in the victorious you
Ellen Abels:mean NASA remains victorious. Yeah, why am I not surprised? Okay. In
Richard Abels:the movie solid Dean's call for Arab unity closely echoes Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser's pan Arab ism solid Dean's religious tolerance is also emphasized, as is the religious hypocrisy of the evil rulers of the Crusader States. Solid Dean's best friend and advisor the movie is in fact, a very fictional Christian Arab.
Ellen Abels:Yet another movie I've missed and have no intention of saying, but Osama bin Laden speech is not about pan Arab ism. It's about religion.
Richard Abels:Yes. And that's the contribution of late 20th and early 21st century Islamist writers about the Crusades, they restored the religious element to it. They combined the 19th century French nationalist idea of the Crusades as European colonialism, European imperialism, with the idea of the Crusades as part of a continuing religious struggle between Islam and its enemies, now expanded to include the Jews.
Ellen Abels:Okay, so I'll be like, how do American and European academic history oriens define the term crusade as an historical movement. There is an agreement about that. What a surprise. I assumed they agreed that it was a Christian holy war.
Richard Abels:Yeah. But they disagree about where and when they occurred and what precisely constituted a crusade.
Ellen Abels:Okay, could you explain that? There
Richard Abels:are currently four main schools of historical thought about crusades, the two that currently dominate the field are the traditionalist and the pluralist. The other two of the popular risk and generalist schools have attracted fewer historians, but have their fervent added adherents. So let me briefly explain each before giving my own opinion of what a crusade was during the Middle Ages. The traditionalist definition is probably the most familiar for traditionalist, the Crusades were a series of Christian holy wars, called by medieval Pope's, to recover or preserve Jerusalem and the holy land for Christians.
Ellen Abels:Well, that's pretty much what I learned about crusades as an undergraduate. And I would think that it's what most of our listeners probably think of when they hear the word.
Richard Abels:This was the dominant view into the 1970s. When we were in college. Yeah, it's why only Crusades to the east get numbers. For traditionalists. The Crusades occurred in a particular geographical region, the Levant and Egypt, and had a clearly defined beginning the Council of Claremont in 1095, and a clearly defined end, the fall of the last Latin stronghold in the Levant acre now in northern Israel in 1291.
Ellen Abels:But that's only one school. I hesitate to ask about, okay, what are the others? For the popular wrist
Richard Abels:to be a crusade, a military expedition had to be characterized by genuine popular religious excitement, prophecy and apocalyptic expectations. Popular is emphasized the participation of the lower classes the peasants and urban workers. For some popular is the only real crusades, the only true Crusades were the People's Crusade of 1096. The two shepherds crusades and the Children's Crusade. In other words, three slaughters go popular. Yes, that is true. The populist approach has attracted fewer stories than either the traditionalists or the pluralist.
Ellen Abels:Okay, so it sounds like the populace definition is the most restrictive. I mean, it's only three, which didn't matter very much in the long run. So is the generalist the most expensive?
Richard Abels:You are absolutely right. generalists give the label crusade to any Christian holy war, inspired by the belief that God wills it.
Ellen Abels:Okay, it sounds like I'm listening to the historians version of Goldilocks, the traditionalist in popular is definitions are too narrow. The generalist is too broad is the pluralist. Yeah,
Richard Abels:it's just right. At least it's just right for most English language historians writing today. For the pluralist the Crusades, were a series of Christian and this is important penitential holy wars, called by or sanctioned by the Pope's, and directed against external and internal enemies of Christianity that is, enemies of the Roman Catholic Roman Catholic Church, for the recovery of Christian territory, or in defense of the church or the Christian people. crusades combined the ideas of Christian holy war and pilgrimage to produce the concept of penitential
Ellen Abels:warfare. Okay, can you define penitential warfare? Yeah,
Richard Abels:that is warfare in which the pope granted remission of penance, for and forgiveness of sin, to those who voluntarily participated in them. For pluralist Crusades were characterized by the taking of vows and the granting of indulgences and secular privileges, such as protection of property from lawsuits, or from physical attacks, and a debt holiday. The defining grant however, was the indulgence and that was given because participation in this arduous and dangerous endeavor was regarded as a penitential act sufficient to compensate for the penalties incurred from all previous sins.
Ellen Abels:Well, that just sounds like the traditionalist definition.
