The Glory of the Crusades Read online

  The Glory of the Crusades

  STEVE WEIDENKOPF

  The Glory of the Crusades

  © 2014 Steve Weidenkopf

  All rights reserved. Except for quotations, no part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, uploading to the Internet, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without written permission from the publisher.

  Published by Catholic Answers, Inc.

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  Cover design by Devin Schadt

  Interior design by Sherry Russell

  ISBN 978-1-941663-00-4 hardcover

  ISBN 978-1-941663-01-1 paperback

  ISBN 978-1-941663-02-8 Kindle

  ISBN 978-1-941663-03-5 ePub

  To my beloved and devoted wife Kasey

  If it’s half as good as the half we’ve known, here’s Hail! to the rest of the road.

  Table of Contents

  Acknowledgments

  Author Preface

  An Attack on the Crusades and the Church

  Birth of the Crusades

  Jerusalem

  Warrior-Monks, Preachers, and the Second Crusade

  The Sultan and the Kings

  Fiasco of the Fourth Crusade

  A Saint and a Sinner

  The End of the Crusader States

  Defending Christendom

  The Crusades and the Modern World

  Timeline of Crusades and Other Major Events

  Bibliography

  About the Author

  Acknowledgments

  I deeply thank my beautiful and wonderful wife Kasey who supported me in various ways throughout the completion of this work. I also sincerely thank my patient children, Maddie, Maximilian, Thérèse, Luke, Jeb, and Martin.

  Thanks also to Todd Aglialoro for approaching me to write this book. Dan Lord’s editorial effort improved this book greatly. Dr. Kris Burns graciously allowed me to utilize space at the Notre Dame Graduate School of Christendom College—without that sanctuary this work would not have been completed. I wish to give a hearty thanks to my friends who read and commented on the manuscript throughout this process and for their unwavering support and encouragement: for my dear friend, Joe Burns, thanks for being my wingman; and Greg Erkens, thank you for your honest critique and thoughtful discussions. I also wish to remember the work of Dr. Warren H. Carroll (1932–2011), Catholic historian and founder of Christendom College. His many works of Catholic history are inspiring.

  Lastly, I give thanks to the Blessed Virgin Mary and to the great St. Bernard of Clairvaux whose intercession throughout this project enabled its completion.

  The men of Normandy had faith that what they were doing was right, faith that they fought for all humanity, faith that a just God would grant them mercy on this beachhead or on the next. It was the deep knowledge—and pray God we have not lost it—that there is a profound, moral difference between the use of force for liberation and the use of force for conquest. You were here to liberate, not to conquer, and so you and those others did not doubt your cause. And you were right not to doubt.

  Ronald Reagan, Pointe de Hoc, Normandy, June 6, 1984

  Author Preface

  We have returned to the Levant, we have returned apparently more as masters than ever we were during the struggle of the Crusades—but we have returned bankrupt in that spiritual wealth which was the glory of the Crusades.

  Hilaire Belloc, The Crusades, 1937

  In our age the Crusades are described as barbaric, wasteful, shameful, and even sinful. Rarely are they called glorious. This is because the modern world embraces a false narrative about the Crusades. This false story, however much discredited by authentic modern scholarship, remains entrenched in the minds of the masses.

  Yet it was not always so. During the Crusading movement these military events were mostly seen in a positive light throughout Christendom, with popes and saints exhorting Catholic warriors to engage in them. Warriors who participated in these armed pilgrimages did so for a multitude of reasons but primarily for the sake of their own salvation. The Crusades emerged from a feudal society that stressed personal relationships founded on honor, loyalty, and service to one’s vassal. Crusading knights invoked those virtues as they fought for Christ and the Church to recover ancient Christian territory stolen by Muslim conquerors.

  The Crusades also emerged from an age in which faith permeated all aspects of society. This does not mean medieval Europe was heaven on earth or that Christendom was some idyllic utopia. But it was nonetheless an era in which people made radical life decisions because of their faith in Jesus Christ and his Church. Accordingly, the Crusading movement was a Catholic movement. Popes called for them, clerics (and saints) preached them, and Catholic warriors fought them for spiritual benefits. The Crusades cannot be properly understood apart from this Catholic reality.

  Sadly, though, too many Catholics today seem more inclined to apologize for the Crusades rather than to embrace their glory.

  Perhaps this is because the meaning of glory is not properly understood. The Old Testament can help provide us a proper understanding of glory. After Moses had led the Israelites out of Egypt, they sinned against God by worshipping the golden calf. God wanted to destroy the Israelites for their idolatry but Moses interceded for the people and the Lord relented. Moses’ special relationship with God included the gift of being in the presence of the Lord in the meeting tent where Moses spoke to God face to face. Moses pleaded with God for his presence to remain with the Israelites on their journey to the Promised Land so that the other nations would see their uniqueness.

  Moses also begged the Lord to show him his glory (Ex. 33:18). The Hebrew word for “glory” used most often in the Old Testament is kabod, which means “heavy in weight.” To recognize the glory of something, therefore, means to acknowledge its importance or “weight.” Moses wanted the Lord’s glory to shine for the people in order that they would recognize the important act of their deliverance from bondage. To recognize the glory of the Crusades means not to whitewash what was ignoble about them, but to call due attention to their import in the life of the Church.

