October 28, 1999
On November 27, 1095, Pope Urban II, presiding over a council in Clermont for the reform of the church, delivered one of the most famous sermons in history. He stood on the side of a hill below the cathedral and addressed the crowd gathered in the valley below. They were too many for the church, which was much smaller than the present cathedral. We do not have his words or, rather, we have too many versions of what he may have said. We know that he called upon those assembled, many of them counts and knights, to join in an effort to aid Christians in the East living under Muslim rule. That was a message his audience could understand. They knew of, a few even participated in, efforts to liberate Christians under Muslim rule in Spain, the Balearic Islands, Sardinia, Corsica, and Sicily. Urban's predecessors had supported these efforts on occasion. But Urban could hardly have anticipated the electric response to his words at Clermont or the reverberations throughout Western Europe. At some point, perhaps at Clermont, but certainly soon after, the liberation of Jerusalem came to overshadow the plight of Eastern Christians. Jerusalem! The place that symbolized all that Christianity meant: the place where heaven touched the earth, the umbilicus terrae. The message of liberation, the most powerful theme in Christian thought since the emergence of Christianity from the oppression of pagan Rome, united to the vision of an oppressed Jerusalem, swept across a Europe already caught up in a major movement for reform of the church.
On July 15, 1099, the brilliant vision of Clermont was achieved with the capture of Jerusalem. On that day, the shape of the future changed more profoundly than Urban II could ever have conceived. What had begun as an appeal by the Byzantine Emperor and some Eastern Christians for military aid committed the West to a permanent role in the East as defender of the Holy Land. Victory in Jerusalem made the Crusades an inevitable part of Western life. What had begun at Clermont would, under numerous transformations, continue to influence attitudes and policies in a modern secular world struggling to reject its past. Small wonder, therefore, that the crusade has become a symbol of conflict.
Some of you have read the article in a recent New York Times Magazine entitled "The Crusades Even Now." The author is a well-known popular writer on religious topics, Karen Armstrong. That article sums up the tensions, prejudices, and emotional baggage that surround the idea of crusade. As history, it is, unfortunately, less successful. Intent on drumming in "lessons" from the past, its message is more in the tradition of a moral sermon than an effort to understand the past. Certainly, the past is a burden the present must carry, but that is the reason why it is so important to strive for clearer understanding, never being willing to rest on mere generalities or cliches that may make us feel good but distort our relationship to the living institutions and the enduring values of contemporary society by presenting only a partial image of them. But is such a work possible? Isn't understanding of the past an impossible dream? The answer is that the alternative is to surrender without a struggle to manipulation by those who would use the past to further their own agendas. If we cannot entirely avoid the abuse of history, we can at least try to tell the story a bit better the next time around. What I propose here is a report on progress in understanding the First Crusade with special emphasis on three topics. After a brief survey, I want to look at the character of the leaders of the First Crusade. I will call this: a quest for the fanatic crusader. Secondly, I want to re-examine the attacks perpetrated on the Jews in 1096 by certain crusaders. Finally, I will focus on the capture of Jerusalem as a defining moment in the history of the crusades. What has it meant in the history of relations between the East and West?
The outline of the First Crusade is clear. Shortly after Pope Urban's sermon at Clermont, word of the proposed undertaking spread rapidly across France. Urban called upon the bishops to join in his effort. But his message was overwhelmed by that of popular preachers like Peter the Hermit. Indeed, recruitment, which Urban had seen in terms of getting the right personnel through a process of negotiation, was hi-jacked by popular preachers, who gave Urban's message their own interpretation. No wonder that the chronicler, Albert of Aix, saw Peter the Hermit as a leader of the crusade. For Peter and his followers, the message was both simple and clear. Jerusalem must be liberated from the hands of the Muslims. They saw themselves as instruments of the Divine. Urban, on the other hand, planned a military campaign. Though he probably tried to take advantage of the rising tide of enthusiasm, he worked to organize participants under the leadership of papal legates like Adhemar, bishop of Le Puy. There is no evidence of any contact between Peter and the Pope. Peter brooked no delay in carrying out his mission. Thus, from the very beginning, there were two very different crusades. Only gradually would the "official" crusade coalesce around objectives that would combine Urban's program with the popular message.
