Holy Warriors (62 page)

Crusading imagery and metaphor have survived, and indeed blossomed over the centuries. They have emerged in common, if diverse, use across many aspects of the cultural and political life of the West; the blend of historical resonances and a feeling of moral right are a heady mixture. The
combination of epic confrontation, the clash of faiths, the sense of defending one’s own culture, a unified cause, and above all, the sense of moral right, have helped to keep the idea alive. Added to that, the deeds and desires of compelling characters, such as those covered here, also explain why the subject retains such an allure in popular culture; for example, the Knights Templar were prominent in Umberto Eco’s
Foucault’s Pendulum
(1988) and Dan Brown’s
The Da Vinci Code
(2002), while the fall of Jerusalem was the centerpiece of Ridley Scott’s major 2005 movie
Kingdom of Heaven
(although the film had a very secular idea at its heart with chivalry, rather than faith, being held up as the true belief). In the contemporary Muslim world Saladin is now starring as a children’s cartoon character, displaying his appeal in a less polemical form than usual.

As we have seen, some sensed the troubles the crusading legacy might cause, and General Allenby’s determination to disconnect the medieval from the modern in Jerusalem in 1917 stands as a stark contrast to General Gouraud’s triumphal behavior in Damascus three years later (“Saladin, we have returned!”). Encouraged by such expression of superiority and, in the face of widespread western conquests of Islamic lands during the nineteenth century, many Muslims recalled both the traumas of the medieval age and also their ultimate success in defeating the crusaders. By tapping into their own history and folklore, as well as using the modern western constructs provided by men such as Kaiser Wilhelm II, they found a very potent set of images. The cumulative effect of the use of “crusade” by leaders as ideologically diverse as Sultan Abdulhamid II, Nasser of Egypt, Saddam Hussein, and Osama bin Laden, has given it a wholly abhorrent meaning to the Islamic world and one that reflects western imperialist aggression, rather than Christian zeal.

What took place across so many theaters of war and involved so many millions of people has embedded itself into the consciousness of the Christian West and the Muslim Near East. Given the intrinsic nature of jihad to Islam it will never disappear, yet crusading has ended. The failure of the Christians to hold on to the Holy Land, the conversion of the pagans of the Baltic, the successful reconquest of Iberia, rising distaste for the sale of indulgences, plus a growing sense of national identity and the Reformation, brought about its demise. What has survived is an immensely rich body of terminology, sentiment, and imagery. Crusading was, in many ways, initially conceived and justified as a defensive idea, but its later successors,
such as colonialism, were unashamedly aggressive and share few elements of the same DNA. For centuries we have actually seen just shadows of the crusades, not true shapes. While many of these phantoms can guide us and—as Churchill implied—offer us warnings, the medieval and modern contexts are wholly different and for that reason such shadows need to be treated with real care—from all sides—to avoid disaster.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

In the course of writing this book a great many people have offered invaluable advice and support, as well as providing me with opportunities to visit, to discuss, and to learn about some of the people and places covered here. I would like to thank: William Purkis, Francis Robinson, Jonathan Harris, Matthew Bennett, Natasha Hodgson, Peter Jackson, Osman Latiff, Justin Champion, Paul Sturtevant, Andrew Taylor, Andy Hershey, Dimitri Collingridge, David Jeffcock, and Will Lane. The good-natured enthusiasm and culinary skills of the students on the University of London MA in Crusader Studies have also been vital. I am very grateful to Catherine Clarke for her positive and clear-sighted guidance and to all the team at Felicity Bryan for their hard work; my thanks also to Fletcher and Co. in New York. Will Sulkin has shown immense faith in this project and provided crucial conceptual input and editorial advice; David Milner has been an excellent and observant editor and the help of Tim Bartlett and Kay Peddle has been much appreciated. My thanks, again, to Emmett Sullivan for his photographic expertise. The emotional and practical kindnesses of many others have been essential and I am hugely thankful to Alex and Ruth Windscheffel, Eileen Moore, Kate and Andrew Golding, Amanda and Lenny Goodrich, Lisa Drage, Sharon-Lee Broomfield, Bruno Heisey, the Chappell family, Roger and Leila Moore, and particularly Anne Meyer and Sir Idris Pearce, and Sophie and John Wallace. My greatest debts are to my parents for providing me with such wholehearted support throughout my life; thanks also to my dad for his interest and research at such a difficult time for him; to my sons, who both make me so proud: Tom for his ever-sharp observations and humor and Marcus for his happy enthusiasm. Finally, to my wonderful wife, Niki, for her patience, belief, and love, without which I could not be.

