The Glory of the Crusades (3 page)

John Paul also recognized the importance of understanding the historical context in which the events of the past were lived, and he had no desire to pass judgment on our Catholic predecessors.
36
He did not reject the Church’s historical past, which is replete with examples of mercy, forgiveness, holiness, and grand achievement. In his September 1, 1999 general audience he expressly said that the Church’s “request for pardon must not be understood as an expression of false humility or as a denial of her 2,000-year history . . . instead, she responds to the necessary requirement of the truth, which, in addition to the positive aspects, recognizes the human limitations and weaknesses of the various generations of Christ’s disciples.”
37

The Church has
not
apologized for the Crusades because an apology is not necessary. On the contrary, for centuries the Crusading movement was integral to the lived expression of the Faith.

An authentic presentation of the Crusades thus centers on viewing them through a contemporary perspective. The Catholic historian Hilaire Belloc understood this truism and illustrated it throughout his historical books. In his work on the history of the great heresies in Christendom, Belloc wrote that “the most difficult thing in the world in connection with history, and the rarest of achievement, is the seeing of events as contemporaries saw them, instead of seeing them through the distorting medium of our later knowledge.”
38

An authentic understanding of historical events begins not with the present time of the historical author, but with the contemporary time of the participant. Failure to adhere to that premise falsifies history and produces a “reading into” rather than a “learning from” historical events.
39
Critics of the Crusades and the Church usually fall into the trap of believing that their own opinion or society is superior to those that came before them.

The International Theological Commission recognized this trap and encouraged those who would presume to judge the actions of Catholics in the past to keep “in mind that the historical periods are different, that the sociological and cultural times within which the Church acts are different, and so, the paradigms and judgments proper to one society and to one era might be applied erroneously in the evaluations of other periods of history, producing many misunderstandings.”
40
Understanding the Crusades from the perspective of those who lived during and participated in them is vital. The movement must also be understood as the lived expression of the vibrant Catholicism of medieval people.

Abandoning the Defensive

The purpose of this work is to present a restored narrative of the Crusades, utilizing modern scholarship in order to give Catholics today the tools to answer the critics and defend the Church and its history.

Most people associate the Crusades with armed expeditions by Western warriors against the Muslims in the Holy Land. Although that association is not incorrect, it is incomplete. Because the Crusading movement evolved over time, there were many types of Crusades over the centuries, including those against heretics, pagans, and enemies of the Church. Regardless, this book will concentrate on the major Crusades against the Muslims in the Holy Land, Egypt, the Mediterranean Sea, and Europe, precisely because the major misunderstandings about the Crusades centers on these expeditions. Only an authentic presentation of the Crusading movement and its campaigns against Islam can equip Catholics to defend the Church, countering the false historical narrative prevalent in society today with a proper understanding.

At the same time, as the Church progresses through its third millennium and in light of the call by recent pontiffs for a New Evangelization, the time is ripe for a reinvigorated sense of Catholic identity. Catholics must know the authentic history of the Church in order to defend it from the many critics in the modern world; however, for a truly vibrant Catholic identity to flourish once more, defending the Church is not enough. We must go on the attack and present the story of our Catholic family with vigor, courage, and resolve.

In the words of Walter Cardinal Brandmüller, president emeritus of the Pontifical Committee for the Historical Sciences, “[W]e should finally stop being like the frightened rabbit that stares at the snake before it is swallowed by it. This defeatist attitude, this whining self-pity that has gained so much ground . . . in Catholic circles, is an insult to God. What is needed is a new, forceful consciousness of being Catholic.”
41

1
Rodney Stark,
God’s Battalions—The Case for the Crusades
(New York: HarperCollins Publishers, 2009), 6–7.

2
Which usually involves a negative and unhistorical presentation of such events as the Crusades, the Inquisition, the Spanish Armada, and the reign of Queen Mary (falsely known as “Bloody Mary”).

3
Charlotte Edwardes, “Ridley Scott’s New Crusades films ‘panders to Osama bin Laden,’”
The Telegraph
, January 18, 2004, accessed February 2, 2013, http
://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/1452000/Ridley-Scotts-new-Crusades-film-panders-to-Osama-bin-Laden.html
.

