Overview
PROMPT: Read about the Crusades in the passage below. What surprised you? What did you find most interesting? What connections did you make with material you learned about in other classes you've taken? Or with your personal experience, such as travel? Can you connect the course material to other things you've learned or experienced? Aim for a word count between 150 and 250 words!
As a reminder, the assignment is not about you simply listing facts form the textbook or course material. Everyone in class has gone over the same material, so simply restating it would be pointless. The discussion board posts are meant to give you the opportunity to share your thoughts or reflections on what you've learned.
And please don't forget that using ChatGPT or other AI software to generate a response will not fulfill the assignment.
Origins of the Crusades
At the Council of Clermont, France, in 1095, Pope Urban II called for a crusade to recapture Jerusalem, offering indulgences for those who participated. What was the motive for this kind of military campaign? Who would participate, and why? What were the long-term impacts of a crusade against an Islamic enemy?
Like many events in history, the answers to these questions are complex. The concept of Christendom had become common by the 11th century, and was partly behind the call to crusade. Used by medieval writers to express the entirety of all Christian people, the concept of Christendom held that Christianity was not just a religion, but also a political state. The papacy saw Christendom as a unified hierarchy with the pope at the top, overseeing a uniform Christian theology and ritual. This was never actually the case, but Christendom as a concept could be used to justify a war against non-Christians. And a call to crusade allowed popes to demonstrate the influence of the reformed papacy.
Changes in the power structure of the Middle East were also involved. Seljuk Turks took over Palestine in the late eleventh century, defeating the Arab Muslims who had ruled Jerusalem. The Seljuk Turks imposed greater restrictions on Christian pilgrims to Jerusalem, and taxed them. Access to the Holy Sepulcher, the church surrounding the tomb where Christians believed Jesus had been (temporarily) buried, was no longer assured. And the Byzantine emperor had actively sought the support of the West against the Seljuk harassment of pilgrims and looting of churches.
States in western Europe had something to gain from committing knights to a military crusade as well. The emergence of more stable kingdoms meant that knight weren't needed as often to defend territory. But knights and noblemen derived both honor and income from fighting and if there was no one else to fight, they would fight each other. Sending them off to fight a common, non-Christian, enemy solved some problems. Western nobles had a chance to gain glory and earn an indulgence from the pope. An indulgence was essentially a pass to get into heaven in exchange for participating in the holy Crusade, which much have been attractive for knights and nobles who fought and killed for a living.
[Image unavailable: Map of the Crusades.]
The First Crusade lasted from 1096 to 1099 and succeeded in capturing Jerusalem. There would be a series of four major Crusades, ending in 1204. Several minor ones followed that, not wrapping up until 1271. Christian forces held Jerusalem until 1187, but never regained control after that. The campaign to capture Spanish territory from Muslim rulers, the Reconquista, is linked to the Crusades and some scholars end the crusading era with the end of the Reconquista in 1492.
Historical Interpretation of the Crusades
The historical interpretation of the Crusades, both in Europe and in the Middle East, has in more recent times been that the Crusades set off a "clash of civilizations." This is, however, a warping of the historical reality, and this story of conflict between Christians and Muslims has been used for political purposes to provoke discord. Most of the modern historical research into the Crusades dates to the 18th and 19th centuries, and describing fighting and conflict is, frankly, more dramatic than discussing the widespread cooperation and exchange that took place between Christians and Muslims in the Middle East.
There's plenty of evidence of that cooperation. For example, when the medieval Arab scholar Ibn Jubayr was traveling through northern Palestine in late summer of 1184, he described countless farming villages inhabited by Muslims who seemed to him to live in complete harmony with the Crusaders. Jubayr expressed his disdain at this cooperation and the fact that those Muslims did not seem to be bothered by their mingling with what he described as “Christian pigs and filth." Jubayr's observations were not unique. Other writers noted political and military alliances, systematic sharing of sacred spaces, commercial dealings, and exchange of science and ideas, between Muslims and the Crusaders.
Nevertheless, some modern scholars and popular history outlets like films, TV, documentaries, and the History Channel, continue to emphasize the "clash between the West and Islam." The inadvertent outcome of this emphasis is that it gives hate groups and terrorists a story which supports their modern agenda of a “clash of civilizations.” In other words, this inaccurate history of the Crusades ends up being used to support Islamophobia and anti-immigrant sentiments in the West.
[Image unavailable: Medieval illumination of the Knights Templar.]
Detail of a medieval manuscript showing the Knights Templar with their distinctive red cross on shields and flags.
One of the most disturbing recent distortions of the history of the Crusades has been the adoption of symbols associated with a medieval organization called the Knights Templar to promote an extremist right-wing agenda. The Knights Templar were a religious order of "fighting monks" who took monastic vows of poverty and chastity, but who also trained as fighters and were heavily involved in the Crusades. There are numerous stories associated with Knights Templar, portraying them as a secretive organization that had hidden holy relics in various places known only to them, or claiming that they had discovered the New World long before the Vikings or Columbus. There are also claims that the organization had survived as a hidden group, often with links to the Freemasons. None of these stories can be supported with historical evidence, but that doesn't stop them from circulating.