Richard Abels:The to share this this broad understanding what a crusade was, they differ however, when it comes where and when crusades occurred. The pluralist find the traditionalist and populous definition of Crusades to narrow as they exclude crusading in the West, and most crusading after 1291. Okay, that
Ellen Abels:makes sense. I mean, not that I thought about it, but when we did episodes about the crusade against the Catholic heresy in southern France, and an English crusade against Magna Carta barons and their French allies We're using the pluralist definition of crusade. But what doesn't make much sense to me is how academic historians who have dead devoted years of their lives to the study of crusading disagree on something as fundamental as what it was we missed up
Richard Abels:on feudalism, haven't we? Go ahead? Yeah.
Ellen Abels:Isn't the academic historians usual solution to a problem like this to go to the primary sources and analyze what the authors of those texts meant? I mean, how about when they use the word crusades? And
Richard Abels:that's the problem. Historians will tell you there is no specific, widely accepted 12th or 13th century word for a crusade.
Ellen Abels:You're phrasing that really, really careful like you're walking through a minefield. I am
Richard Abels:and I did, in early 13th century Occitan epic poem about the then ongoing Albigensian crusade the crusade against the Cathars is entitled, console dellacqua zada so under the crusade. The poem terms crusaders as the crow Zott. The word crostata probably refers to the northern French army rather than the expedition. The term however, didn't catch on our word crusade and it's slightly early a French counterpart was sod or early bodhran concoctions. The French word Prasad first appears in the title of a history of the Crusades published in 1638. And the English word crusade appears for the first time in 1685, in a translation of a French word of French history of the Crusades, which had been published 10 years earlier. It wasn't until the mid 18th century, that crusade, Mossad and the German word, Christ zuga were widely used in English, French and German historical writing.
Ellen Abels:Oh, good, Lord. We're back to the feudalism problem.
Richard Abels:And the Katha problem Oh, good lord. Just because a word or label is commonly used by historians today to describe historical events of movements doesn't necessarily mean that those terms were actually used in the Middle Ages.
Ellen Abels:Okay. If the sources for crusading didn't use the word crusade to describe these expeditions, what did they call them? The terms
Richard Abels:that were used in 12th and 13th century resources to describe the activity that we call crusading, I think can help us understand, but those who call for these expeditions, and those who responded to those calls, thought they were doing. Crusaders saw themselves as undertaking a peregrine Nazi on a pilgrimage or they were going on an E tour, or a via of journey, or more rarely, they were going on an expedition CO that expedition, and thought of the enterprise in which they were engaged as the business of Christ until the end of the 12th centuries. Those who went on crusade were most commonly termed as Pellegrini pilgrims in the charter is accorded recording their preparations to go on crusade. In the narrative sources laymen in the crusading armies were designated as merely Tez de or militaires Christi knights, so soldiers of God or Christ and the rank and file as helpless, which carry the double meaning of the economically poor and the poor in spirit.
Ellen Abels:Okay, that doesn't explain how we ended up with the word crusade. Since obviously, it derives from the French word for the cross, how did the cross become the de stand for a crusade. From the
Richard Abels:beginning of crusading, there was a technical term used by ecclesiastical authorities to designate those who had taken an oath to go on crusade. These individuals were said to have been crude che cigar t that is signed with the cross. By the end of the 12th century, it had become the standard term for designating one who had taken a crusading vow. I believe that this phrase signed with a cross is the key to understanding and defining crusade as well as being as animal logical source. The word crusade which is derived from crostata, and oxytocin word, coined in the early 13th century is a collective noun for those who took or carried the cross, not a description of the activity or the expedition. Why signed by the cross? These are literal fingers and this is a literal description at a time when a lot of people are illiterate. Yes, a literal description of those who undertook crusading vows with Pope Urban the Second Call for the Knights of Western Europe to embark upon an odd pilgrimage to liberate Jerusalem in 1895. He directed those who answered his call to affirm their intention with a solemn vow. They were instructed to attach a cloth cross a piece of cloth with a cross drawn on it to their outer garments while pronouncing their promise aloud. By taking the cross by being crew chasing artists signed with the pros, they became what we call a crusader. This practice was standard throughout the 12th and 13th centuries, as I said, being signed by the cross created a complex of spiritual and legal privileges. But the most important of these was the revision of penance for all sins previously committed, that were confessed with true contrition and protection of one's property from legal or extra legal attacks. In the Crusaders absence. The oath created an obligation to God that remained until was fulfilled. There may not have been a widely used word for crusade during the Crusades, but there was one for Crusader.