Was Urban's crusade a holy war? If we may trust the chroniclers, the pope made clear that it was a just war. But he did not use the term "bellum sacrum." Following precedent, he granted an indulgence to participants. He may have spoken of the complete forgiveness of all sins for the crusaders, but his meaning is unclear. At Clermont, those present had torn strips of clothing to mark themselves with a cross. This practice was also not without precedent. Papal banners had often been conferred as a sign that particular military expeditions were just. Duke William of Normandy carried such a banner on his conquest of England. Similar banners had been granted to the Normans of southern Italy for their conquest of Sicily. But, if we mean by Holy War a war aimed at converting or destroying the Muslims, there is no suggestion that Urban had these objectives in mind. At no time did Urban, or his successors, go beyond the limited objectives expressed by the call for the return of Christian lands. The idea of holy war, if not the term, was central to the popular movement.
The response to Peter's preaching quickly outdistanced the careful planning undertaken by the pope and the members of the European aristocracy who responded to his summons. The so-called Peasants' Crusade, more properly an outburst that tapped into various currents of religious enthusiasm, was little encumbered by the need for planning; its leaders relied entirely on their sense of Divine mission. Peter and his group moved quickly to the East, but in their rear, they left disparate groups, some of whom would attach themselves to the "official" crusade. In the Rhineland, however, some crusaders, led by men like Count Emico of Leiningen, attacked Jews settled in such towns as Mainz, Worms, Speyer, and Cologne. The Jewish communities were small as were these towns, mostly composed of recent settlers. They had come up from the South, often at the invitation of secular rulers and bishops. In Mainz, Worms, and Cologne, Jewish communities were devastated, despite efforts by bishops and others to protect them. Emico and his forces then pushed on into Hungary in the wake of Peter, where they met their fate when they attacked the local population and aroused the ire of the king. Peter and his group had already made their way into the Byzantine Empire, much to the chagrin of the Emperor Alexius Comnenus, who had expected an organised military contingent instead of these enthusiasts. Unable to control them, Alexius permitted them to cross the Bosporus to the Asian side. When they launched an attack on the Turks, even against the advice of their leaders, they suffered a major defeat. Peter and a few others managed to escape. They blamed Alexius for their defeat.
The main body of the First Crusade was composed of contingents led by Western nobles. Raymond of St. Gilles, Count of Toulouse, one of the wealthiest men in Europe, who had fought against Muslims in Spain, was among the first to join and was probably the Pope's choice to lead the army. Godfrey of Bouillon, Duke of Lower Lorraine, was a member of one of the most prestigious families in the Empire. He was joined by his brother, Baldwin of Boulogne and another relative, Baldwin of LeBourcq. Hugh of Vermandois, brother of the French King, the Count of Flanders, Robert II, and Robert, Duke of Normandy, the eldest son of William the Conqueror, as well as Stephen of Blois, the husband of William's daughter, Adele, were also important leaders. One of the most prominent leaders was Bohemund, Prince of Taranto, the son of the Norman Duke of Calabria, Robert Guiscard. He was accompanied by his nephew Tancred. All who joined went at their own expense, often mortgaging property to do so. Most planned to return home. They were persons of substance in their regions and those who followed them were drawn from their lands and their families. They were a diverse group, whose motives were not unswervingly religious, but many of them appear to have had close ties to religious communities that had emerged during the eleventh century monastic reform movement. Despite the impression sometimes given, the crusade attracted only a fraction of the western military class.
As each group arrived in Constantinople, Alexius sought their oath to restore to the Empire all the lands they would conquer that had been part of the Empire prior to the invasion of the Seljuq Turks. This demand met with considerable resistance, but Alexius was able to pressure each group, beginning with the small contingent led by Hugh of Vermandois, to agree to it. Of all the leaders, Bohemond was most willing, probably because he knew that the Byzantines mistrusted him because he had fought against the empire in Dalmatia alongside his father, and he did not want to re-open still festering wounds. On the other hand, Raymond of Toulouse was the most reluctant and only swore an oath to "respect the person and possessions of the emperor." Raymond does not seem to have opposed the emperor's desire to recover his lands; he does seem to have been trying to avoid becoming a subordinate of the emperor. This suggests that he saw himself as the leader of the crusaders. Possibly, Alexius went along for this reason.
