Interpreting the Crusades: A Holy or Cynical War?

Crusading has become a synonym for something negative, usually as an action which is zealously undertaken without thought and consideration to the needs of outsiders or in light of alternative points of view. But when the actual crusades were embarked upon, according to Jonathan Riley-Smiths article Crusading as an Act of Love, they were praised as an action fired by the ardor of charity (Riley-Smith, 2002, p.32). Riley-Smith (2002) notes that during the era of the crusades, the concept of loving war was not seen as oxymoronic by Christians. The act of crusading was also viewed as acting in imitation of Christ, taking up ones cross in sacrifice. In Pope Innocents own words at the time of the fifth Crusade, the crusaders burden was a soft and gentle cross in comparison to the suffering for all humanity borne by Christ for the sins of humanity (Riley-Smith, 2002, p. 35).

While interpreted in modernity this may seem like rank hypocrisy, or at best a misinterpretation of the true message of love of Christ, it is important to remember that all of medieval society was structured upon a relationship between lord and vassal, or the idea of a chain of military obligations. In other words, the idea of a loving war was embedded into the medieval worldview. Violence as an expression of brotherly Christian love was also a way to liberate the Christians under the supposedly tyrannical rules of the Ottoman Turks.

Furthermore, even some of these attitudes might not be entirely as antiquated as one might like to think. Riley-Smith cites Peter Lombard, a contemporary Christian theologian, who has advocated that while Christians should love all people, given that this is not always realistically possible, then loving fellow Christians more might be considered the greater imperative. It was this type of prioritization, Riley-Smith argues, that the crusaders were showing. Even if their actions were often bloody and xenophobic from modern standards, they viewed themselves as defenders of the faith and fellow Christians in a society where war was viewed as a zero-sum game where there had to be victors and losers. Tolerance was not a celebrated value in the era of the crusades.

Peter F. Crawford (2011) in his essay Four Myths About the Crusades likewise agrees that the crusades are often depicted as deplorable acts of violence in the popular media, from political speeches to popular culture, and criticizes textbooks that portray them as acts of pugnacity, piety, and greed (p.13). Crawford contextualizes the crusades in a larger context whereby Islam was also engaged...

…accept the cynical view that no one could have really believed that Christendom and Christians were being threatened when they were waged. However, it is also important to still remember the negative view many Christians as well as Muslims held of outsiders, specifically of Jewish people, and while both Christians and Muslims may have both engaged in wars against one another, Jewish populations were almost inevitably the losers. It is also arguable that even if European crusaders did not benefit financially from the crusades, they were being urged to take very risky actions by church leaders who themselves would not suffer the same financial privations.

Reinterpreting the crusades solely as an act of love is still problematic. Even if love and war were often synonymous, this still resulted in horrific causalities, when people who could ill-afford to go were urged to uproot their lives and fight the so-called infidel. But both Riley-Smith (2002) and Crawford (2011) highlight the importance of always returning to review of the facts when revisiting history. Because of the later legacy of European colonialism, the crusades have frequently been solely interpreted through a lens of present-day politics and current religious conflicts and views about secularism and religion. Is important to attempt to see the European balance of power as it was at…