Ellen Abels:Okay, so I'm trying to think what it would have meant for someone to sew across on his or her clothing. I mean, literally, was it taking up Christ's crust? It was
Richard Abels:the cloth cross convey the dual meaning of the one hand, it symbolizes Jerusalem, and the Holy SnapLock the destination of those who went on the First Crusade, but it also had the broader connotation of serving the Lord Christ and enduring hardship carrying Christ's cross. It announced the oath takers willingness to accept martyrdom. The onerous and dangerous service to God, represented by the cross was a penance that merited at the Crusaders plenary indulgence. The Cross had a special meaning in the Crusades to the into the Muslim east, and the so called Spanish Rockies keister for the Muslims. The cross was in fact a symbol of the Christians fundamental theological error, Christ, the Muslim Messiah. This is according to Muslim theology. Christ did not die on the cross.
Ellen Abels:This is like 12th century Muslim theologies
Richard Abels:today. God would never have allowed such an injustice, God instead fashioned a phantom to take his place on the cross and took him directly to heaven. Christ will return in the final days to lead the armies of God against the infidel, including those who claim the name Christian. From the 12th century on Muslim poets praise Turkish war leaders, those who wage jihad against Crusaders and the leaders of the Latin states as breakers of the cross. The Spanish Muslim geographer and travel writer in Juba eulogize solid deed with the following words, quote, you have broken their cross by force and would have five breaker you are, the Kingdom has retreated in Syria, and has turned its back as if it had never been. You have avenge the religion. God has chosen you as an Avenger and quote by emphasizing
Ellen Abels:the Crusader vow symbolized by sewing the cross on to one's clothes. You seem to be de emphasizing Jerusalem and the biblical Holy Land in your definition of crusade. To
Richard Abels:an extent. What seems to be crucial is that the same olds were taken, and the same privileges promised to those who answered papal summons to defend Christianity in the church against Turks in the East Saracens in Spain, pagans in the Baltic heritage wherever they lurk, whether in southwest France or Bohemia, enemies of the papacy in Sicily and Italy, Mongols, French invaders and rebel barons in England, and Ottoman Turks in the Balkans, those side with the cross engage the enemies of God and the church wherever the papacy directed. But Jerusalem held a special place in crusading elude ideology, both as a physical place and as a spiritual idea. And the first crusades served as a model for all subsequent crusading. That's
Ellen Abels:a lot broader definition than the traditionalist view we grew up with. How does that alter the dating of the Crusader movement? By
Richard Abels:this definition, the Spanish Armada against the quote unquote heretics of Protestant England and 1588 was a crusade. That's
Ellen Abels:an awful, long way from Jerusalem and centuries after the First Crusade. Yes,
Richard Abels:it is. But it also seems clear that Jerusalem and the Holy Sepulchre held that special place for crusading, the First Crusade remain the model for all later expeditions, wherever they went.
Ellen Abels:So are you in the pluralist camp?
Richard Abels:Yeah, I think you could capture that from what I've said, right? Yeah. Scholars in the Middle Ages, always cited authority to substantiate their views, and I'm going to emulate them. I'm going to do that because I'm not by training a crusading specialist. The pluralist definition of crusade. Eating was popularized among academics by Professor Jonathan Riley Smith, Riley Smith, who taught at St. Andrews, then at Royal Holloway College of the University of London. And it both Queens College and Emmanuel College at the University of Cambridge was arguably the most influential historian of the Crusades of the second half of the 20th century, both through his publications, and through the work of his many students. Wiley Smith's work persuades me that the pluralist school comes closest to how medieval people actually understood crusading. The Pope's who call for crusades, and those who took the cross, I believe, understood these expeditions as penitential Christian holy wars, regardless of where they were sent. So
Ellen Abels:you see crusading as a particular type of Christian holy war.