  Perhaps by reclaiming the true Catholic narrative of the Crusades we may be emboldened to honor our Lord by proudly bearing the cross against modern enemies that threaten his Church no less than did the followers of Mohammed a millennium ago.

  I

  An Attack on the Crusades and the Church

  The Roman pontiffs and the European princes were engaged at first in these crusades by a principle of superstition only, but when in the process of time they learnt by experience that these holy wars contributed much to increase their opulence and to extend their authority … [then] ambition and avarice seconded and enforced the dictates of fanaticism and superstition.

  Johann Lorenz von Mosheim (1693–1755), German Lutheran historian1

  Criticizing the Church is not a new phenomenon—it is almost as old as the Church itself. Attacks on the Church’s teachings and the persecution of its faithful are a mainstay of its history. However, what is relatively new is the misuse of historical events to undermine the Church and its teachings. This “historical attack” began in the fires of the Protestant Revolution but in the modern world has become a trite, overused tactic against the Church. Nonetheless, it has proven quite effective, as many people in today’s society (including, unfortunately, many Catholics) believe the false history presented by critics. Influenced by the media,
Hollywood, and other outlets, popular perception of historical events reigns supreme even when that perception is completely at odds with historical reality.

  The Importance of Learning Church History

  The historical attack is largely successful because Catholics do not know their own history. This is not to fault the individual Catholic, since Church history is not often a subject taught in schools and universities—or, at least, it is not often well-taught. Still, knowing our history well helps us know who we are. Knowing our history badly will negatively influence our worldview and cloud our relationship with the Church.

  It is also important to learn Church history in order to defend the Church against its critics. The accepted historical narrative presented in the English-speaking world is centered on a predominantly Protestant perspective. This perspective is not amenable to an authentic understanding of Catholic history. As a result, most Catholics throughout their educational careers are provided an English Protestant interpretation of historical events that warps and dismisses the Catholic story.2 It is the necessary work of Catholic historians to undo the false aspects of this Protestant view as well as provide an authentic Catholic narrative in order to assist the faithful in defending the Church.

  The Crusades

  The Crusades are among the most misused and, by far, the most misunderstood endeavors in all Church history. In the minds of most modern people the very word “Crusade” conjures negative images of blood-thirsty, barbaric, and greedy European nobles setting out to conquer peaceful Muslims living in the Holy Land. These images are reinforced by the media, both in print and film. Hollywood last addressed the Crusades in the 2005 movie Kingdom of Heaven, which purports to tell the story of the Kingdom of Jerusalem during the reign of Baldwin IV, the “Leper King.” The film’s storyline includes the dramatic Battle of Hattin and the siege and loss of Jerusalem to the Muslim general Saladin. Provided with such dramatic and engaging story arcs, the movie had the potential to be a true masterpiece and an example of authentic history on screen.

  Unfortunately, the director and producers decided to rely on faulty and even damaging popular imaginations of the Crusades rather than on historical fact. Jonathan Riley-Smith, one of the foremost authorities on the Crusades today, remarked the film was “Osama bin Laden’s version of history.”3 Although the film was highly anticipated, it did not do very well at the domestic US box office, taking in a mere $47 million (it cost $130 million to make).4

  It is extremely frustrating for serious scholars of the Crusades to witness these events thoroughly maligned and misrepresented in the media. However, the fact is “Crusading was always controversial,”5 and there were many critics even throughout the Crusading movement itself. What is particularly aggravating about modern criticism is that despite the significant amount of serious scholarship over the last forty years, popular perception remains shaped by outdated and false images. As one modern Crusades historian recently remarked, “The Crusades remain one of the few subjects of professional history that carry wide popular recognition even if little serious understanding.”6

  A survey of this landscape of popular misconceptions about the Crusades reveals seven main myths, which this book will refute:

  1. The Crusades were wars of unprovoked aggression.

  2. The Crusaders were motivated primarily by greed and the prospect for plunder and riches.

  3. When Jerusalem was liberated in 1099, the Crusaders killed all the inhabitants of the city—so much blood was spilled that it ran ankle deep.

  4. The Crusades were colonial enterprises.

  5. The Crusades were also wars against the Jews and should be seen as the first Holocaust.

  6. The Crusades were wars of conversion.

  7. The Crusades are the source of the modern tension between Islam and the West.

  Seeds of the Myths

  The creation of these myths began in the sixteenth century when Protestant authors used the still-ongoing Crusades to attack the Church and, principally, the papacy. Most Protestant critics of that time viewed the Crusades as the creation of the anti-Christ (the pope) to increase Church wealth. Crusaders were portrayed as ignorant followers of superstition who participated in holy wars, which were nothing more than examples of Catholic bigotry and cruelty. Protestant teaching was completely opposed to the Crusading movement because it necessitated obedience to the papacy, preserved the unity of Christendom, and provided spiritual benefits (indulgences).7

