The Crusades, Christianity, and Islam

That's the title of Jonathan Riley-Smith's book on the topic-- a slightly edited version of his Bampton Lectures at Columbia University in October 2007 . Riley-Smith is professor emeritus at Cambridge and one of a few experts in this field. (A big hat tip goes to another expert in the field, Thomas Madden, who brought attention to the book in his review of it in First Things.)

The book is a slim volume-- an easily accessible primer on "the Crusades" with a lot of value-added. In a word, Riley-Smith breaks with conventional "wisdom"-- largely accrued outside the field-- in describing the motives of Crusaders and the oft-assumed place of the Crusades within history. R-S also argues that the "mythistories" which have arisen around the Crusades are damaging in the contemporary context of our relationship with the West's interaction with Islam.

There are a number of points worth paraphrasing. Riley-Smith:

...points to the importance of penitence as a motivation for the Crusaders. The crusades were believed to be "Holy Wars"-- doing God's business. But for the participants, it generally started with penitence. We see this in the list of regulations to be observed on the "pilgrimage" to the presence of a "parish priest" for each ship in the fleet. R-S lays out the "liturgy" of the occasion-- from marching barefoot to fasting and carrying crosses on the journey. In the preaching of those times, priests emphasized the cross of Christ and the believers' need to pick up their own cross and share in the sufferings of Christ. (R-S goes further in connecting this and other penitence with the practice of indulgences.)

...notes the ambivalence of the Scriptures toward (proper) violence-- not only in the Old Testament's battles over the Promised Land, but also in various NT passages (p. 10-11). Violence is certainly not a norm within Christianity. But, for example, one can make a case for violence in defense of others. (This is reminiscent of the Bible's treatment of "anger" which is more nuanced than generally assumed.)

-...traces Augustinian thinking on "just war" and the use and evolution of this doctrine since then. (Augustine argued that "just war" must be for a just cause, declared by a legitimate authority, and justly waged.) R-S notes the transition to "modern just war theory" which sees war as a "lesser of evils", but argues that this approach "reached maturity much more recently than we like to think" (p. 12-13).

-...observes that the Crusaders voluntarily chose to go on crusades-- and that the appeal must have been therefore (quite) persuasive. Motives ranged from the need to rescue the Promised Land or maintain a clear path to it-- to individual and corporate penance.

-...observes that "the success of the First Crusade reinforced the belief that the pope's proclamation had been divinely inspired...convinced that the only explanation for the victorious progress of an army so short of provision and material". Ironically, if one gives God "the glory" for the First Crusade, it becomes easier to see "God" behind the other crusades as well.

-...connects the Crusades to an Old-Covenant mentality-- that success or failure was in large part determined by the spiritual state of those fighting and those at home. Going on a Crusade-- when called by God-- was often seen as a "test of faith". Interestingly but not surprisingly, it follows that failure in a Crusade often caused Christians to look internally for causes of the loss, resulting in a greater emphasis on combating heresy and engaging in church discipline.

-...argues persuasively that material pursuits could not have been a standard motive. In fact, going on a Crusade was quite dangerous (more than 1/3 died; many more were injured) and quite expensive (since self-financed). R-S argues that this interpretation emerged and began to dominate with the liberal/materialist historians of the early-20th century, who looked for a material/financial answer to everything.

-...connects the "old" Crusades" to more modern Crusade-like efforts-- most notably, the efforts of Archbishop Lavigerie of Algiers in the late 19th century. R-S makes the case that Lavigerie's work was not fringe. Most important, he traces how these efforts have distorted the way in which people saw the earlier Crusades in a way that is troublesome now. To note, "because the newly emergent Arab nationalists took 19th century imperialist rhetoric literally...they came to believe that the West, having lost the first round in the Crusades, had embraked on another and their vision of past and present crusading was inherited by a new generation of Pan-Islamists."

-...lays out some bizarre history with Kaiser Wilhelm II's use of Saladin in 1898 (which stems from Sir Walter Scott's influential literary treatment of Saladin and the Crusaders). It's too long of a story to recount here, but it had a profound influence on the course of the 20th and 21th centuries. The punchline: "One often reads that modern Muslims have inherited from their bitter memories of the violence of the crusaders. Nothing could be further from the truth....It is only a slight exaggeration to say that between 1500 and 1860 themost original writings on the Crusades in Arabic...were nostalgic about them. The fact is that the Muslims had lost interest. They had never shown much concern about the world beyond Islam...looked back on the Crusades with indifference and complacency. They had driven the crusaders [back]...and had been triumphant..." (p. 68-72)

In closing, I wonder how Riley-Smith's book coincides with Pape's seminal work on suicide terrorism. It seems to fit nicely as a catalyst for Islamists and Arab Nationalists seeing us as an occupying force-- rather than the way our leaders sell (and how many people see) our military presence and involvement in the region. R-S puts more emphasis on the occupation of religious shrines and land, but otherwise, the theses are parallel. If so, it's one more uncontrollable factor that should encourage us to pursue a more "conservative" foreign policy, especially in the Middle East and the Muslim world. medieval ancestors