Richard Abels:Yes. But what I find interesting is that medieval theologians regarded crusades as a species of Christian just war. Nick, in the previous episode said that he was first attracted to study the Crusades. Because of the theological question, how does religion that mandates love of one's enemies and beating swords into plowshares? End up with the Crusades? That's a good question. Yeah, it is. It's a complicated historical question. And it really deserves its own episode, which I think maybe we'll do, but we need to touch on it here. When Christianity was adopted in the fourth century, as the Imperial Imperial religion of the Roman Empire, it had to temper its pacifistic teachings. The Christian Roman Empire needed to defend itself with Christian soldiers. The solution was given by St. Jerome and most fully by St. Augustine around the year 400. This solution was Christian just wore Christian just wore was an adaptation of Roman just with theory, as expounded by writers like Cicero, the pagan Romans believed that because the gods are just, they would only favor those fighting for justice, if only it were that easy. The criteria for a just war offered by Cicero became the basis for Augustine's conception of just war. And that was systemized in the 13th century by medieval canon, Calvinists and theologians such as St. Thomas Aquinas, now for a war to be just three things are necessary. One, just authority, okay, it must be waged by the leader of a state since all legitimate earthly authority comes from God. And you can see this for Romans 13, verses one to four.
Ellen Abels:And the distinction drawn there is between
Richard Abels:private wars by nobles, you know, these feuds and rebellions and just war, which are led by kings, those with legitimate authority, so
Ellen Abels:that by definition, okay, a rebellion can't be rebels or unjustified,
Richard Abels:yes. Which is the reason why Caesar and the Magna Carta rebels were condemned by the papacy. Okay, that makes sense. The second criterion was just cause they must be fought for the sake of quote, avenging wrongs. When a nation was state has to be punished for refusing to make amends for the wrongs inflicted by its subjects or its restore what it has seized a justly end quote, if
Ellen Abels:they actually follow that road would never have had an empire. But nevermind roll.
Richard Abels:The robots claimed that they were always protecting their allies against the aggression of the database. Road claimed it never fought an unjust war. Okay, nevermind. Three, rightful intention, huh? To advance good, and to avoid evil that is to secure peace, punish evildoers, sounds like Bush and defend the good as opposed to the desire to increase territory, or to increase power, or just four out of a cruel thirst for vengeance. The Prince is responsible to God for ensuring that the cause of war is just the soldier's Christian duty is to fight with love in his heart for the enemy. That's how you square the circle. You know, love the sinner but hate the sin.
Ellen Abels:Is that like in the Inquisition, where if you had to execute somebody you felt if you had to release somebody into a secular army, you felt you had failed?
Richard Abels:Yes. Okay. Yes. Augustine believed that the true evil of warfare was not the death that resulted from it. But it was the hatred, the litsea, that it stirred up in the hearts of those fought.
Ellen Abels:I can sort of see how this is going. The Crusades were Christian just wars because they were called by a just authority the pope had a just cause fought against external or internal enemies for the recovery of Christian property or defense of the church or the Christian people. And where at least theoretically fought with rightful intention? Exactly.
Richard Abels:The idea of just cause underlay the distinction drawn by Pope's and theologians such as St. Bernard of Clairvaux between Jews and Muslims living within Christian who should and I have to emphasize this should not be attacked and if
Ellen Abels:that makes sense yeah position had no jurisdiction over anybody was in Christian Yeah, it was theoretical and
Richard Abels:these guys are not attacking Christian property they're not taking anything from the Christians they're simply simply living in among them and Turks in Palestine Saracens in Spain. Pagan Slavs the Baltic are heretics in southern France, who are attacking Christianity in the church and should be attacked. The latter were legitimate objects of warfare because they held Christian lands and or oppress Christians. Even then, war should be a last resort. And St. Bernard of Clairvaux wrote in a treatise on the New Order of the Temple, the Templars quote, I do not mean to say that pagans are to be slaughtered when there is any other way to prevent them from harassing and persecuting the faithful and quote,
Ellen Abels:but as you said earlier, Chris Crusades were not simply just worse, they were Christian holy wars. How did that affect if at all Augustinian just war theory,
Richard Abels:the idea of crusade added to further assumptions to Augustinian just war theory, one, violence and its consequences, that is death and injury, are morally neutral, rather than intrinsically evil. Yikes. Whether violence is good or bad is a matter of intention. The analogy given in this in our sources, is to a surgeon who cuts into the body, thus injuring it in order to make it healthier before 1095 A soldier who killed in war even adjust war had committed a sin that required him to do penance. Okay. The second is that Christ is concerned with the political order of man and intends for his agents on Earth, Kings Pope's bishops, to establish on Earth a Christian Republic, that is a quote, single universal transcendental state, and, quote, ruled by Christ, who the lay and clerical magistrates, he endowed with authority. It follows from this, that the defense of the Christian Republic against God's enemies whether foreign infidel for example, the Turks, or domestic heretics, is a moral imperative for those qualified to fight.