NOTES

1.
N. Housley,
Contesting the Crusades
(Oxford, 2006);
The Oxford Illustrated History of the Crusades
, ed. J. S. C. Riley-Smith (Oxford, 1995).

2.
My thanks to Thomas Phillips for his research on this point:
Batman and Robin: The Complete 1949 Movie Serial Collection
.

3.
J. P. Phillips, “Why a Crusade Will Lead to a Jihad,”
Independent
, September 18, 2001.

4.
E. Sivan, “The Crusader Described by Modern Arab Historiography,” in
Asian and African Studies
8 (1972), pp. 104–49; C. Hillenbrand,
The Crusades: Islamic Perspectives
(Edinburgh, 1999).

5.
C. Hillenbrand,
Turkish Myth and Muslim Symbol: The Battle of Manzikert
(Edinburgh, 2007).

1.
Robert of Rheims, account of Urban II’s speech at Clermont, taken from L. and J. S. C. Riley-Smith,
The Crusades: Idea and Reality, 1095–1274
(London, 1981), pp. 42–45. For the full text of Robert’s chronicle, see
Robert the Monk’s History of the First Crusade
, tr. C. Sweetenham (Aldershot, 2005).

2.
C. J. Tyerman,
God’s War: A New History of the Crusades
(London, 2006), pp. 1–24, elegantly sketches out the situation in Europe and the Mediterranean during the eleventh century.

3.
J. S. C. Riley-Smith,
What Were the Crusades?
, third edition (Basingstoke, 2002), pp. 5–9; J. S. C. Riley-Smith,
The First Crusade and the Idea of Crusading
(London, 1986), pp. 5–8; Tyerman,
God’s War
, pp. 27–51. In a broader context, see F. H. Russell,
The Just War in the Middle Ages
(Cambridge, 1975).

4.
See the accounts of Robert of Rheims, Baldric of Bourgueil, Fulcher of Chartres,
and Guibert of Nogent, all translated in Riley-Smith,
Crusades: Idea and Reality
, pp. 41–53.

5.
Both the tympanum at Conques and at Autun are especially vivid.

6.
Guibert of Nogent,
The Deeds of God Through the Franks: Gesta Dei per Francos
, tr. R. Levine (Woodbridge, 1997), p. 28.

7.
Gesta Francorum et aliorum Hierosalimitanorum: The Deeds of the Franks and the Other Pilgrims to Jerusalem
, ed. R. Hill, tr. R. A. B. Mynors (London, 1962), p. 1; Guibert of Nogent,
Deeds of God
, p. 45.

8.
C. Hillenbrand,
Turkish Myth and Muslim Symbol;
C. Hillenbrand, “The First Crusade: The Muslim Perspective,” in
The First Crusade: Origins and Impact
, ed. J. P. Phillips (Manchester, 1997), pp. 130–41.

9.
J. Shepard, “Cross-Purposes: Alexius Comnenus and the First Crusade,” in
The First Crusade: Origins and Impact
, pp. 107–29.

10.
Riley-Smith,
The First Crusaders, 1095–1131
(Cambridge, 1999), pp. 55–60.

11.
R. Chazan,
European Jewry and the First Crusade
(Berkeley, 1987).

12.
Ibid., p. 66.

13.
Ibid., p. 234.

14.
Albert of Aachen,
Historia Ierosolimitana: History of the Journey to Jerusalem
, ed. and tr. S. B. Edgington (Oxford, 2007), pp. 52–53.

