Crusading Against Christians In The Middle Ages

This is the first book-length study into crusading against Christians, examining this complex phenomenon from the twelfth to fifteenth centuries and across numerous regions, from France to Russia and from southern Italy to the Baltic. Whilst the crusades are an immensely popular topic, those launched against Christian rulers and communities have been comparatively overlooked in the past, with existing studies typically focusing on a particular area, period, or campaign. This volume brings together the expertise of thirteen scholars on a variety of primary and secondary sources not often accessible to Anglophone readership, as well as their knowledge of national discourses which have often shaped historiography. It aims to serve as the first port of call for anyone who wishes to approach crusades against Christians within and without the specialism of crusader studies, and to provide the basis for a thorough comparative analysis of this phenomenon, covering its variety as comprehensively as possible.

*Includes pictures *Includes a bibliography for further reading Christianity was not a state religion for its first three centuries, and it was only when Emperor Constantine the Great declared it so in the early 4th century that the Church was faced with the thorny problem of state-sanctioned violence. The first major Christian authority to justify the use of arms in defense of Church and State was Augustine, Bishop of Hippo, who wrote in the 5th century, "They who have waged war in obedience to the divine command or in conformity with His laws, have represented in their persons the public justice or the wisdom of government, and in this capacity have put to death wicked men; such persons have by no means violated the commandment, 'Thou shalt not kill.'" This opinion gained increasing influence in Western Christianity, though in the East, the attitude was (and continues to be) more nuanced. War was tolerated as a regrettable necessity in a world wounded by sin but never blessed. Canon law enacted in the Byzantine (Eastern Roman) Empire tended to treat soldiers who had killed as sinners needing to repent, and Bishop Basil of Caesarea (d. c. 330) believed that they needed to abstain from receiving communion for three years after battle. It was not that that the Eastern Roman Empire was a particularly peaceable state-far from it, in fact: it was engaged in almost continuous warfare for its entire existence. However, its conflicts were mostly defensive in character, fighting barbarians, Persians, or Muslims, and the idea of consecrating arms for the cause of Christianity was considered alien to its spirit. After the fall of the Western Roman Empire in the 5th century, when Western Europe was governed by a Germanic warrior-caste, the theory of a just and virtuous war took root. The Roman Church enhanced its authority by sanctifying oaths taken for just military purposes, and Bishop Anselm of Lucca (d. 1086) was the first to suggest that military action for the cause of religion could remit sin. At the Council of Clermont in July 1095, Pope Urban II canonized religious war by urging Western Europe's nobility to take up arms in defense of the Byzantine Empire against the Muslims, thus launching the Crusades. Religious military orders such as the Knights of Saint John, the Templars, and the Hospitallers arose, ostensibly founded to protect the weak and the sick but also to extend the boundaries of Christianity and the power of the Church. In Europe, the knight, originally a mounted warrior, became a consecrated soldier of Christ, dedicated to the defense of the Church by solemn vows made before an altar. It was not long before the concept of the holy crusade was applied beyond the holy land. The conflict between the Christian states and the Muslim Moors in the Iberian Peninsula became a holy war, as did the forced settlement of Pagan Slav lands on Germany's eastern frontier. At the beginning of the 13th century, the Knights Hospitaller and the Knights of Livonia began the conquest of heathen Baltic lands while Sweden invaded Finland. Naturally, the question remained concerning the use of arms against other Christians. Eastern Christians did not acknowledge the Pope's supremacy, and many held that it was lawful for him to declare a crusade to bring schismatics back to the obedience of Rome. German knights fighting the Orthodox Russians at the Battle on the Ice in 1242 believed this, as did the Hungarian prosecutors of the 1235 invasion of Bosnia, which was thinly disguised as a crusade. The Church even extended the object of crusade to believers in communion with Rome, who refused to obey lawful authority. After peasants revolted against the Prince-Archbishop of Bremen in 1204 over tithes and land rights, Pope Gregory IX was persuaded to declare them heretics and proclaim a crusade against them.

