The Glory of the Crusades (4 page)

38
Hilaire Belloc,
The Great Heresies
(Manassas, VA: Trinity Communications, 1987), 127.

39
The full quote is “Reading history from present to past is reading into rather than learning from it.” Steven Ozment,
A Mighty Fortress—A New History of the German People
(New York: HarperCollins, 2004), 8.

40
International Theological Commission,
Memory and Reconciliation
, 4.2.

41
Walter Cardinal Brandmülller, trans. Michael J. Miller,
Light and Shadows—Church History amid Faith, Fact and Legend
(San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2009), 84.

2

Birth of the Crusades

The Lord is a warrior; the Lord is His name!

Exodus 15:3

The Crusading movement occupied a central place in European and Church history for nearly 700 years and was a unique cultural and religious phenomenon. Despite its longevity and influence, defining what the Crusades actually were has proven problematic for historians.
42
The very nature of the Crusading movement, its evolution throughout its history, and its appeal to contemporaries contribute to the difficulty in definition. During the movement people of all social backgrounds supported the Crusades, and sifting through their views presents “a range of ideas from the most cerebral to the most primitive.”
43

One area of agreement concerns the very word “Crusade”: Those who participated in these expeditions did not use it. “Crusade” is a modern word, not a medieval one. It is a hybrid, derived from Spanish, French, and Latin and first used in 1706, passing into popular usage through the writings of David Hume and Edward Gibbon.
44
Crusading contemporaries used the term
passagia
, among others, meaning an “exceptionally large military expedition declared against unbelievers.”
45
Those who undertook the
passagia
were known as
crucesignati,
or “those signed with the cross.”

In essence, “a Crusade was fought against those perceived to be the external or internal foes of Christendom for the recovery of Christian property or in defense of the Church or Christian people.”
46
Those who participated in the Crusades were seen as pilgrims and their journey was an armed pilgrimage, which was a revolutionary idea since to that point pilgrims had been obliged to leave their weapons at home.
47

Essential Ingredients of the Crusades

Although historians disagree over exact definitions, there were several essential ingredients necessary for an armed expedition to be considered a Crusade.
48

The first ingredient was called “taking the cross,” which included a public ecclesiastical vow that bound the aspirant to undertake the
passagia
. The vow was made to God (not to the pope, a bishop, or any secular lord) and was legally binding; to abandon it was to risk excommunication. Those who took the vow were marked by the wearing of a cloth cross on their garments that was only removed upon successful completion of their journey. In the beginning of the Crusading movement, the vow was also accompanied by the bestowal of the pilgrim’s purse and staff.
49
This act illustrates the penitential nature of the Crusades and the view by contemporaries that Crusaders were fundamentally armed pilgrims.

The second basic element consisted of papal approval of the expedition. Those who took the cross were granted special privileges as well. One of the major concerns for warriors was the protection of their family and property while they were away. Since the Crusading movement developed in a feudal society, warriors were afraid that while overseas fighting for Christ their neighbor might invade and take their land. In order to allay that fear, the Church promised protection of a Crusader’s property through the threat of excommunication for violators. Crusaders received secular as well as spiritual privileges. They could demand and receive hospitality from the Church on their journey. They were exempt from taxes and tolls, and held immunity from arrest. But the main motivator for participation was the granting of an indulgence—the remission of the temporal punishment due to sins already forgiven in the sacrament of penance.

Crusading was an integral part of the lived expression of the Faith for multiple centuries and cannot be considered an aberration in Church history.
50
It was the teaching of the Church for nearly 700 years that men had a moral obligation to take the cross in order to liberate and defend Christian territory. Popes from Bl. Urban II to Bl. Innocent XI exhorted the faithful to participate in these armed expeditions, providing spiritual benefits to encourage participation.

Indeed, participation in Crusades was not limited to laymen, for even bishops, abbots, papal legates, and even popes (Pius II) took the cross. St. Bernard of Clairvaux, St. Hildegard of Bingen, St. Francis of Assisi, St. Catherine of Siena and other saints supported the Crusades and encouraged warriors to take the cross.

The Crusades were even a topic at six of the twenty-one ecumenical councils. These six councils either called for Crusades or spent considerable time planning expeditions. In fact, the Fourth Lateran Council (1215) and the Second Council of Lyons (1274) crafted two of the Crusades’ main documents.
51

The Rise and Expansion of Islam

While it is vital to recognize the Crusades as integral events in the life of the Church, it is at least equally important to understand
why
they were undertaken. The seventh-century rise of the militaristic and imperialistic movement known as Islam, and its subsequent conquest of ancient Christian territory, was the prime cause for the creation of the Crusading movement and the reason for its longevity.

