The Crusaders and the Church - Research Paper Example

?The Crusaders and the Church Just as centuries before, the tales about the crusading heroes inspire hose who hear them for battles. However, this time, the battles are about the historical and moral significance of crusades, which is quite a debatable topic nowadays. For instance, Madden starts with the parallel between the former President Bush’s remarks about Islam and those of the crusaders and proceeds to the persuasive but too evidently engaged apologetic speech1. The topic seems to require far more cautious approach: modern morality is itself socially constructed and cannot be the yardstick for the measures of Medieval morality. Neither can the writings of apostles and church fathers (prosecuted by Romans) be the departure point for analysis2. It is evident by now, that there are differences in three aforementioned texts and moral approaches, and the task of researcher is to clarify the motives behind different rhetorical strategies rather than search for positive models of behavior. The Main Controversy It was no secret for medieval church leaders that peaceful message of the New Testament was not appropriate for preaching in their violent world3. Moreover, there has always been an opposition to calls for the butchery of infidels: for example, Charlemagne was opposed y such influential figures as Alcuin of York and John Scot Erigena4. It was not until the 11th century AC that violent practices actually won full legitimacy in the church writings5. Moreover, those who came to battles fully realized what a demanding task it was, often spiritual rather than physical. For many knights, especially the participants of the first crusades, the march was a form of religious initiation and repentance performed with prayers, fasts, and vows6. The difference is striking: one group of people, the clergy, was legally prohibited to take part in the crusades7; the spiritual leaders were against the murders or at least saw the controversy. Another group, the knights and the people of lower social classes helping them, did not feel that wars for the cross were controversial. That is how with the advent of the new influential social strata new morality code appeared in the already multifaceted Christian worldview. This new morality deserves more detailed examination. The Knighthood Phillips observes that the pope Urban II (who inspired the First Crusade) was sensitive to the needs of the new social class of war aristocracy, as the pope himself came from the like circles: He linked several ingredients familiar to medieval society, such as pilgrimage and the idea of a holy war against the enemies of God, with an unprecedented offer of salvation, a combination almost guaranteed to enthuse the warriors of western Europe8. Another accepted practice of this class was vengeance, which ideally corresponded the mission of the crusaders and echoed the Old Testament9. Many knights were pious and perceived their war service as a kind of spiritual mission. The examples was the knight Matthew described by Guibert of Nogent10. The customs like throwing away weapons after the crusade, fasting before serious military missions, temporary celibate and making testaments before departure was widespread throughout the whole history of crusades11. The very idea of abandoning home and family for the unknown future, the voluntary exile was in line with the practices of self-humiliation more appropriate for monks12. Still, even those monastic practices were not ‘innocent’ in class terms: they testified that the knighthood takes part in the crusades voluntarily and autonomously, unlike the participants of most holy wars around the world (this is the reason why Riley-Smith distinguishes the ‘holy war’ aspect of crusades from the ‘penitential’ aspect)13. However, not all the knights were pious in this monastic sense. There is plenty of evidence of their greed, hedonism, and cruelty. A notorious example was Hugh, count of Avranches (11th century AC), a glutton, a butcher, and a typical representative of “skilled soldiers” that “possessed of the self-righteousness of ideological conviction to add to the heady brew of hedonism, brutality, guilt, obligation, spirituality and remorse”14. Virtually all the crusades were preceded by the bloody pogroms of Jews that, unlike the wars with Muslims, were not protective at all15. Nevertheless, by the beginning of the first crusades, knights have become such an influential social class that papacy (clergy) had to count on them for the political influence. The centuries 11-12 AC were distinguished by two parallel political processes: fragmentation of states (so that the warlords of lower ranks gained more influence)16 and the autonomization of clergy (that benefited from the fact that kings did not take part in the first crusades)17. With the changes in this social order, when the warlords of bigger ranks took charge of the crusades, the campaigns became more connected with invasions and spreading influence