15.
Chazan,
European Jewry
, p. 69.

16.
Albert of Aachen,
Historia Ierosolimitana
, pp. 56–59.

17.
M. G. Bull, “The Diplomatic of the First Crusade,” in
The First Crusade: Origins and Impact
, pp. 35–56.

18.
Charter from Riley-Smith,
The First Crusaders
, p. 114.

19.
Ibid., pp. 67–68.

20.
Fulcher of Chartres,
A History of the Expedition to Jerusalem, 1095–1127
, tr. F. R. Ryan, ed. H. S. Fink (Knoxville, 1969), p. 88.

21.
Riley-Smith,
The First Crusade
, p. 43.

22.
A V. Murray, “Money and Logistics in the Forces of the First Crusade: Coinage, Bullion, Service, and Supply, 1096–1099,” in
Logistics of Warfare in the Age of the Crusades
, ed. J. H. Pryor (Aldershot, 2006), pp. 229–50.

23.
Letter of Urban II to the congregation of Vallombrosa, October 7, 1096, tr. Riley-Smith,
Crusades: Idea and Reality
, pp. 39–40.

24.
AV. Murray,
The Crusader Kingdom of Jerusalem: A Dynastic History, 1099–1125
(Oxford, 2000), pp. 1–93.

25.
For the letters, see H. Hagenmeyer,
Die Kreuzzugsbriefe aus den Jahren 1088–1100
(Innsbruck, 1901), pp. 138–42, 149–52. The latter is translated in “Letter of Stephen of Blois to Adela of Blois,” in
The First Crusade: “The Chronicle of Fulcher of Chartres” and Other Source Materials
, ed. E. Peters, second edition (Philadelphia,
1998), pp. 287–88. See also K. LoPrete, “Adela of Blois: Familial Alliances and Female Lordships” in
Aristocratic Women in Medieval France
, ed. T. Evergates (Philadelphia, 1999), pp. 7–43.

26.
J. H. and L. L. Hill,
Raymond IV, Count of Toulouse
(Syracuse, 1962).

27.
R. B. Yewdale,
Bohemond I, Prince of Antioch
(Princeton, 1924);
Gesta Franco-rum
, passim.

28.
Fulcher of Chartres,
History of the Expedition to Jerusalem
, p. 74.

29.
G. T. Dennis, “Defenders of the Christian People: Holy War in Byzantium,” in
The Crusades from the Perspective of the Byzantine and Muslim World
, eds. A. E. Laiou and R. P. Mottahedeh (Washington, 2001), pp. 31–40; Shepard, “Cross-Purposes,” pp. 108–13; J. Harris,
Byzantium and the Crusades
(London, 2003), pp. 53–60; Anna Comnena,
The Alexiad
, tr. E. R. A. Sewter (London, 1969), p. 319.

30.
J. France,
Victory in the East: A Military History
(Cambridge, 1994), p. 105.

31.
Anna Comnena,
The Alexiad
, p. 323.

32.
J. Harris,
Constantinople
(London, 2006).

33.
Albert of Aachen,
Historia Ierosolimitana
, pp. 84–85.

34.
Ibid., pp. 90–91; Harris,
Byzantium and the Crusades
, pp. 60–67.

35.
Hillenbrand, “The First Crusade: The Muslim Perspective,” pp. 130–41.

36.
Ibid., p. 132.

37.
Fulcher of Chartres,
History of the Expedition to Jerusalem
, p. 85.

38.
Gesta Francorum
, p. 19.

39.
Ibid., pp. 20–21.

40.
J. B. Segal,
Edessa: The Blessed City
(Oxford, 1970); C. MacEvitt,
The Crusades and the Christian World of the East: Rough Tolerance
(Philadelphia, 2008), pp. 50–73.