4
“Kingdom of Heaven,” accessed February 2, 2013,
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0320661/?ref_=sr_1
.

5
Christopher Tyerman,
The Debate on the Crusades
(New York: Manchester University Press, 2011), 1.

6
Ibid., 5.

7
See Thomas F. Madden,
The New Concise History of the Crusades
Updated Edition
(New York: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc., 2005), 209.

8
Kenneth M. Setton, “Lutheranism and the Turkish Peril,”
Balkan Studies
3 (1962): 142, in Madden,
New Concise
, 209.

9
Madden,
The New Concise History of the Crusades
, 210.

10
Tyerman,
Debate
, 67.

11
This is the true legacy of the Enlightenment in relation to the Crusades. As Christopher Tyerman points out, “The legacy of the Enlightenment had established the Crusades as a reference point for cultural commentary as much on contemporary as on medieval society” (
Debate
, 95).

12
Stark, 6.

13
Tyerman,
Debate
, 67.

14
Jonathan Riley-Smith,
The Crusades—A History
, (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2005), 298.

15
Denis Diderot,
Dictionnaire encyclopedique
,
Oeuvres complètes
(Paris, 1821), xiv, 496–511, in Tyerman,
Debate
, 78.

16
Tyerman,
Debate
, 81, and Hume,
The History of England
, vol. I, 234, Stark, 6.

17
Edward Gibbon,
The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire
, vii, 188, in Tyerman,
Debate
, 85.

18
Gibbon,
Decline and Fall
, book 6, chapter 58.

19
Madden,
The New Concise History of the Crusades
, 215.

20
Jonathan Riley-Smith, “Islam and the Crusades in History and Imagination, 8 November 1898–11 September 2001,” Crusades 2 (2003): 158. Quoted in Madden,
The New Concise History
, 215.

21
Published from 1934–1936.

22
Thomas F. Madden,
The Crusades—The Essential
Readings
(Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing, 2002), 1.

23
Erdmann was not a Nazi; in fact he despised the Nazi regime. He was conscripted into the
Wehrmacht
and served as a translator. He contracted typhus in March 1945 and died.

24
Thomas Madden wrote that “Runciman singlehandedly crafted the current popular concept of the Crusades.” Madden,
The New Concise History
, 216.

25
Tyerman,
Debate
, 197.

26
Ibid., 192.

27
Stephen Runciman, “Byzantium and the Crusade,” in Madden,
The Crusades—The Essential Readings
, 220.

28
Tyerman,
Debate
, 195.

29
Steven Runciman,
A History of the Crusades
, vol. III (London: The Folio Society, 1996), 401.

30
Some of these scholars are faithful Catholics, including Jonathan Riley-Smith, who is a Knight of Malta and began the shift of modern Crusade studies toward a religious-participant view. Another Catholic scholar is Thomas Madden, who teaches at St. Louis University.

31
Robert Barron,
Catholicism—A Journey to the Heart of the Faith
(New York: Image Books, 2011), 162.

32
Ibid.

33
Ibid.

34
Headed at the time by Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger—later Pope Benedict XVI.

35
International Theological Commission,
Memory and Reconciliation: The Church and the Faults of the Past.

36
The pope’s recognition of the importance of historical context and the work of historians was illustrated in his
Discourse to the Participants in the International Symposium of Study on the Inquisition
held on October 31, 1998. He said, “This is the reason why the first step consists in asking the historians . . . to offer help toward a reconstruction, as precise as possible, of the events, of the customs, of the mentality of the time, in the light of historical context of the epoch.” In terms of passing judgment on past Catholics, John Paul II said in his Angelus Address on March 12, 2000: “This is not a judgment on the subjective responsibility of our brothers and sisters who have gone before us: judgment belongs to God alone . . . Today’s act is a sincere recognition of the sins committed by the Church’s children in the distant and recent past, and a humble plea for God’s forgiveness. This will reawaken consciences, enabling Christians to enter the third millennium with greater openness to God and his plan of love.”

37
Available online at
http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/john_paul_ii/audiences/1999/documents/hf_jp-ii_aud_01091999_en.html
. Accessed March 2, 2013.