Stop Apologizing for the Crusades!

Perhaps a better title would be something like Don’t Allow the Crusades to be Thoughtlessly Added to a Parade of Christian Horribles without Knowing More about It, but I wanted to get your attention.

Rodney Stark’s God’s Batallions is an outstanding book designed to help the educated reader (not only the academic reader) understand the Crusades.  You know the routine.  You want to talk about Christianity and the village atheist wonders just how you are getting past the horrors of the Crusades and the Inquisition.  This book answers the question with regard to the Crusades.  Stark brilliantly explains how the Crusades started, what happened in the course of events, and why they finally ended.  All in all, the western church comes off pretty sympathetically.  Readers who know Stark find it easy to trust him because he always questions excessive claims and makes sure to back his own assertions up with data.

What becomes clear is that the Crusades failed for three reasons.

First, despite the fact that the westerners regularly decimated their Muslim rivals in combat thanks to superior tactics and technology, they were always on the wrong end of a numbers game.  The western armies arrived in the Holy Land already diminished from disease and harrying attacks along the way.  They never had large enough armies to begin with.  And whenever they secured their objectives, a substantial number of troops and/or nobles would return home leaving ridiculously small numbers to hold on, which amazingly, they did for decades at a time.

Second, Crusading was expensive.  Although it has been suggested the Crusades were about wealth, nobles didn’t get rich on them.  They borrowed, scraped, and imposed heavy taxes just to be able to afford equipping, paying, and feeding their armies.  When they captured an area, the land was not revenue-producing in the same way their European farm land was.

Third, the Byzantines never came through with the help they promised.  Crusaders regularly expected help from the Comnenus family of rulers which began the Crusades by appealing to the pope for help.  But the help was virtually never forthcoming.  Had the Byzantine empire allied itself with the Crusaders, the Holy Land might still be in Christian hands today.

Read for yourself.  I found the book highly enjoyable.  Rodney Stark has reached the point to which many academics aspire.  He writes about things that interest him for a mass audience with the aid of a major publishing company (Harper).  And the books come to us rather than sitting staidly in university libraries.

Comments

[Dale Price]

Third, the Byzantines never came through with the help they promised. Crusaders regularly expected help from the Comnenus family of rulers which began the Crusades by appealing to the pope for help. But the help was virtually never forthcoming. Had the Byzantine empire allied itself with the Crusaders, the Holy Land might still be in Christian hands today."

I'll add Stark's book to my wish list, but I have to reply to this argument.

It is true that the Byzantines were deeply ambivalent about the Crusades and the Crusader states. When Alexios I sent out his appeal for help, he was expecting contingents of mercenaries, not the levees of the nobility and monarchs of Europe. As it turned out, enemies of the Empire were part of the Crusades from the beginning, starting with Bohemond, who was the son of the Italo-Norman Duke Robert, who came within a hairsbreadth of overthrowing Alexios in a war which lasted from 1081-85. It's understandable that Alexios would be a little twitchy about Bohemund's presence. It turned out to be justified, as Bohemund kept the liberated Byzantine city of Antioch as his own fief and did not proceed further in the First Crusade.

In the Second Crusade, the German Emperor spoke openly of storming Constantinople to use as a base.

Sure, the Byzantines played diplomatic games, and Alexios probably sold out a crusading army trying to rescue Bohemund to the Turks. But they in turn were also on the receiving end of their share of shaftings.

Moreover, the Byzantines did provide aid and engaged in joint ventures with the Crusader states themselves (the attempted 1169 invasion of Egypt stands out). In fact, Manuel I Comnenus (1143-1180) was almost universally admired by the crusaders for his efforts to aid the Crusader states. With hindsight, it's easy to say it wasn't enough, but when the massed armies of men like Richard the Lionheart and Frederick Barbarossa weren't able to retake Jerusalem, I'm not sure how much whole-hearted and unstinting Byzantine aid would have changed the ultimate result.

[sonja]

Wow ... I'm afraid I have to comment though it's my first read of your blog. You should really also round out your study of the Crusades with some primary source material from both sides of the affair and there is plenty to be had. From your review it sounds as though Stark is engaged in some rather fanciful rewriting of history. We do need to apologize for the Crusades ... mostly because Christians never have. Until an apology is extended, reconciliation is not possible. Since those wars were fought under the flag of the pope, it stands to reason that the pope (even 1,000 years later) needs to make the apology. You may find texts of Urbana's speeches on line. Outcome is never the final determinor in the course of history.

[sonja]

Correction ... not Urbana, but Pope Urban (forget which one) perhaps X?

[annie]

Lars Brownworth's history of Byzantium gives a different perspective. According to his history, the Byzantines fought to hold onto Jerusalem and repeatedly called for help from the West, only to be told that help would only arrive if certain doctrinal differences were resolved in the West's favor. He made a pretty compelling case that it was the hubris of the Western church, as specifically expressed through the pride of various popes, that cost us Jersualem. And in fact the last crusade sacked Byzantium itself, leaving it vulnerable to Muslim invaders.

Brownworth makes a compelling case for us to reexamine history and see how the Byzantine empire actually protected Europe for centuries from Muslim invasion, without any help from their supposed allies in the West.

[Larry]

I'll propose Christian apologies for the Crusades when Islam apologizes for the conquest of Christian North Africa which, incidentally, happened four centuries or so prior to the Crusades.

[Brian English]

Sonja:

Actually, the history of the Crusades has been rewritten over the past 35 years. Jonathan Riley-Smith, Thomas Madden, John France and the History of the Crusades edited by Kenneth Setton have established that the traditional view of the Crusades -- an unprovoked war of aggression against peaceful Islam waged by younger sons who were looking to get rich -- is wrong.