Although some have stressed the idea that these various contingents were not really an army, because they lacked the necessary cohesion and the unified command, this view does not take into consideration the nature of medieval military organization. Warfare by committee was neither unusual or necessarily unsuccessful. Disagreements did occur, but there was more cooperation than dissent. Moreover, there was always a command structure, even if it was looser than we are accustomed to.
The road from Constantinople to Jerusalem led through the great Anatolian strongholds of the Seljuq Turks, across terrain that was rugged and mountainous. In May, 1097, Nicaea surrendered to the Emperor Alexius. In July, the crusaders met their first test at Dorylaeum, where they defeated the forces of Kilij Arslan, the Sultan of Iconium, the major Turkish ruler in Anatolia. This victory opened the way to the ancient city of Antioch, situated on the Orontes River, not far from the Mediterranaean Sea. This heavily fortified city was the key to Syria and Palestine. Baldwin of Boulogne, who was co-operating with Armenian Christians, moved past Antioch to Edessa and entered the city at the invitation of Toros, its Armenian ruler. Toros, whose position was somewhat precarious, looked to Baldwin for help and even made him his heir, but Baldwin quickly decided to supplant him. Control of Edessa was of considerable strategic value, not merely for the attack on Antioch, but also because it controlled the gateway to northern Syria. We do not know whether Baldwin's move was coordinated with the other leaders or mere opportunism on his part, but it proved of value in the future.
Antioch, seat of one of the great Christian Patriarchates, which regarded St. Peter as its first bishop, was dominated by its almost impregnable citadel on a mountain a thousand feet above the city. The crusaders undertook a long and frustrating siege. Indeed, Antioch may never have fallen, save that Bohemund made a deal with a captain in charge of one of the towers, possibly an Armenian, to hand it over to him. Then he sought and obtained the agreement of the other crusade leaders that the city would be handed over to whoever succeeded in liberating it. Bohemund then entered the city, but the citadel remained in Turkish hands. Moreover, a relief force under the command of the the Turkish ruler of Mosul, Kerbogha, which had been besieging Edessa, moved to attack the crusaders at Antioch. His arrival posed a great threat to Antioch. Fear seized the crusaders. Stephen of Blois and others, who were at some distance from the city, despaired of victory and informed Alexius, who was moving toward Antioch, that the city had already fallen. When Kerbogha reached Antioch, the crusaders became the besieged. Their morale sank still further, but, inspired by visions and the finding of what some believed to be the Holy Lance that had pierced the side of the Christ, they rallied and defeated Kerbogha. The Turkish forces fled, the citadel surrendered, and Antioch was entirely in the hands of the crusaders on June 28, 1098. The army needed rest and a chance to recover. But a severe epidemic struck the camp in July and claimed numerous lives including, on August 1, Bishop Adhemar of Le Puy, the papal legate, who had played an important role in preserving the unity of the forces.
Although the army had received some supplies and support from Genoese ships during this period, there was a genuine reluctance on the part of the leaders to press forward. The victory at Antioch had, however, raised the morale of the rank and file, who were now anxious to advance. Their pressure forced the leaders to begin the move southward in January and February, 1099. They made a conscious decision to bypass the coastal towns. Their goal was Jerusalem.
