In Defense of the Crusades

As one who loves the romance and heroism (on both sides) of the Crusades, I've sat glumly through the previews for Ridley Scott's new flick

.

The Crusades always get a bum rap.

I realize that my love for the Crusades has not been shared by the majority since the Enlightenment; an ill-named period of history, if ever there was one. Recently, there have been signs that scholars are ready to reevaluate the Crusades. Jonathan Riley-Smith's

is one of the most notable revisionist books.

No doubt, it was a rough age and many terrible things happened. But the Crusades were not genocide. They did not set out to kill or eradicate people because of ethnicity but because of the way Christians and Christian holy sites in the Middle East were being treated. I think this quote posted on a

is pretty good (you'll note it is far from uncritical):

"The conquest of Jerusalem by the Mohammedans [Medieval Church notes that this is an obsolete and now-offensive term], and the insults offered to the most sacred memories of the Christian world, roused such a feeling of shame and indignation throughout Christendom, but especially in Western Europe, that a series of wars, called crusades, from the cross which was worn by all participants as a badge, was undertaken for the purpose of reconquering Palestine. The chief motive power in this movement was at first pure religious enthusiasm, helped on, it may be, by the ample ecclesiastical indulgences and great social exemptions which were granted to all who took the cross; and the idea which precipitated whole nations like a rushing stream towards the Holy Land, no doubt continued to be the principal impulse in many a noble heart. But gradually the restless and adventurous spirit of the age, which, in this fight for the glory of God, found satisfaction for its coarsest cravings without any disturbance of its gross superstition, transformed the religious contest about the Holy Land into a romantic tournament between the Christian knight and the Moslem warrior; and finally political ambition and commercial greed degraded the whole undertaking into a mere means of intrigue, speculation, and fraud."

There was much of the good and much of the bad in the Crusades, as the above quote makes abundantly clear. Here is another

(it makes reference to "Kingdom of Heaven"):

"I would guess, though, that most Christians walking out of the theater in May won't be scheming how to burn down their neighborhood mosque. Rather, they'll be asking, How could Christians do this? How could we wage war on people in Christ's name, even if they were warring against us? Historian Bruce Shelley took a good stab at that question, when he pointed out that many Europeans knights went on crusade to defend Christians suffering under Islamic rule (it wasn't so tolerant as it's sometimes made out to be). And many knights wanted to practice their vocation in "honorable combat" (as opposed to squandering it in petty quarrels). [Director Ridley] Scott captures that sentiment well in his quote from Godfrey of Ibelin: 'Be without fear in the face of your enemies. Be brave and upright. Speak the truth. Safeguard the helpless. That is your oath.'"

The author of this piece goes on to lament the legacy of Christian-Muslim hatred from the Crusades. Actually, I think most Christians have pretty much forgotten this beautiful but flawed epoch.

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