Currently Reading: God’s Battalions-The Case for the Crusades
Everyone knows that the Crusades were horrible miscarriages of justice, and examples of Western Imperialism, right? The Pope called the Crusades to find a “release valve” for the warring knights in Europe and to rob the East of its wealth and to plunder the Arab states in the Holy Land. That’s the common take on the Crusades. The Crusades were assaults on the otherwise peace-loving Islamic nation-states. These and other myths are shattered to little pieces in this fascinating book.
Stark marshalls impressive evidence that the common view of the Crusades is far from the truth in this fascinating account of the motivations of the Crusaders and the often overlooked reality of just what was happening in the Holy Land at the hands of Islamic armies bent on spreading Islam by force of arms.
If you have ever wondered if there is more to the story of the Crusades than the received wisdom we were all given in our basic history courses, you will enjoy this book, very much.
I’ve heard of this book a couple of times recently and would love to read it.
I’ve always felt that there was more to the crusades than the historic pro-Islamic / anti-Christian ‘spin’ we are used to.
I feel that we are living with the consequences of this historic slant on the crusades, to this very day.
I have no problem with the proposition that the Crusaders went to the Holy Land and reclaimed for Christendom lands that had been Christian-ruled for centuries before the Moslem conquest and in which many Christians still lived. So the problem isn’t the Crusades themselves.
On the other hand, there were atrocities not only against Moslems but against Jews in what was, after all, their land–not the land of the Franks nor of the Greeks nor of the Arabs nor of the Turks. Worse yet, there was the irreparable harm of the Fourth Crusade, which led to the destruction of the Eastern Roman Empire–the Crusaders and their Venetian puppet-masters were eventually expelled, but the empire never regained its strength. The Crusaders did much more harm to Christianity in the eastern Mediterranean than they helped it..
There is a lot more to the story. I would suggest the works of Jonathan Riley-Smith or Thomas F. Madden. The latter is a professor at Saint Louis University and has spoken on Issues, Etc a few times regarding this topic.
However, Lutherans shouldn’t get too excited about them because of the faulty theology of penance and indulgences associated with these wars. Additionally, the pope called a Crusade against during the Schmalkaldic Wars.
Thank you for the news and information.
I personally enjoyed the less technical yet very readable “The Fourth Crusade and the Sack of Constantinople” by Jonathan Phillips. I own this books, but I will only have it here in DK next summer when I plan on shipping my whole library (over 700 books). I highly recommend this rather quick read to any person interested in this historical period of the crusades.
The chairman of the Department of Religion at Copenhagen University – Carsten Jensen, a specialist in the Crusade period (a Lutheran believer and member of the same church as I) recommended the following:
Norman Housley: “Contesting the Crusades.” Blackwell 2006 – “some very interesting research into the crusades as well as into the historiography of the crusades.”
JourneyWithJesus.net web-zine did an excellent review of “God’s War; a New History of the Crusades” by Christopher Tyerman. http://journeywithjesus.net/BookNotes/Christopher_Tyerman_Gods_War.shtml
The faculty at Copenhagen University uses all these books as part of their courses.
Thank you for that recommendation, I’ll have to take a look at that one next.
One may also wish to review Runciman’s work on the subject of the Crusades (and the state of Christians under Islam as well as the neighboring Roman [Byzantine] Empire). Mullins also has an interesting POV regarding the genesis of the Crusading culture in his “Cluny: In Search of God’s Lost Empire”.
The question to be asked regarding the motivations of the Crusaders is why it took centuries for the West to decide it was necessary to save the Christians of the Holy Land and its holy places. There was no especially new information or atrocities that preceded the Crusades that hadn’t already been known for some time. The fact it took so long points to other motivating factors as also being decisive in the development of the Crusading culture of the West.
Mr. Orr, the book does discuss what the Byzantine Empire did to Western/Roman Christians to cause such antipathy.
I thought the book discussed “what was happening in the Holy Land at the hands of Islamic armies bent on spreading Islam by force of arms” rather than what the Byzantine Roman Empire did to begin or exacerbate the Crusades. My only point was that the actions of Islam in the Holy Land was not the only or primary factor in why the West took up the cross in those centuries, there were many factors at play.
The book probably won’t make anyone happy who has believed, or been taught, the myths of: the Dark Ages, the poor persecuted Byzantine Empire and Greek Christians whom the West would not help for the longest time, the money-grubbing popes who used the Crusades as an excuse to line their bank accounts, the gold-hungry blood thirsty knights who went for the gold, and the peace-loving great Islamic Empire of wonderful Arab scholars.
Lots of debunking in this book. Check it out for yourself, Mr. Orr. I think you’ll like it.
I would LOVE to hear what excuse POSSIBLY justifies the conduct of the robbing, raping, murdering crusaders in the Fourth Crusade, or of the powers in the west who sent and guided it. The fourth crusade was the work of the treacherous and greedy doge of Venice with the active assent of the misnamed Innocent III (also the founder of the Inquisition and the establisher of the doctrine of Transsubstantiation).
There are no “excuses” made for anything. In fact, the author’s name is rather fitting. He lays out the facts “Starkly.” I am about half way through it. One comment he made that pertains to your remark Ken is simply this, and I’m paraphrasing, “There was nothing particularly more brutal about anything anyone did in these days. All warfare and campaigning was brutal.” He excuses nothing, but does not allow myths to stand. There were no “innocent” victims here, and any attempt to paint West/Byzantine/Arab or otherwise as somehow the “victim” in any of this is wrong. There was corruption everywhere and the East was as rife with it as the West was.
Ken Howes,
The story of the 4th Crusade is a little more complicated than that. What happened was a Byzantine usurper promised the Crusaders money and support if they helped him take over the Byzantine throne–something not too uncommon at that time. When they did so he didn’t pay up as promised and the Crusaders took the city as “payment”. In other words, we cannot simply claim this was due to some Western plot, there is enough blame to go around.
Re; Robbing, raping etc., except on a few occasions, that was warfare. Again, it does not justify what happened, but it cannot be portrayed as simply something the West did to the Byzantines.
I’ve ordered this book for our library. Thank you for recommending it.