The Crusades were penitential war-pilgrimages fought in the Levant and the eastern Mediterranean, as well as in North Africa, Spain, Portugal, Poland, the Baltic region, Hungary, the Balkans, and Western Europe. Beginning in the eleventh century and ending as late as the eighteenth, these holy wars were waged against Muslims and other enemies of the Church, enlisting generations of laymen and laywomen to fight for the sake of Christendom. Crusading features prominently in today's religio-political hostilities, yet the perceptions of these wars held by Arab nationalists, pan-Islamists, and many in the West have been deeply distorted by the language and imagery of nineteenth-century European imperialism. With this book, Jonathan Riley-Smith returns to the actual story of the Crusades, explaining why and where they were fought and how deeply their narratives and symbolism became embedded in popular Catholic thought and devotional life. From this history, Riley-Smith traces the legacy of the Crusades into modern times, specifically within the attitudes of European imperialists and colonialists and within the beliefs of twentieth-century Muslims. Europeans fashioned an interpretation of the Crusades from the writings of Walter Scott and a French contemporary, Joseph-François Michaud. Scott portrayed Islamic societies as forward-thinking, while casting Christian crusaders as culturally backward and often morally corrupt. Michaud, in contrast, glorified crusading, and his followers used its imagery to illuminate imperial adventures. These depictions have had a profound influence on contemporary Western opinion, as well as on Muslim attitudes toward their past and present. Whether regarded as a valid expression of Christianity's divine enterprise or condemned as a weapon of empire, crusading has been a powerful rhetorical tool for centuries. In order to understand the preoccupations of Islamist jihadis and the character of Western discourse on the Middle East, Riley-Smith argues, we must understand how images of crusading were formed in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.

These studies span the period from the origins of the crusading movement in the 11th century until its final active phase during the Renaissance. Some of the articles spring from Norman Housley's work on crusading against Christian heretics, mercenary companies and lay powers which were involved in conflict with the Church. Others reflect his interest in the way crusading developed after the fall of the Holy Land to the Muslims in 1291. A third group looks at other forms taken by religious warfare in Europe during the late Middle Ages and Renaissance. Certain themes recur throughout. One is the variety of ways in which war in God's name was portrayed and justified. Another is the conflict of interest brought about by the diversity of crusading in the period from c.1200 onwards. Above all, the author shows the complexity, longevity and significance of a movement whose impact on medieval society was massive and whose repercussions were profound.

In the wake of Jerusalem's fall in 1099, the crusading armies of western Christians known as the Franks found themselves governing not only Muslims and Jews but also local Christians, whose culture and traditions were a world apart from their own. The crusader-occupied swaths of Syria and Palestine were home to many separate Christian communities: Greek and Syrian Orthodox, Armenians, and other sects with sharp doctrinal differences. How did these disparate groups live together under Frankish rule? In The Crusades and the Christian World of the East, Christopher MacEvitt marshals an impressive array of literary, legal, artistic, and archeological evidence to demonstrate how crusader ideology and religious difference gave rise to a mode of coexistence he calls "rough tolerance." The twelfth-century Frankish rulers of the Levant and their Christian subjects were separated by language, religious practices, and beliefs. Yet western Christians showed little interest in such differences. Franks intermarried with local Christians and shared shrines and churches, but they did not hesitate to use military force against Christian communities. Rough tolerance was unlike other medieval modes of dealing with religious difference, and MacEvitt illuminates the factors that led to this striking divergence. "It is commonplace to discuss the diversity of the Middle East in terms of Muslims, Jews, and Christians," MacEvitt writes, "yet even this simplifies its religious complexity." While most crusade history has focused on Christian-Muslim encounters, MacEvitt offers an often surprising account by examining the intersection of the Middle Eastern and Frankish Christian worlds during the century of the First Crusade.

In the wake of Jerusalem's fall in 1099, the crusading armies of western Christians known as the Franks found themselves governing not only Muslims and Jews but also local Christians, whose culture and traditions were a world apart from their own. The crusader-occupied swaths of Syria and Palestine were home to many separate Christian communities: Greek and Syrian Orthodox, Armenians, and other sects with sharp doctrinal differences. How did these disparate groups live together under Frankish rule? In The Crusades and the Christian World of the East, Christopher MacEvitt marshals an impressive array of literary, legal, artistic, and archeological evidence to demonstrate how crusader ideology and religious difference gave rise to a mode of coexistence he calls "rough tolerance." The twelfth-century Frankish rulers of the Levant and their Christian subjects were separated by language, religious practices, and beliefs. Yet western Christians showed little interest in such differences. Franks intermarried with local Christians and shared shrines and churches, but they did not hesitate to use military force against Christian communities. Rough tolerance was unlike other medieval modes of dealing with religious difference, and MacEvitt illuminates the factors that led to this striking divergence. "It is commonplace to discuss the diversity of the Middle East in terms of Muslims, Jews, and Christians," MacEvitt writes, "yet even this simplifies its religious complexity." While most crusade history has focused on Christian-Muslim encounters, MacEvitt offers an often surprising account by examining the intersection of the Middle Eastern and Frankish Christian worlds during the century of the First Crusade.

""Riley-Smith marshals his case lucidly.""--Times Literary Supplement ""Riley-Smith's analysis of the formation of Crusading ideology offers a provocative new interpretation. . . . [His] scholarship is impeccable, and he supports his contentions with