The Crusades Shmusades

Late Tuesday night I finished reading The New Concise History of the Crusades by Thomas F. Madden, “professor of medieval history and chair of the department of history at Saint Louis University.” I was introduced to Madden’s book through Michael Medved’s radio talk show, with Madden as a guest. He was talking about his new book and made an amazing statement that caught my attention: “By far the single greatest error people have about the Crusades is that they were the beginnings of Western Imperialism. This is completely false. The Crusades were an expression of religious piety aimed at helping Eastern Christians reclaim land that was taken from them by the Muslims. The Crusades were a response to Muslim aggression” (paraphrase). To say I was intrigued would be an understatement. At the first opportunity I ordered his book from Amazon.com and couldn’t wait to get it in the mail.

Currently, I’m a Secondary Education major with an emphasis on history, and was a history major before I decided to teach history. Obviously I love history. Even though I have taken classes on the Crusades, the Middle Ages, Western Civilization (4 parts), the Enlightenment, the Reformation, the Renaissance, and post-Enlightenment periods, I still felt somewhat ignorant about the purpose(s) of the Crusades. What were they? Why did they happen? What were the motivations of both the Crusaders and the Muslims? Even with the knowledge I possessed I felt unqualified to answer these questions. After finishing Madden’s book, I now feel like I have a much better grasp of the subject.

I do strongly recommend this book. As the title reveals, the book is a concise history of the Crusades. It is not overwhelming with information, but only serves as an introduction. Perhaps if Donald Miller read this book he would not have apologized to unbelievers for the Crusades … (sorry, I couldn’t resist).

You can expect to see a blog series about the Crusades themselves in the near future. There are at least a hundred pages I marked with unbelievable stories and events that are worth retelling. But this is not the entry for that =). First, I’d like to talk about why people today have such disdain for the Crusades. Professor Madden comments:

“The rise of secular and decline of ecclesiastical institutions in Europe, coupled with centuries of destructive religious wars, increasingly led Europeans to focus their attention on this world rather than the next. In the eighteenth century writers like Voltaire went so far as to decry any form of institutional religion, calling for general toleration of all faiths. Religion in Europe was becoming no longer a central identifying feature, but simply a matter of personal preference. Voltaire and other Enlightenment writers ridiculed the crusades as wars of intolerance waged at the behest of a power-mad clergy. Along with the Inquisition, the crusades became an emblem for what these authors believed was the hysteria, superstition, and ignorance of the “Dark Ages” (pg. 214).

An error we make today is to apply our current political standards to those of the past. What motivates our secular, nationalistic society today would not have motivated a single European living at that time. We fight for nationalism and patriotism. They fought to preserve their Christian way of life. Both then and now, we fight for what is most important to us. Dare I say, even in this post-Enlightenment era we are no more civilized than the Crusaders. Human beings are still human beings. This isn’t to say that no good came from the Enlightenment: reaction to the oppression and control of the Roman Catholic Church, experimentation with new forms of government, and a drive towards the sciences. But there were also negative results from the Enlightenment: a general negativity towards religion.

But what about Muslims? What is their opinion of the Crusades? It will probably surprise you, as it did me, that Muslims did not know of the Crusades until the 17th century! In fact, most Muslims learned about the Crusades during the early part of the 20th century! Madden writes: “It is commonly said that memories in the Middle East are long, that although the Crusades may have been forgotten in the West, they were still vividly remembered where they happened. This is false. The simple fact is that the Crusades were virtually unknown in the Muslim world even a century ago. The term for the Crusades, harb al-salib, was only introduced into the Arab language in the mid-nineteenth century. The first Arabic history of the Crusades was not written until 1899” (pg. 217). How is it possible for the Crusades to go unnoticed by Muslims? The simple answer is that from the Muslim perspective the Crusades were insignificant. They believed it was only a matter of time until they conquered the globe, converting all peoples into submission. Therefore, the Crusades were seen as futile attempts against the unstoppable force of Islam. Muslims utterly failed to recognize the purpose behind the Crusades. Furthermore they misunderstood the Crusaders, whom they called “Franks,” to be mercenaries allied with Byzantine Christians.

Muslims were first introduced to the Crusades by Europeans during the Enlightenment. This meant that what Muslims did learn of the Crusades presented a history where Christians, under the “Dark Ages,” savagely attacked a peaceful Muslim civilization. And this is how Muslims have perceived the Crusades ever since.

Rather than overloading you with more factual information, I’ll stop there.

Earlier in the week I bumped into a friend at Bucks who took some interest in this book. He flipped through the pages then remarked, “Man, there was so much violence because of the Crusaders…” I responded by saying, “You’re so right. The fact that the Crusades were necessary to fight off Muslim aggression is a terrible thing.” He was stunned. Never before had he heard that the Crusades were a direct response to Muslim jihads. It seems that most Westerners believe as my friend did (or as I did at one point). We need to get the facts straight, especially in a post-9/11 world. I’m hoping he buys the book … score one more for Western Civilization! =)

My hope is that I’ve spurred you on to read Thomas Madden’s work, or other works on the subject. Just today I picked up a copy of Jonathan Riley-Smith’s The Crusades: A History. If anyone’s interested, I would love to hang at Bucks and talk about the Crusades, or even go through Madden’s work with someone. Lemme know.

Rusty