Ellen Abels:To be clear, the idea of Christian holy war it wasn't just invented by Pope Urban the Second and the Council of Claremont. I mean, didn't Charlemagne present his wars against the pagan a virus and Slavs in the late eighth century, as holy words did? And I've read that the word squat by Byzantium against the Arabic Islamic expansion of the eighth and ninth centuries were considered to be holy wars. Yeah.
Richard Abels:The Byzantine emperors always portrayed all of their wars as Christian holy wars. And you know, Christian writers had a biblical model for holy war. And that's the conquest of the holy land by the Hebrews in the Old Testament, and that was unsurprisingly cited repeatedly by medieval chroniclers of the Crusades, as well as illustrated in the illuminated manuscripts of crusading Bibles, like the early 13th century picture Bible, now housed in the Morgan library in New York City.
Ellen Abels:So the Morgan pistol picture Bible is a crusading. It's a crusading Bible. That would explain a lot. Okay, but crusading wasn't the only type of Christian holy war, was it? I mean, the Protestants saw themselves as fighting holy wars against the Catholics too. I mean, from what you've said, the real distinction of crusades was the penitential part.
Richard Abels:Exactly. That's my point. Pope Urban the Second and his successors offered to those who fought plenary indulgences for their sins, taking and fulfilling the crusading vow, served in place of penance for all sins the Crusader had committed and it's crucial to understand the sin had to be confessed, with true contrition, the theory behind penance and this may be obvious to the Catholics in our audience, but not obvious to everyone. The theory behind penance is that God will forgive truly confess sins, but that the commission of a sin deforms the world and requires compensation. Hence, it requires patents.
Ellen Abels:I don't remember that front, but then again, that was what that's what you
Richard Abels:say Hail Marys, and all that type of stuff. That's penance. It is no coincidence that the idea of crusading arose at the same time that the Catholic Church was sharpening its debt finition of the sacrament of reconciliation, nor is it coincidence that the word most often used to describe a crusade in the first century of crusading is pilgrimage, which was the penance part. Excellent. And it's also you have to think about this. The argument that Ansel made explaining why God deigned to become incarnate to become a human was because the sins of man, the original sin of Adam, had to be compensated. And the only compensation that could be given is not by a sinful man, but by a man without sin. The crucifixion was the penance that God Himself paid in order for men to be forgiven by God. Okay?
Ellen Abels:Is it the penitential aspect of crusading, then that makes it unique from other religious or politically motivated warfare? I
Richard Abels:would say it is what distinguishes it from other forms of Christian holy war. It represents a revolution in Western Christian thought about war and sin before the Council of Claremont in 1095, in the First Crusade, all killing it right, all killing required penance because the act itself was considered to be sinful. And that was true even if the killing was in a just cause. The Normans who fought at Hastings fought under a painful banner, but a year later, they were forced to do penance for those they had killed in battle who forced them. A church council Okay, bishops forced them, killing the obstinate enemies of God and His Church was not even morally neutral. Now, it was spiritually meritorious. But
Ellen Abels:that doesn't answer Nick's original question. How could this be reconciled with religion to preach love of one's enemies.
Richard Abels:Christianity also preaches love of one's neighbors and love of the Lord God. The penitential narrative crusading did not stem from the killing. It was from the love that the Crusader showed for his fellow Christians, by his willingness to expose himself to danger and to risk death, to free them from the oppression of the enemies of God. It was the willingness to suffer to recover that which rightfully belongs to Christ. Remember, I said at the beginning of the podcast, when someone took a crusading oath, he or she and yes, they were female crusaders sewed onto his or her clothing, a patch with the sign of the cross. The Cross was a multi valence symbol, in the First Crusade, a call to mind the object, the liberation of the Holy Sacrament, but it also recalled Christ's passion by going on a crusade and risking his life in obedience to and in the service of Christ. The Knight was practicing what in the Middle Ages was called imitate Bazzill Christie, Imitation of Christ. Prior to this, the ilimitado Christie required a knight to abandon his professional bonds to enter monastery or to become a religious hermit crusades allowed the knight to do so and remain a knight. Did
Ellen Abels:the church actually recognize those who died on crusade as martyrs?
