 |
Truce between Christians and Saracens.
Matthew Paris, Chronica Maiora, Parker MS 16II, f.139v.
|
-
- Review of God's War by Jonathan Phillips in The Telegraph, September 2006.
- Review of God's War by J.L. Nelson in the London Review of Books, 2007.
- Interview with Christopher Tyerman about his book God's War.
 |
| Urban II preaching at Clermont |
In this interview, Tyerman talks about how it is misleading and ahistorical to draw direct connections between modern wars in the Middle East and the medieval crusading movement. I agree with him on this point, and it brings me to a general matter I forgot to mention in class, which is: while modern parallels and experiences can be useful tools for helping us think about the past, we should never confuse them with historical argument itself, which always has to be based in the evidence and context of the period. I'm sure you knew this - but especially following our discussions about ANZAC cove and Canterbury it seemed a good time to remind ourselves of this point...
 |
| Urban II preaching the crusade |
But back to the Crusades! The Institute for Historical Research in London runs a monthly seminar about the Crusades, so clearly there's no shortage of opinion and debate on the topic.
Post your thoughts and responses to these readings below by Monday evening. Then we'll be moving on to St Francis and Co.!
13 comments:
This is not about crusading in the slightest, but a link for the keen and curious among you. You've probably detected over the course of semester so far that I don''t always completely agree with Clare's take on the big narrative. (In a good way, in the sense that debate and disagreement are the spice of life, right?)
Anyway, those of you interested in a bit more detail about the early medieval period might want to follow up Jonathan Jarrett's latest post (yes - he has something interesting to say on most topics of medieval relevance...) which concerns coinage evidence in early medieval England and the fact that its abundance must call into question certain big ecconomic explanations of the kind that our old mates Davis and Pirenne were entering into. In fact, Pirenne even scores a mention at the end...
Enjoy!
What strikes me as most interesting is just how far “God’s Will” was used in the justification of war, battle, plundering and murder (aka the crusades). Again and again, the people of the Christian West were called to arms to fight and defend their faith against the evil forces of the Muslim and Jewish people in the East, to claim back Christian territory from their destructive grasp. I just can’t get over the irony of it all. In at least three out of the five speeches in the reading, there are graphic depictions of the alleged atrocities the Muslims were inflicting on the Christian people of the East, depicting them as cruel, violent and barbarous people. AND YET, only sentences later, the same orators are justifying the going to war (and all the violence and harm that goes with it) by the rationale of it being on God’s orders.
I think this really reiterates just how significant and ‘real’ religion was in the lives of every member of society. Hell and damnation were a completely accepted possibility for the afterlife, and thus when presented with the option of full repentance of sins by the Pope himself, naturally anyone would have jumped at the chance to wipe his slate-of-sins clean in return for military service. But back to the actual military service, this was an outright allowance and justification for Christian men to kill and plunder, they were assured that it was the RIGHT thing to do, the only way to please God. So acts of violence which, if committed at home, would have been severely punishable, were downright encouraged and celebrated when it involved those not of the Christian faith.
What I get from all of this is an overwhelming impression of just how powerful the church was. They said ‘jump’, and every man said ‘how high?’ So basically, so long as something was deemed to be God’s desire (as interpreted by the powerful heads of the Church), all previously known ‘rights’ and ‘wrongs’ were turned on their heads. As Tyerman puts it, “Holy war says that the war engaged in is a holy act in itself. The actual killing and fighting is in accordance with God's will” and thus, entirely right and blameless.
It's all rather crazy!
I think the Crusades really show just how political and manipulative the church could be. Just like any being who gains power, they want to keep it and this definitely is the same for the Church. The Crusades were a brilliant way for the church to assert their authority - and not to mention get a whole heap of land and possessions out of it when people left their belonging to the church when they went off to fight. The crusades seem to be just another instrument for power and you can see this in Christopher Tyerman's chapter, see how many times the word 'political' is used in relation to the church and how crusades were used 'as a political device'. And I definitely agree with Clare with the people's willingness to 'jump' at whatever the Church told them to - especially if it meant guaranteed salvation.
In relation to the Accounts of Crusading Speech by Pope Urban, chronicled by the Fultcher of Chartres at 1., I find the use of incentives in relation to the remission of sin as an interesting method utilised to catalyse popular support for the crusades.
According to Fultcher, 'All who die by the way, whether by land or by sea, or in battle against the pagans, shall have immediate remission of sins.' This statement appeared to operate as a persuasive tool to increase the number of individuals willing to join the crusades. It was obviously an ingenious strategy given that even those who had sinned could join the crusades and be freed of all past wrongdoing - a powerful incentive.
