This week’s topic is the idea of Crusading as an Act of
love. Pretty much right away the phrase “Crusading as an act of love” doesn’t quite
add up. These violent wars do not conjure up ideas of love. But in this week’s readings
Jonathan Riley-Smith explains to us how they were viewed as an act of love by
Christendom and those who preached for the Crusades. The love of their neighbours,
the fellow Christians of Jerusalem and the Byzantine Empire, of Christ, and
even of their enemies were all ideas, showing crusading as being an act of christianly
love and are espoused by Riley-Smith in the first reading.
These ideas are not so hard to reconcile with the ideas of
the Crusades. As the Crusades show us brave Christians going to the Holy Land to
liberate their fellow Christians out of love. Of defending the realm of
Christendom out of love, as Cardinal Odo of Chateauroux preached to his
audience. “It is a clear sign that a man burns
with love of God and zeal for God when he leaves country, possessions,
house, children and wife, going overseas in the service of Jesus Christ” There
is no doubt that the Crusades were not only regarded as holy missions, but also
as acts of love.
The issue therefore comes when discussing the Fourth
Crusade. A topic that is dealt with in the readings of this week, the Fourth
Crusade in which the heavily in debt crusaders sacked the Christian city of
Zara and then sacked the great capital of the Christian (Eastern Orthodox)
Byzantine Empire, Constantinople. This desecration of Constantinople goes against
the ideas of Christian love guiding the crusades, of love of their Christian
neighbours and the rescuing of the holy land. In this case, they were attacking
the very Christian neighbours of the Byzantine Empire that they were meant to
be liberating from the Muslim Threat.
As for those who preached the Crusades as being acts of
love, such as Pope Innocent III. He was infuriated, ashamed and quick to rebuke
the actions of the Crusaders against Constantinople. He was shocked at the
actions of them, against those whom he saw as still being Christian. This was
not the act of love that he had preached for. However, his reaction was short
lived, as eventually, when the Crusaders returned bearing riches and holy
treasures as well as the changing of many formerly Eastern Orthodox areas to Western
Catholic under the authority of the Pope he quickly rescinded the excommunication of the Crusaders.
--Jake
[Editor's note: Greg's contribution to follow...]
6 comments:
One thing I found interesting about this weeks' readings on the crusades was that not only were the crusades used to spread the meassage of Christ to the Holy Lands, but also to cement a love and passion for Christ in the people of Europe. When the crusaders won conquests, the presence of Christ was highlighted to be great and powerful. I think that religious leaders saw the new paths of travel and people's cruiosity to see new part of the world and gave them a Holy excuse to do so all the while saturating the importance of Christ and the Church into society. Perhaps the raw desire to travel is part of the reason that sometimes- such as in Constantinople- the message of Christ was lost in senseless destruction based on a the superiority Europeans considered themselvs to have over Muslims and Jews.
On the issue of the sack of Constantinople, I also found it interesting that the primary sources seemed to be casting it as a Venetian plot that the 'true' crusaders themselves weren't all that happy about. Did anyone else get that impression? Can we trust it, and/or how much could that be a post-hoc attempt to show the knights in a favourable light?
Hey everyone. I know you already have a lot to read and think about this week, but if you can, please try and have a look at the practice exam on Blackboard. If we get time, I'd like to do an exercise using this on Monday, and it will be more effective if you are already prepped.
I find the whole notion of Crusades and love and Christ being linked as totally absurd but when you look at the readings it makes complete sense. I found it really interesting the way that people connected Christ and crusades and the way they interpreted the Bible and words of Christ to almost justify their actions. For example, the connection that crusaders made seeing Christ as a lord who had lost his inheritance to the pagans therefore it was almost their duty to reclaim the land.
Like Trishna, I found their justification for the crusades interesting; especially because one of the 10 commandments is “thou shalt not kill.” It seems a bit odd that they would go against this in any sense, because it was supposedly written by God. I also enjoyed the fact that the crusaders were excommunicated, only to be welcomed back when they arrived bearing piles of stolen money, jewels and gold.
The whole concept of crusading and killing and dying in the name of religion has never really made sense to me. As Callon pointed out, the 10 commandments state that to kill and steal, so i just never got why a person would be willing to die and kill when they believed that to be good christians and enter into the kingdom of heaven they had to abide by those commandments. This weeks readings though dealt with and explored the other motivations and reasons behind the crusades.
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