Richard Abels:not formally, the church defined a matar as one who accepts death without resistance for the faith. Contrast a crusaders death was the death of a warrior. Crusaders themselves, however, saw the Fallen as martyrs and venerated themselves as such. And clerics who preached the crusade, I think purposely blurred the distinction. crusading offered knights forgiveness of many sins, that the noble lifestyle they followed made unavoidable service to the Lord God without abandoning their station as knights was another reason to go on crusade because the Crusades were a cause worth fighting and dying in and the promise of heaven for those who did die, while wearing the cross was probably the greatest of all of the attractions of crusading St. Bernard of Clairvaux, who was without a doubt the most effective recruiter for the disastrous Second Crusade, pushed all the right buttons in his sermon at the council desolate and he left him 46 And I quote, Christian warriors, He who gave his life for you, the band's yours in return. These are combats worthy of you combats, in which it is glorious to conquer and advantageous to die illustrious guides generous defenders of the cross. Remember the example of your father's who conquered Jerusalem, and whose names are inscribed in heaven. Abandon, then the things that perish to gather unfading palms and conquer a kingdom that has no end and quote, well, I think that sums up nicely the ideal of crusading for the aristocracy in the 12th century.
Ellen Abels:As usual, we've run out of time. But one last question. Do you think that the leaders and settlers of the Latin states of the Levant were Crusaders? Were How about the mercenaries that Nick Morton said played? So prominent role in the army so the Crusader States? Okay.
Richard Abels:Many of those who settled in BootROM air originally came as Crusaders, and they had taken the crusading vow, but once they had settled there, they have fulfilled that vow. And I don't think they were crusaders anymore.
Ellen Abels:Does that mean that any sense they created once they became landowners in the crusading kingdom? Were no longer forgiven?
Richard Abels:Nope. though. You see, the thing about it is,
Ellen Abels:it's wretched speakers lawyer, you gotta read this book.
Richard Abels:gotta read this. Well, it's not forgiveness of sins you're going to commit. This is like confession. You can't enter the confessional and say to the priest, Bless me, Father, for I have sinned. It's been a week since my last confession. I have sinned both grievously by having sex with a married lady. I am sorry for this sin with all my heart. I deserve whatever pennants you see fit. But could it cover also my actions for next Saturday as well, since I have another date with her?
Ellen Abels:The sins that you committed at the time that you took the cross?
Richard Abels:Exactly, exactly. So once you settled there, you're no longer a crusader. You although you've now settled in the Holy Land, Okay, God, okay. And in the decades following the establishment of the Kingdom of Jerusalem, many migrants came, who hadn't taken the cross, the newly quote, unquote, liberated coastal cities of the Kingdom of Jerusalem, the county of Tripoli, in the Principality of Antioch cried out for French tradesmen and craftsmen, the lure of walking in the step footsteps of Christ and His apostles undoubtedly had an appeal, but so did the prospect of economic advancement. And the two were not exclusive. What made someone a crusader was not that he lived in the Holy Land, but that he or she was signed by the cross. Okay. So if you're pressing me, yes, my answer is no. Okay. The military activities of the Latin states of the Levant may have been Christian holy wars. And I have no doubt that that's exactly how can give loosen Yan and the great army of 20,000 that he assembled at Los Ofori, near Nazareth to counter solid means in the invasion. That's what they thought they would do. And they thought they were engaged in holy war, that army after role marched into the desert under the banner of the True Cross carrying the True Cross. But as I said, not all Christian holy wars were crusades, and not all those who fought on crusade. Were at least fully Crusaders.
Ellen Abels:I'm not sure that Nicolas Morton would agree with you about that. But that will have to be the last word for today.
Richard Abels:I plan to have Nick back to talk about the Hatim campaign and Alaska then I'll right but that's it for today. I hope that you will be able to join us for our next episode, which if everything goes as planned, will be on St. Thomas Beckett and will be with my friend and veteran of this podcast, Dr. Jennifer Paxton, but bye for now. Bye