Jerusalem, despite its profound religious associations, was not a great city. It was a hill-town that did not lay astride major trade routes. For centuries, after its sack by the Romans in the first century (A.D., also written, C.E.), it was of small importance. Even its patriarchate was of late formation. It had been under Muslim rule since the eighth century. The Byzantines had almost recovered it in the tenth century as part of their general drive against the Muslims in Syria and Lebanon, but their military successes did not last beyond the beginnings of Turkish expansion. In the West, however, Jerusalem became a potent symbol during the tenth and early eleventh centuries, when large-scale pilgrimages were undertaken and stories of the Holy Places began to capture the imaginations of Latin Christians. This background has led some modern historians to view the crusade as an armed pilgrimage. Certainly, even if the connection between pilgrimage and crusade was problematic as a motive for the crusade, it became more significant in the period after the First Crusade, when crusaders visited the Holy Places to fulfill their crusade vow. Very possibly, the sense that they were on a pilgrimage emerged more strongly as the army neared Jerusalem.
Jerusalem was no longer in Turkish hands but under the rule of their Fatimid rivals, the Caliphs of Cairo. The Fatimids had been in contact with the crusaders since they had arrived in Constantinople. They wanted an alliance against the Turks. But the crusaders were reluctant to conclude a treaty. From the Fatimid point of view, Jerusalem was not of strategic importance; it might be sacrificed in return for control of the important network of trade routes and, ultimately, of Syria itself. Their concern was with continued Turkish expansion which ultimately threatened Damascus, the key to the control of Syria. How much the crusaders understood these internal conflicts, we do not know, but they seem to have had an overall awareness of them.
The siege of Jerusalem began on June 7, 1099. It was especially difficult because the crusaders had little in the way of siege machinery. Moreover, the terrain around the city made a siege difficult. Only the timely arrival of Genoese and English ships at Jaffa made it possible for the crusaders to get the timber and the skilled carpenters needed to construct siege machines. Still the city held out, counting on a relief force from Egypt. The crusaders realized what a short time they had. Prayers and processions around the city were made in preparation for a final assault, which took place on July 15. It was successful and the city was sacked. This was in keeping with the general rule that, if a fortified place did not surrender, it might be sacked and its inhabitants killed or enslaved. Although there was considerable bloodshed in Jersualem, however, recent research has demonstrated that crusade leaders intervened to protect some of the inhabitants, including Muslims and Jews. Among those who took this step was Godfrey of Bouillon. Some Muslims and Jews were slaughtered, but some were escorted to Muslim territory.
Victory at Jerusalem brought about a totally new set of circumstances. The crusaders had to defend their conquest. To do that, they had to organize some kind of permanent government. From the selection of Godfrey of Bouillon as interim ruler of Jerusalem and the succession of his brother Baldwin as the first king of Jersualem, we can securely date the emergence of crusading as an integral part of Western religious and political life. Without victory, there would never have been a crusade movement. With victory, the evolution of the machinery of recruitment, the almost constant demand placed upon the West by the precariousness of the situation in the East, and the growth of a profound religious commitment founded on devotion to the Holy Places, worked to transform virtually all aspects of Western life.
I will begin the second half of my talk with a question that has long proved difficult to answer. Who were the crusaders? It is another way of exploring the meaning of the crusade? Instead of beginning with the papal letters or preaching, we look at those who responded and the way in which they reacted.
It has long been clear that there were great differences between the official crusade and the so-called Peasants' Crusade. The figure of Peter the Hermit is the classic image of the religious enthusiast and he was viewed in this way by his contemporaries. For him, the crusade message was of divine origin. He looked directly to God to support the crusade and to deliver the Holy Places into the hands of the crusaders. Even contemporaries were embarassed by the naivité of his approach. Most of those who wrote about the First Crusade presented his efforts in a somewhat negative light. Fulcher of Chartres, whose Chronicle has had the most influence on modern scholarship, chiefly because of its reasonable tone, was also most responsible for the modern view minimizing the role of Peter. The account of Peter the Hermit in the Chronicle of Albert of Aix, on the other hand, places Peter at the center of the crusade, but it has generally been rejected. The mistrust of religious enthusiasm that permeates modern scholarship was very much evidenced in the Middle Ages. Medieval people were critical of religious fanaticism. Yet they were also believers and were prepared to accept the idea of divine intervention. It was, I believe, the defeat of Peter's group and the victory of the "official" crusaders that served to confirm their suspicions about Peter. In the aftermath of the First Crusade, popular literature, such as the "Chanson d'Antioch" celebrated the leaders of the "official" crusade and largely ignored Peter. Yet neither popular accounts nor the papacy canonized the leaders of the First Crusade. Despite the growth of the idea that crusaders who died in battle for the cross were martyrs, none of these leaders was ever declared a saint.
