They are seen to be a strange and bewildering breed, meeker than lambs, fiercer than lions. I do not know whether to call them monks or knights because though both names are correct one lacks a monk’s gentleness the other a knight’s pugnacity.
–Bernard of Clairvaux
In 1095, a speech was given by a Pope somewhere in Europe. The Pope had been asked by Alexios I Komnenos, the Byzantine emperor (r. 1081-1118) for relief against the Seljuk Turks, who had acquired nearly all of Asia Minor from the Byzantine empire. In the homily, Pope Urban II (d. 1099) declared the urgency of embarking on a venture to recover sacred territory and recapture Eastern churches from the clutches of Muslim dominion. What would the devotees and disciples of such a mission secure in return? The Pope reassured them they would receive (in life and death) forgiveness of sins, protection of their rights and property and of course, eternal salvation. With the apocalyptic flare and finesse the medieval period is so deliciously characterized by, Pope Urban II bellowed:
You must apply the strength of your righteousness to another matter which concerns you as well as God. For your brethren who live in the east are in urgent need of your help, and you must hasten to give them the aid which has often been promised them. …the Turks and Arabs have attacked them and have conquered the territory…They have occupied more and more of the lands of those Christians, and have overcome them in seven battles. They have killed and captured many, and have destroyed the churches and devastated the empire. If you permit them to continue thus for a while with impurity, the faithful of God will be much more widely attacked by them. On this account I, or rather the Lord, beseech you as Christ’s heralds to publish this everywhere and to persuade all people of whatever rank, foot-soldiers and knights, poor and rich, to carry aid promptly to those Christians and to destroy that vile race from the lands of our friends. I say this to those who are present, it meant also for those who are absent. Moreover, Christ commands it.
Interestingly, in a later account presumably documented years after the initial address, the anti-Islamic sentiment reverberates with brazen odium:
From the confines of Jerusalem and the city of Constantinople a horrible tale has gone forth and very frequently has been brought to our ears, namely….a race utterly alienated from God, a generation forsooth which has not directed its heart and has not entrusted its spirit to God, has invaded the lands of those Christians and has depopulated them by the sword, pillage and fire; it has led away a part of the captives into its own country, and a part it has destroyed by cruel tortures; it has either entirely destroyed the churches of God or appropriated them for the rites of its own religion. They destroy the altars, after having defiled them with their uncleanness. They circumcise the Christians, and the blood of the circumcision they either spread upon the altars or pour into the vases of the baptismal font. When they wish to torture people by a base death, they perforate their navels, and dragging forth the extremity of the intestines, bind it to a stake; then with flogging they lead the victim around until the viscera having gushed forth the victim falls prostrate upon the ground….
Not only were the Muslims the embodiment of a heterodox faith (as we saw in the last piece), but they were also a violent horde whose wanton destruction and desecration knew no limits. Without reverence or respect for the sanctity of the church, they ‘destroyed’ sacred spaces. Without an appreciation for scriptural and physical purity, they sullied the verses of God with their heresy and perversely circumcised and disfigured Christians for their own (it would seem?) gratification and entertainment. To diminish the potency of such rhetoric would be historically inaccurate, contemporaneously callous and contrary to the philosophy of my own methodology. Let’s be clear. This divisive anti-Islamic rhetoric and the vitriol was purposeful, impactful and intended to dehumanize. In that dehumanization, Muslims were ‘ejected outside the human condition’ and in being so, their murder was facilitated, made more palatable. The Pope’s address struck deep within the collective consciousness of Latin Christendom and reverberated throughout the ages. It marked a decisive moment in which the religio-political orientation of a cleric was married seamlessly with the psycho-spiritual fervour of the times. Sound familiar? We have witnessed how the masses can be moved to respond to impassioned orations delivered by political pundits or the ways in which religious imagery continues to suffuse the political sphere. Simply consider the ways in which ultra-right nationalist discourse fueled the January 6th insurrection in 2021 and/or the endurance of theological language and iconography in the public persona of US officials like Pete Hegseth.
Back to the Pope’s sermon. Who would ‘avenge these wrongs’ and recover ‘lost’ territory? A great many. And so begins the period known as the Crusades where over the course of 200 years, princes, knights, clerics and common folk would venture out to ‘Outremer’—Christian states established in the Levant and southeastern Anatolia following the first Crusade (1098-1291). For inquiring minds, key territories of ‘Outremer’ included the Kingdom of Jerusalem, the principality of Antioch, the County of Tripoli and the County of Edessa. Yet, this was not simply a quest for spiritual gratification. Even premodern religious projects of expansion were underscored by the possibility of material prosperity and gain. Crusading presented an opportunity for participants to embark on a military adventure under an ‘ascetic aim’ and attracted varied peoples: “The fanatic, the adventurer, the enterprising merchant, the debtor, the serf, and the outlaw, all found in the crusade a welcome occasion for betterment.” Individual crusaders acquired great wealth in the occupied territories. For example, Godfrey of Bouillon (b. 1060) seized “the castle and estates of Tilbesar and his comparative wealth was very apparent in the later states of the crusade…and may have contributed to his election as ruler of Jerusalem.” The accumulation of individual wealth in the occupied territories enabled a new economic base for the church to extract capital, protection and benefits. Moreover, the expansion of trade in the Holy Land became central to the crusading enterprise as one scholar emphasizes, “Trade—at least in the case of Genoese, Venetians, and Pisans, the shrewdest money-makers of the age—was a primary motivation in the venture [of crusading].”
In the opening quote of this reflection, Bernard of Clairvaux (d. 1153) characterizes the Crusaders a bewildering breed, meeker than lambs yet fiercer than lions. It is a puerile statement reinforcing the misguided notion that Christian theology was fundamentally pacifist. Violence as a vehicle for the Divine governs much of Old and New Testament. In Paul’s letter to the Ephesians, the call to ‘put on the whole armour of God’ is resoundingly clear. In the case of the Crusades, the violence propagated by Pope Urban II would be transformed into a “tool of faith, a religious commitment, even a Christian duty.” In my view, there is little bewilderment when assessing the material realities of the Crusades, the institutionalization of a holy manner of warfare (instituit nostra tempore praelia sancta Deus) and most importantly, the grievous consequences for the inhabitants of the region. In my next piece, I will concentrate on distinct reactions from the indigenous population and their methods of contending with the European Christians or the ‘Franks’ (al-ifranj) (as the Islamic sources refer to them) in their midst. Try not to fall off the edge of your seat in anticipation.
Bio description: Amanie Antar is a Post Doctoral Fellow at the Institute of Islamic Studies at the University of Toronto where she researches premodern iterations of anti-Islamic discourse in the medieval and early modern Mediterranean context, with a specialized focus on Iberia.