Having read through both readings in relation to the topic of the Crusades, I also found myself alarmed at the political manipulation employed by, and the unflinching influence of, the church during this period. The ability of a religious order to entirely implant concepts of morality and sin within the minds of the masses truly demonstrates the domination of the church and the Pope himself. Furthermore, whatever he said appears to have been taken as divine ordinance, not only accepted as correct but celebrated as the perfect, the only way for life to be conducted, a concept that I found rather difficult to grasp given today's largely secular society.
can't go past the obvious but to emphasise the hypocracy of the church in the justification of waging a holy war in the name of God. Crusading seems to have been a political device with the intention of preserving and expanding the christian faith in opposition to paganism and the muslims. Crusading against Heretics in the 13th and 14th century is all but incomprehensible to me and is a great example of the need of spirituality the medieval people felt in so much as they could justify taking another persons life simply because they shared different faiths.
The ability of the Papacy from the later twelfth century onwards to grant 'spiritual priveleges' such as the remission of sins is a prime example of the spiritual manipulation of the masses that was perpetrated through the authority of the church.
a slight adjustment to clares final line, perhaps when the church said 'jump' the people asked 'how high' on the way up!
A point that I found interesting within Tyerman’s writings was the notion of crusades being conducted all around Europe, with some of these being equally devastating, against the infidels or those Christians who had taken a different path. I feel that this aspect of crusading has been somewhat lost, with most attention being focused on the Crusades to the Hold Land. Although of course, these wars were viewed with greater importance I think it’s good to consider the further widespread effort to partake in these holy wars. Tyerman addressed this point further as he spoke about the numerous opportunities for people to contribute from home, both through prayer and monetary assistance. This reminded me of the war effort during the two world wars, with the image of women staying home and knitting socks for the troops.
Sam - your comment about how hard it can be to grasp the motives of crusaders in a secular context brings to mind an important issue in the history of Christianity in general, which is that while it presents (and understands) itself as eternal and unchanging, it can't help being embedded in history, and that means that it does, has and will change over time. This means that even for modern Christians, it can be hard to think one's way into the issue, let alone for those of us of more secular backgrounds.
As Clare noted in the lecture, the late Antique Christ was a majestic ruler, whereas in the high middle ages, he was often seen as a suffering man. These days, perhaps the emphasis is on Christ as a benign friend, full of forgiveness. Each age has made its own 'reading' of the message, and understood slightly different things by it. So while 'thou shalt not kill' might seem unambigous, there's actually a whole lot more going on in any Christian society. None of that is supposed to mean that we should say it actually was OK for people to kill unorthodox Christians or members of other faiths, but that we have to try not to use that value judgement too much as we think about the history of the phenomenon. In the 11th century, the image of a suffering Christ may have moved some to anger at those who made him suffer (metaphorically through attacking the contemporary faith or believers; or 'physically', as the Jews were erroneously believed to have done). This might have been one way that the devout saw crusading as justifiable in their context, even though modern devout Christians might not agree.
Emily - you rightly draw attention to the emphasis Tyreman makes of the political aspects of crusading. But let's not forget that these can't really be completely separated from truly devotional motives and wider social concerns, for example the violence clergymen saw in local European society which they tried to direct into 'more productive' avenues. When Tyreman talks about the symbiosis of interests, I think he's trying to convey how inextricably linked all of these issues were to one another: by contrast it's rather a reductionist view to decide that it was all about corruption, or all about power, or any one factor. As so often happens, the closer one looks at a historical phenomenon, the more complex it becomes.
Dion - thanks for drawing attention to the notion of Christian unity with respect to crusades against other Christians. The anxiety about orthodoxy which was increasing at this time is a very complex matter. It was partly a political anxiety, but also a spiritual one (among other things). For one thing, the developing notion that only adherence to the true pope could ensure salvation of one's soul meant it was fundamentally important (and even merciful) to try to convert heretics, and if they couldn't be converted then to expunge them so that they wouldn't pass on their infectious views to good Christians and imperil their souls. The crusades againts Cathar heretics in southern france, for example, were preceded by an extensive campaign of preaching coupled with a form of inquisition designed to find out what they actually believed so they could be effectively persuaded back to the 'truth'. It began - it its terms - as a compassionate exercise; not the image of screaming, burning people on pyres that we get from films like 'The Name of the Rose' (as much as I love watching it!)