Islam’s entrance onto the world stage is steeped in mystery. The standard historical narrative presents the story of a solitary Arab receiving alleged divine inspiration and revelations, which spontaneously produced a radically new civilization in the seventh century. Recent scholarship challenges this narrative and posits that Islam instead grew by reshaping elements of existing surrounding civilizations into a new community: “The puzzle of Islam’s origins might be viewed . . . as a black hole sucking in a great spiraling swirl of influences before casting them back out in a radically different form.”
52
Over the last generation, much of what has traditionally been known about the origins of Islam and its founder Mohammed has come into question; modern studies have even led some historians to question the very existence of Mohammed.
53
The first recorded public reference to Mohammed occurred sixty years after his death and the first biographies were not written until 150 years later.
54

The traditional Muslim narrative of Mohammed describes a man born in the city of Mecca in the Arabian Peninsula in the late sixth century. He was the member of an important and wealthy tribe that generated its wealth from lucrative trade with pilgrims coming to Mecca to worship the pantheon of Arabian gods in the Kaaba shrine. At this time the Arabian Peninsula contained various nomadic tribes that were “the most superstitious and ignorant in the world.”
55
They were also vicious and ruthless warriors who found employment in the Roman Empire as auxiliary troops, augmenting the Roman legions when the need arose.
56
In A.D. 610, while in a cave near Mecca, Mohammed allegedly experienced “history’s most epochal mid-life crisis.”
57
Later Muslim tradition (the story is not recounted in the Qur’an), related that Mohammed was awoken from a deep sleep by the voice of a heavenly messenger, later identified as the Archangel Gabriel, which informed him of his calling as the messenger of God.

Mohammed’s initial reaction to this voice was terror, and belief that he was possessed of an evil spirit. Distraught, he contemplated suicide: “I will go to the top of the mountain and throw myself down that I may kill myself and gain rest.”
58
The messenger consoled Mohammed and ordered him to recite the words of God. Mohammed continued to receive private revelations for the following three years. Finally, in 613, Mohammed was ordered to make his revelations public.

Mohammed revealed the contents of his private revelations in Mecca, but initially met indifference. However, the frequency and urgency of his teachings eventually drew heightened responses. His teachings were radical and revolutionary. He claimed there was only one God and it did not have an idol in the Kaaba. Mohammed demanded also total submission (
islam
) to the will of God. His most revolutionary teaching, and the one that most influenced future events, was the call to abandon tribal relationships. This was “the most stomach-churning prospect imaginable for any Arab.”
59
Those who submitted to the will of God joined a unique community (
umma
) where all were considered equal. The formation of this community created a sharp distinction between Muslims and non-believers. Those in the community lived in the House of Islam; those without lived in the House of War. This relationship presupposed a permanent state of war between the two houses. The unity of the
umma
, in theory, prevented infighting and led to outward expansion from the beginnings of Islam.

After fleeing Mecca for fear of his life in 622, Mohammed and his initial followers settled in Medina, which later became known as the “City of the Prophet.” Medina was the site of Mohammed’s militant revelations and the base of combat operations. According to a later biographer, Mohammed personally led nine combat raids from Medina wielding his favorite sword known as “the Cleaver of Vertebrae.”
60
Another biographer quotes Mohammed as saying, “[T]he gates of Paradise lie in the shadow of the sword.”
61

Mohammed laid the foundation for the Crusades when, at the end of his life, he instructed his followers to “fight all men until they say there is no God but Allah.”
62
This statement was later written into the Qur’an as “fight those who believe not in God.”
63
During his life, Mohammed embodied these words in his campaigns against his fellow Arabs as well as against Jews. Mohammed’s militaristic teachings and actions set the example for his followers who sought to emulate the
jihad
undertaken by the prophet.
Jihad
and imperial expansion of the
umma
promised not only material but also spiritual riches for the Muslim, as heaven awaited him if he died on
jihad
and hell awaited those who fought against him.
64

Mohammed’s teachings on the
umma
and
jihad
oriented Islam toward imperialistic expansion. The conflict between the House of Islam and the House of War began during Mohammed’s lifetime when Islamic forces raided Palestine and Syria. Within a decade of his death in 632, Muslim armies conquered the Christian areas of Syria (635), Jerusalem (638), and Egypt (642). In 674, Muslim forces even laid siege to the capital city of the Byzantine Empire, Constantinople, but were repulsed. Islam also expanded westward through North Africa, sweeping away all resistance so that by 700 the last Christian stronghold fell. Former pagan nomads from the Arabian Peninsula now ruled the ancient Roman provinces, which had once converted to the Catholic Faith by the blood of the martyrs.

Mohammed’s focus on building a community united in political and military purpose through religion was tested mightily after his death, as competing families engaged in a game of thrones. The pursuit of power produced conquered territories which, although originally provinces of a united Muslim empire, soon became independent territories in competition with one another. In the century before the Crusades, the Muslim world was united by language and religion but broken into regional centers of power: the Abbasid (Sunni) caliphate in Baghdad, the Fatimid (Shi’ite) caliphate in Egypt, and the Umayyad caliphate of Cordoba in Spain.

The early eleventh century witnessed a destructive event that shook Europe to its core. Egypt was controlled by the demented caliph al-Hakim who, in 1009, ordered the destruction of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, known at the time in the Islamic world as the “church of the dung heap.”
65
Al-Hakim’s reign was marked by bizarre regulations against his Muslim subjects and persecution against the
dhimmi
(non-Muslims). He mandated Muslim women wear a veil in public but then ordered them to not leave their homes.
66
He required all Christians and Jews to wear a black turban and either a cross or a block of wood in public.
67
Edicts passed in 1011 and 1012 prohibited the use of wine even in the celebration of the Eucharist, required the removal of all exterior crosses and destruction of all missals.
68
The persecution came to an end when al-Hakim was murdered in 1021. Al-Hakim’s destruction of one of the most important churches in Christendom and his persecution of indigenous Christians were horrific events that left a lasting imprint on the people of Europe.