Stark's book is an excellent popular presentation of a lot of this new scholarship. I highly recommend it.

And it was Urban II who called for the First Crusade.

Dale:

The Byzantine contingent at Antioch had abandoned the Crusaders and Alexius turned his army (which had been doing mop-up work behind the Crusaders) around when he was informed the Crusaders were going to be destroyed.

When the Crusaders were miraculously victorious at Antioch, it is not surprising that they did not feel they had to surrender Antioch to Alexius after he had fled back to Constantinople.

The pro-Byzantine bias in Runciman's History of the Crusades does not stand up to any reasonable scrutiny. The more recent histories by Riley-Smith, Madden and France have a more balanced view of this issue.

[Hunter Baker]

Read the book and you'll understand the sack of Constantinople. In the past I couldn't imagine why something like that happened, but it makes much more sense to me now.

[Lars Walker]

I acquired this book for our library recently, and look forward to reading it.

[Dale Price]

I'm not basing it on Runciman, who I freely admit was pro-Byzantine. I own works by Riley-Smith and Madden, and am happy to recommend them. But they don't contradict my essential points, and their works should be supplemented with modern Byzantine historians like Warren Treadgold, John Haldon and Paul Magdalino (who specializes on the Komnenian era).

Also, please note that I am not limiting my analysis to the First Crusade only. For example, the abortive 1169 invasion of Egypt I referred to above involved the provisioning and dispatch of 300 ships, no small commitment to the Crusader cause (half of which were lost). The invasion failed in large measure because King Amalric I of Jerusalem screwed up the timetable.

Again, I'm not saying the Byzantines were blameless. Far from it--especially the post-Komnenian emperors (1180-1204), who were mediocre-to-worthless and banes to the West and their own people. But the old Gibbonian trope about the effete and deceitful Byzantines hasn't been entirely exorcised from the academy.

[Piotr]

I read the book. It is well referenced and worth reading.

[Chaplain Tim Smith]

Ummmm.... Sorry to bring it up, but the comments here put one in mind of what happened between the Western and Eastern Christians during the Crusades: Quibbles and egos prevented a full-bore response to the true enemy. I'm reading it now and I feel that Stark's book may help deal with the true enemy in the West -- the collapse of spirited belief in the Christian heritage. Remember, internecine squabbles prevent united responses.

[Brian English]

Annie:

I think you are confusing three different events.

The Byzantines lost Jerusalem back in 638.

The appeals to the West you are referring to were just prior to Constantinople falling in 1453.

The sacking of Constantinople during the Fourth Crusade took place in 1204. Constantinople did not fall for almost another 250 years.

Dale:

Haldon's book on Byzantine Warfare is exclellent.

I think if the Byzantines spent less time triangulating and more time fighting they would have been better off.

[Rob Auld]

This is the craziest post I've read in a while...and that's saying a lot! Please, actually study the crusades. The number of women and children killed, the number of Christians the other Christians killed. This is crazy.

[Deacon Michael D. Harmon]

Oh, the conquests of Christian cities and countries by Muslim forces were peaceful, bloodless and calm.
It's only when those darned people fought back that things turned nasty.
Whatever Islam conquers, it should get to keep. Trying to retake places from Islamic forces only makes things worse, and harms our image abroad. Aren't we concerned about the opinion of the Arab Street?

What do those Swiss think they're doing?

I think we can call this the "attitude of dhimmitude."

[Brian English]

"Please, actually study the crusades."

I take it from the tone of your comment that you probably regard reading junk by the likes of Karen Armstrong as studying the Crusades. Try reading Riley-Smith, Madden, France, Tyerman or Asbridge (Stark's book is a good introduction) and then you will have a more balanced view.

"The number of women and children killed,"

Vastly exaggerated. The deaths that did take place were those that seemed to always occur when a city was taken by storm, and were certainly not limited to the Crusades.

"The number of Christians the other Christians killed."

If you are talking about the Fourth Crusade, the situation was far more complex than it is usually presented. It was hardly the evil, nasty Latins beating up on the kind and gentle Eastern Orthodox for no reason.

[annie]

Thanks for the clarification. After I posted, I was like, "why did you do that? You know next-to-nothing about this topic!" But I'm Byzantium-crazy these days after reading Lars Brownworth's book and too much internet gives me a bad case of "Modern Jackass." I just put this one on hold and am looking forward to learning more.

[Beth from TN]

Annie, that is such a gracious and humble comment. I find it encouraging and a good reminder to be more teachable myself.

[Rob Auld]

"I'll propose Christian apologies for the Crusades when Islam apologizes for the conquest of Christian North Africa which, incidentally, happened four centuries or so prior to the Crusades."

Just what Jesus would do.

Rob

[Margaret]

Rob, exactly! Note how the Master apologized profusely to the Samaritan woman for centuries of Jewish prejudice to "earn the right" to speak to her and ask for water. And did he not discreetly send word to the Pharisees that maybe the temple scourging was somewhat zealous, can we talk a bipartisan approach going forward. His praise of the Centurion was, as his press release subsequently clarified, perhaps not as mindful as he may have wished it to be of "nuances," but was a spontaneous expression of surprise about only one particular aspect of the interaction, and, as his spokesman particularly wished to stress, he certainly did not condone violence in any form.

[Juli]

Right, no preemptive repentance for us!

[Peter J. O'Leary]

And whosoever shall not receive you, nor hear your words, when ye depart out of that house or city, shake off the dust of your feet. -- Matthew 10:14

The Lord goes on to say how these areas will be judged. Does He say how those who do not heed his Word will be judged?

No apologies, except from the "Christians" who did not heed the Lord's words to those that did, and skedaddled. Or those that stayed and were martyred.