A close look at one of the most famous incidents of the First Crusade sheds additional light on the difficulties that medieval people faced in dealing with religious enthusiasm. When the morale of the crusaders at the siege of Antioch had reached its lowest point and they were convinced that they were about to be defeated by the forces of Kerbogha, two visionaries appeared. One, a certain Provençal named Peter Bartholomew, a follower of Raymond of St. Gilles, had a vision of St. Andrew that caused him to lead a group of crusaders to the cathedral and to dig there. They turned up an iron lance head, which Peter recognized as the lance that had pierced the side of Christ. Some modern scholars view this as an example of medieval religious credulity. But, too little attention has been paid to what followed. The discovery did lift the spirits of many of the crusaders, but it also provoked a debate. Peter Bartholomew was, in the view of some, discredited. Adhemar of Le Puy was among those who rejected the lance's genuinity. Only Raymond, Count of Toulouse, seems to have remained convinced, but there was more than a hint that he was trying to revive his leadership after Bohemund's role in the taking of Antioch. The marginalization of religious enthusiasm in this case went hand in hand with suspicion that political motives were also present. That these suspicions lingered is evident in the way in which the chroniclers divided on this issue, with Raymond of Aquilers supporting Raymond of St. Gilles and Fulcher opposed. Raymond was in the retinue of the Count of Toulouse; Fulcher, who was in Edessa and, therefore, not present at these events, was the chaplain of Baldwin of Boulogne, later to be king. It would be easy at this point to be cynical and to question the value of any historical account. But that would miss the point. The important question for the historian is not the validity of one position versus another so much as it is the fact of the debate, which provides insight into the mentality of the crusaders. Some were certainly religious enthusiasts, but the tendency in some of the sources to relegate religious enthusiasm to the lower ranks shows the effort to marginalize this behavior. The debate over the genuinity of the Holy Lance was, therefore, an example of a continuing desire to ensure that the "official" crusade did not fall into the hands of enthusiasts.
For modern scholars, fanatical excesses were amply demonstrated by the attack on the Jews in the Rhineland in 1096. Of course, there can be no doubt that such behavior was present and played a role, but, as Robert Chazan has carefully pointed out, there is much more to the story than that. Persecution of minorities is a tragic commonplace of history. There is a close corollation between societies suffering economic dislocations along with social trauma and the onset of persecution. Chazan has provided a valuable picture of the situation in the Rhineland. The Jews were mostly newcomers, who had been welcomed by religious and political leaders, bent on strengthening the economic position of their small and economically underdeveloped communities. The stress produced by economic growth affected both urban and rural groups in the region. In the countryside, the need to compete in the new urban markets led to borrowing in order to survive. At least some of the lenders were Jews. In the towns, insecurity among the merchant group without doubt created envy of the protected position of the Jews. But it would be incorrect to suggest that these circumstances by themselves led to attacks on the Jews. In fact, relations between the two communities were peaceful up to the very eve of the attacks. Economic dislocation was an important but subsidiary factor.