As for indulgences, we all need to take special care not to be too set in our received 'post reformation' ways of thinking. The popes were powerful only insofar as they were recognised to have spritual authority which also extended to earthly behaviour - as we've heard in lectures, they had no armies through which to enforce their will. They had to use spiritual persuasion, and in their own terms they were justified in so doing. The pope was (is!) understood to have the power of 'binding and loosing'. This handy catchphrase (from Matthew 16:19 where Jesus names Simon, Peter: N.B. Petros was Greek for 'the Rock' so he was the 'rock' on which Jesus would build his church) is actually a very complex theological and philosophical issue, but in a nutshell, it means that the pope had complete control over the salvation of human souls, or, more specifically, their entry into heaven. (Hence Peter's - and through him, the popes' - symbol of the keys to heaven.) So in this way the pope's ability to offer indulgence was completely compatible with a contemporary legal/theological understanding of his power, even if it seems a bit distasteful to us.
Like all human enterprises, these were open to misuse, misdireciton, and corruption, but I think we are all intelligent and reasonable enough to see that no movement can be summed up with such simple judgements. We have to search for that complicated 'web' of factors, even knowing that we can't ever hope to identify absolutely every related one.
I just want to play the devil's advocate here, but I think a lot of people's views are slightly biased, as they are trying to analyse and comment on a religious phenomenon from a strongly secular standpoint. For the average medieval person, religion was central to their existence in a way (like Sam mentioned before) that we, as members of a modern secular society struggle to contemplate. Although I concede that incredible atrocities were committed in the name of God, such as the massacre of the Rhineland Jews, I somewhat agree with Riley-Smith's assertion of the Crusades as an act of love and compassion. At the time before the advent of the Crusades, peaceful Christian pilgrims were beginning to be targeted by militant Muslims, such as in the case of the German Bishop Gunther and his followers, who were violently ambushed during their pilgrimage. During this attack, Bishop Gunther exhorted his followers to kneel and pray during the attack, and not to retaliate with violence: to literally turn the other cheek! Another example is the despotic ruler Caliph Hakim, who in 1009, began cruelly victimising Christians and Jews, according to Regine Pernoud. In Pope Urban II's speech, it was the plight of one's fellow Christian that was used to mobilise people, drawing upon the Christian doctrine of loving one's neighbour. However, the fundamental Christian teachings of non-violence, compassion and love did get perverted and twisted as the Crusades progressed, as they became polluted by the quest for political power and possession of land.
Thanks for bringing in another perspective Rachael - this is very important! We'll revisit this issue in a couple of weeks, I have no doubt. But since we've been talking so much about violence being perpetrated by Christians, it seems relevant to point out that the crusades that saw the greatest successes tended to do so by truce and treaty rather than outright military victory. This was true of the Third Crusade (the one in which Richard the Lionheart fought) - pictured in an illustration by the famous English monk, Matthew Paris, at the top of this blog post; and of the Sixth, in which the Holy Roman Emperor, Frederick II - even though he was excommunicate at the time - managed to negotiate the return (albeit temporary) of Jerusalem, Bethlehem, Nazareth, and some other territories. One thing this shows is that crusaders weren't always raving berserkers who just wanted to spill 'heathen' blood. At least some actually wanted the Holy Land to be under Christian dominion, e.g. so that pilgrim routes from Europe could be safely maintained and controlled, and they were open to any practical means of doing so, even coming to terms with Muslims. This wasn't necessarily the most popular action on the home front, where the practicalities were only loosely understood and the ideal of heroic chivalry assumed the nobility of fighting for victory. It could be (and was sometimes) construed as a kind of cowardice by those unacquainted with the realities of the Levant - as the Middle East was known in the late medieval period. An exception was the respect accorded to Saladin - the Arab leader during the Third Crusade - by king Richard himself as well as contemporary commentators: they saw him as a kind of chivalric ideal Muslim, but definitely as an exception to the rule, and they were somewhat surprised at how justly regal and merciful his behaviour was (given their somewhat skewed expectations of the East in general).
Here you can find a primary source about Richard and Saladin making peace. (Of course, this isn't to say Richard was necessarily a great bloke. He did later massacre Muslim prisoners, after all.)
Interestingly, despite Frederick II's 'success' in forging a peace, the pope was still rather unhappy with him... for political reasons not unrelated to the fact that Fred had gone off on crusade without papal sanction, and had effectively shown up the failure of more official crusades by that very success. You can read a lot more about Frederick in David Abulafia's fairly recent biography, and in an older, but still fascinating biography by Ernst Kantorowicz. Both are available in the library.
Post a Comment