than the revenge18. In sum, the morality of the new influential social group of low-rank warlords, or knights, was grounded in military prestige, vengeance, and vassal obligations. In order to obtain more influence, the clergy had to change the rhetoric and the interpretations of the Scripture accordingly. Preaching Differently In the 4th and 5th centuries AC, the Church Fathers developed the concept of ‘just war’ that had come from the Greek Antiquity and was aimed to justify the war efforts in Asia and Africa19. In brief, the idea was that wars are not immoral if they are for justice. Augustine developed this Aristotle’s notion in the following way: A just war requires a just cause; its aim must be defensive or for the recovery of rightful possession; legitimate authority must sanction it; those who fight must be motivated by right intent20. Augustine, as many other church leaders, never advocated physical violence, but he brought the violence from merely secular field to the field of spiritual literature, opening doors to numerous misinterpretations21. Thus, just wars (bellum justum) were becoming extinguished with holy wars (bellum sacrum)22. Additionally, the hagiography and legends representing Christ and His followers as fighters began to appear: the crusade project at large was oriented on the Pauline texts and the idea of vengeance in the Old Testament23. Some secular texts like The Dream of the Rood, Heliand, and French chansons de geste24. Relations with Muslims One of the most popular arguments of those who are trying to ‘defend’ the crusaders from modern criticism is that in many respects, the war with Turks and other Muslims was defensive25. The crimes of Muslims (if to apply this crime rhetoric at all) can by no means justify the crimes of Christians, but anyway, the relations between medieval Islam and Christianity were too significant to be ignored. Kuiper, the author that confidently stands o he side of crusaders in the controversy, brings the arguments that Turks treated the Christian pilgrims atrociously (up to body mutilation); additionally, they were about to conquer Constantinople in 1070, which gave the pope Gregory VII a brilliant opportunity to exert his influence upon the Eastern Church (in more moderate phrasing, to unite the two churches after their separation)26. However the Muslims could even have recruited the Christian soldiers, this does not deny the fact that by the First Crusade, large territories in the East that had previously belong to Christians were conquered by Muslims27 (the ‘rights’ of Christians to this land is another topic, also very debatable). This was a convenient excuse for the war. Nowadays, there is the ground to see Imperialist traits on both sides28. Additionally, the war ethics of Islam and Christianity were different in some respects. The Muslim Jihad, or holy war, necessarily required both personal war with inner evils of each individual and the extermination/conquest of the infidel, at least according to the medieval sources29. On the contrary, the written conception of Christian holy was not connected with the proclamations that war was necessary; it was just the way this ‘just war’ concept was used by the warlords and certain clergy30. The Perspective of Lower Classes Even with the recent findings about the People’s Crusade (1060)31, it is clear that there were numerous poor participants of the crusades that might be fascinated by the prospects of starting another life in different settings, especially if such people were given the vague promises of land and other possessions32. The most critical researchers even suspect that one of the Urban’s motives for the very first crusade was the opportunity to distract the people’s attention from various disorders in the country33. For sure, those hopes were doomed, as the crusades turned out to be rather costly and more an act of ‘charity’ of its own brutal kind34. Conclusion It is clear that the interpretations of canonical writings in the age of crusades depended on the social circumstances, personal interests, and global threats. Certainly, the atrocities from both sides of the holy war have thrown a shadow on the reputation of the Church, but not on the Christ’s teaching which was deeply affected by the medieval ethos but not violent in its origins. Bibliography Kuiper, Barend K. The Church in History. Grand Rapids and Norwich: Christian Schools International, 2001. Madden, Thomas F. "The Real History of the Crusades." Crisis 20, no. 4 (April 2002). Available at www.crisismagazine.com/. Phillips, Jonathan. Holy Warriors: A Modern History of the Crusades. Croydon: Vintage, 2009. Epub edition. Retrieved November 26, 2012 from http://gen.lib.rus.ec/book/index.php?md5=FD05F0C3322386299B09A472C96CBE9B. Riley-Smith, Jonathan. The Crusades, Christianity, and Islam. New York and Chichester: Columbia University Press, 2008. Tyerman, Christopher. God's War: A New History of the Crusades. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2006. Read More