The Latin and Hebrew sources provide additional insights. There are limitations, however. These accounts were written after the events, the narratives are not always clear, and their explanations tend to reflect conventional ideas within each group more than an analysis of the actual situations. Still, they provide our best access to an understanding of the persecutions. But we need to make our analysis more precise. To do this, we will focus here on the perpetrators, who have not received as much attention as the victims. Both Latin and Hebrew sources agree on the composition of these groups. Albert of Aix makes clear his desire to marginalize those who carried out these acts: "I know not whether by the judgment of the Lord or by some error of mind, they rose in a spirit of cruelty against the Jewish people...." Ekkehard of Aura reflects this same view, referring to Emico as a man "of very ill repute because of his tyrannical mode of life." Thus Emico and his followers were atypical. Later, Ekkehard, describes how they also persecuted fellow Christians. The major contributions of the Hebrew sources are the linkage to the crusade and the emphasis on the role of some of the citizens of the Rhineland towns in the persecutions. These sources also stress the efforts of bishops, some secular authorities, and some ordinary clergy and people to protect the Jews, though often without success. But, if the information provided and the explanations offered are not very helpful, the accounts in both cases are still valuable. The Hebrew sources provide a key element for explaining their actions, which also finds an echo in the Latin sources. They attacked the Jews because they believed that this would gain recognition for them as dedicated followers of Christ and as leaders of the crusade. They spoke the language of religious vengeance against the killers of Christ to emphasize their willingness to take on the task that their "weaker" neighbors shunned. When the Latin accounts isolate them as persecutors of both Jews and Christians, they are attempting to insulate their society from the infection spread by these ideas. The attack on the Jews was part of an effort to claim a leading role in the crusade by people who felt themselves rejected by the leaders of their own society, a point demonstrated by their attacks not only on Jews but on Christian authorities during this period. Indeed, their criticism was directed against these very leaders.
This explanation may not find approval by some because it seems to limit the blame for these terrible acts. But I am not talking here about blame or guilt. The effort to use history as a moral club against evil is misdirected. The task of the historian is to understand and to explain. History provides something different from moral judgment; it tries to analyze causes in order to suggest directions that might help to solve problems. My criticism of Karen Armstrong and others is that moral condemnation is often premature and sometimes totally misdirected. It gives history a bad name.
Our examination has a more specific objective. It tries to demonstrate why persecutions of Jews were limited both geographically and in time, as well as why the perpetrators did not attract large numbers of followers. Chazan has suggested reasonably that strong political authority in France and England and the absence of the Holy Roman emperor in Italy explain why persecutions took place in the Rhineland rather than France or England. I suggest that we must also consider the limitation imposed by the psycho-social identities of those who provided the leadership of these persecutions. They regarded themselves as daring leaders in their society; but that was a claim that many of their contemporaries rejected. Still, fear of such extremists prevented them from acting to save the Jews. In a society that probably knew lttle about the Jews save the Gospel accounts, Anti-Judaism was an effective instrument used by the perpetrators to establish their claim, at least in their own eyes, to be the true leaders of the crusade. The scapegoating of the Jews arose from stresses, both economic and religious, within the dominant group. Though it fed on dissatisfactions in Jewish-Christian relations, its real basis was not in religion but in what Albert of Aix referred to as an "error of the mind," a deviation from the norms of society. How was this related to the Crusade? While the crusade was not an essential ingredient -another movement might have lit the fire, it provided a context and opportunity for Emico and his followers. They crusade gave them the chance to prove their right to lead.
But, as we have seen, such was not to be. The crusade was born not of these aberrations, but of a complex set of plans aimed at turning back Muslims from conquered lands, liberating Eastern Christians, and creating a Christian enclave around the Holy Places for pilgrims. On July 15, 1099, the third of these objectives was achieved with the capture of Jerusalem. The crusade was a direct result of the victory achieved by the First Crusade. That achievement shaped an enduring commitment of Westerners that continues to affect modern relations between the West and the Islamic World. Some historians have seen the crusades as the beginnings of European colonialism, a view that coalesces with Muslim nationalism; still others have characterized them as an example of religious intolerance. While the development of Western colonialism certainly began during this period as an outgrowth of commercial expansion, it benefitted little from the crusades. In fact, it prospered more after the main period of the crusading ended in the fourteenth century. As for the view of the crusade as an act of religious intolerance, it is important to note that the crusaders did not see themslves as missionaries seeking to convert Muslims either peacefully or by the sword. Only in the thirteenth century, chiefly under the influence of the mendicant orders was there a beginning of missionary work among Muslims. It may have gained a small benefit from the existence of crusader enclaves, but it did not rely on military means and only developed into a major movement in the nineteenth century. The close relationship between Islam and Muslim governments was, moreover, a major impediment to such missionary work. The tendency to seek deep-rooted historical explanations of colonialism or modern religious conflicts in the age of crusades ignores the degree to which both of these phenomena are products of nineteenth century imperialism, nationalism, and racism. Efforts to connect these movements to the crusades has not proven very convincing. Perhaps some scholars wish to look at a more remote past because they are uncomfortable examining the nearer past in a critical way. The Medieval world was very different from ours. During the nineteenth century, it became a field of conflict between those who embraced the world of secular modernity and those who sought to preserve Christianity. To both of these broad groups, the quest for origins became essential to validate their image of their own world. The history of the crusades was heavily distorted to fit these terms. This was especially true with regard to religion.