  Martin Luther set the stage for the Protestant interpretation of the Crusades by seeing the Ottoman Turkish threat to Europe in the early sixteenth century as part of God’s plan for divine retribution against the evils of the Catholic Church. At the height of his revolution against the Church, Luther wrote, “to fight against the Turks is to oppose the judgment God visits upon our iniquities through them.”8 After a Turkish invasion force reached the gates of Vienna in 1529, Luther reconsidered his anti-Crusade stance and actually encouraged Christian princes (Catholic and Protestant alike) to join together to fight the Turkish horde. Of course, Luther did not actually call for a Crusade, nor did he desire a religious war resembling the Crusades. He steadfastly rejected any such notion by writing, “If in my turn I were a soldier and saw in the battlefield a priest’s banner or cross, even if it were the very crucifix, I should want to run away as though the devil were chasing me!”9

  Watering the Myths

  If these Reformation-era writers were the first to view the Crusades through the lens of anti-papal rhetoric, seeing the entire effort as nothing other than a vast waste of European resources undertaken by barbaric, superstitious warriors, these themes received increasing nourishment once combined with the new anti-Church hostility of the Enlightenment.

  Centered in France and occupying the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, the philosophical movement known as the Enlightenment sought to weaken the influence of the Church in European society. Enlightenment thinking affected most areas of life, including the study and presentation of history. Crusade history was used by intellectuals “not as a historical study in its own right but as a tool in conceptual arguments about religion and the progress of civilization.”10 The Crusades would continue to be used in this way by future generations to further their own agenda against society and the Church.11

  The main Enlightenment critics of the Crusades were the Frenchmen Voltaire and Denis Diderot, and England’s David Hume and Edward Gibbon. Voltaire (1694–1778) waged a fierce campaign of satire and ridicule against the Catholic Church. In 1751 he published an essay on the Crusades in which he described them as an “epidemic of fury which lasted for 200 years and which was always marked by every cruelty, every perfidy, every debauchery, and every folly of which human nature is capable.”12 He further opined that the Crusades were “wasteful, pointless, ruined by excessive papal ambition for worldly power, an example of the corrosive fanaticism of the middle ages.”13

  Diderot (1713–1784) also saw the Crusades in a wholly negative light and criticized them for the despoliation of Europe. Diderot wrote that the consequences of these “horrible wars” were “the depopulation of its nations, the enrichment of monasteries, the impoverishment of the nobility, the ruin of ecclesiastical discipline, contempt for agriculture, scarcity of cash and an infinity of vexations.”14 Diderot also complained that the Crusades were worthless enterprises of savagery in which European knights were sent by the Church to “cut the inhabitant’s throats and seize a rocky peak [Jerusalem] which was not worth one drop of blood.”15

  Hume (1711–1776) believed the Muslim world was superior in “science and humanity” and the Crusades were “the most signal and most durable monument to human folly that has yet appeared in any age or nation.”16

  The reflections of Edward Gibbon (1737–1794) on the Crusades mimicked the writings of his fellow “enlightened” thinkers principally in the thought that the Crusades brought nothing but negative consequences to Europe. In Gibbon’s mind, the Crusaders were ignora
nt and superstitious criminals manipulated by the Church:

  At the voice of their pastor, the robber, the incendiary, the homicide, arose by their thousands to redeem their souls by repeating on the infidels the same deeds which they exercised against their Christian brethren; and the terms of atonement were eagerly embraced by offenders of every rank and denomination. None were pure; none were exempt from the guilt and penalty of sin; and those who were the least amenable to the justice of God and the Church were the best entitled to the temporal and eternal recompense of their pious courage.17

  Gibbon also believed that the primary motivation of the Crusaders was greed, with Western warriors bent on the pursuit of “mines of treasures, of gold and diamonds, of palaces of marble and jasper, and of odoriferous groves of cinnamon and frankincense.”18 This erroneous view of Crusader motivations, still commonly held, may be Gibbon’s enduring mark on the popular history of the Crusades.

  Modern Scholarship

  In the early twentieth century, the Crusades were brushed with a colonial color which later greatly influenced (and still influences) modern Islamic understanding of the movement. The dissolution of the Ottoman Turkish Empire after its defeat in the First World War produced colonial mandates for the British and French in the Middle East. These European powers used Crusading imagery to describe their overseas colonies. A London magazine published a cartoon of King Richard I watching the British marching into Jerusalem with the words, “At last my dream come true.”19 The French commander of Syria, General Henri Gouraud, was reported to have remarked, “Behold, Saladin, we have returned.”20 The main author who contributed to this colonial interpretation of the Crusades was the Frenchman Rene Grousset (1858–1952). However, within a half-century of the publication of his History of the Crusades,21 most scholars had thoroughly rebuked Grousset’s colonial view.

  As the twentieth century reached its midpoint, another group of historians would interpret the Crusades through the lens of economics. For these Marxist scholars, the Crusades were colonial endeavors motivated by economic factors impacted by the growth in medieval population and the shortage of resources in Europe.