Medieval attitudes toward other religions were based on a set of pre-conditions that have largely ceased to exist in the modern West, though not in the East. The terminology that we customarily use in speaking of tolerance and intolerance has little value in the medieval context. Convinced of their own truth, Christianity, Judaism, and Islam were more concerned to insulate their followers than to pursue programs of conversion. Christianity chiefly concentrated on the conversion of pagan peoples and would continue to do so into modern times. Jews sought to preserve their religious identity, but were under considerable social pressure in both Christian and Islamic societies to conform because of their minority status. As a result, there were always some conversions. For Jews, conversion represented a terrible danger because of their small numbers. Islam, which had gained converts by conquest, came to rely more on continuing economic and social pressure than the sword to bring about the conversion of subjected peoples. The crusades did not create these circumstances. They did alter them, chiefly by changing the balance of power in parts of the East, but the main changes in relationships occurred in the West chiefly because of the development of stronger secular governments aimed at ensuring their political dominance over all of their subjects and citizens. The Jewish expulsions of the thirteenth century were not the product of the crusades, whatever occasional rhetoric has suggested, but of the exigencies of English and French kings. The same was true of the fifteenth century Spanish Inquisition, which served the needs of a particular political faction in Spain.
None of this is to deny that the Crusades did have an impact.
They made it much easier for the papacy and secular governments to justify war in a good cause. This reinforced underlying convictions about defending the right that reached back into classical times. But the whole tradition of fighting for good got a major shot in the arm from the crusades. We who fight in Bosnia, Kosovo, and who send peace-keepers to various places in world are true heirs of the crusade. The desire to do good is much more related to the crusades than colonialism or intolerance. But, as for the crusaders, the desire to do good poses problems. If, for example, it is good to defend Bosnians from Serbs, why is this so? After all, Serbs saw themselves as defending their country in a civil war. Who was right in Kosovo? It is rather easy to point to the excesses of Milosevic; harder to condemn the Serbs without examining the provocation of the KLA. Historians have not usually made good moral arbiters. What I have tried to do is to demonstrate a paradox. The more that historians attempt to serve in that role, the more likely it becomes that their message will be lost in a tangle of controversy. On the other hand, the more that they try to explain events and to put them into context, the more they are likely to lighten the burden of the past and make resolution of conflict more likely. The historian of the crusades has an unequaled opportunity to do this. In the three examples we have dealt with we have shown: first, that popular enthusiasm for the crusade led to disaster; secondly, that a movement like the crusades can easily become a destructive force; thirdly, victory produces unforeseen consequences, including some that involve long-term commitments. These rather than a continuation of nineteenth century conflicts over modern versus medieval are the lessons to be learned from the crusades. If Americans are to be modern crusaders, they must recognize these risks. The crusades were not the product of people who wanted to do bad things, but of people with very high motives, desirous of doing good. Our crusades are much the same. Alas!
James M. Powell
Syracuse University
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
The author wishes to thank all of the authors who have contributed to this lecture by their writings. I cannot here cite individual works, but strongly recommend that readers turn to the Society for the Study of the Crusades in the Latin East web-site on the crusades for bibliography.
Posted November 10th, 1999, by Theresa M. Vann for the Malta Study Center
Hill Museum & Manuscript Library
Saint John's University, Collegeville, MN 56321, USA
Phone: 320-363-3514/ Fax: 320-363-3222/ E-mail: hmml@csbsju.edu