The Crusades (1095-1291)
The common mythological image of the
Arthurian knight upon a quest grows out of the very real
Crusades: a religious journey fraught with physical, moral and spiritual peril.
Like most other key historical events covered this semester, we will only glance
at the Crusades and do them little justice. Again, our attention will
focus on how this historical movement worked to shape literature, but we are
also interested in how these events, and the literature they shaped, in turn
shaped our
own "Western
Civilization" view of history and our current relationship to, in this case,
"The Other", the "Infidel": Muslims and the Turkish, Arabic and Islamic world.
Also, like most other history covered this semester, the Crusades are a hotly
debated and politically and theologically-laden topic, and we may wade into that
debate a bit.
When, What And Why
The Crusades began on November 25, 1095, with the Papal
edict of Pope Urban II calling for a "holy war" against the Turks (the dominant
Muslim empire), which he referred to as "an accursed race, a race utterly
alienated from God," which he aimed to "exterminate this vile race from our
lands." By "our lands" the Italian Urban was referring to the Byzantine Empire
(essentially modern Turkey, Syria etc.) and most specifically to the Biblical
Holy Lands and, most specifically to Jerusalem, which had been passed from the
Roman Empire to the Roman Christian Empire and then fallen to Arab-Muslim
control in 638.
Religion aside, the war was fought between Europeans vs. Turks (and to a lesser
degree, Arabs), as the Byzantine
Emperor Alexius
I,
had requested that Urban II help him return the region to Roman-Byzantine
control.
In
early 1096* ten armies composed of roughly 160,000 soldiers, accompanied by
thousands of other pilgrims, retinue and families, ventured toward Jerusalem.
Jerusalem fell to the Crusaders in 1099 and would remain in Christian/European
control until
1187, when it fell again to Muslim power. It was recaptured by Crusaders
in 1228, then by Muslims in 1243, a pattern of siege and exchange that would
last until 1517, when it was finally captured by Ottaman Turks, who remained in
control of the region until the 20th century.
*This movement would become known as The First Crusade. There would be
Nine Crusades in all as Europeans fought to gain and maintain ground throughout
the Middle East, ending in 1291.
Context
It's also important to realize that at this time the
"Moors" or "Muslim Arabs" (and Berbers, from North Africa) also had conquered
and controlled much what is now Spain and Portugal (beginning in 711; they ruled
the Iberian peninsula for nearly 800 years), Southern France and Italy and
Sicily. The Crusades, then, can be seen as an extension of the
long-running wars between Christians and Muslims already taking place in Western
(and later Eastern) Europe.
Papal Indulgences
Urban II offered full indulgence to any Christian
participating in the Crusade. This meant quite simply that any and all
sins would be forgiven and the Crusader would enter heaven. As you can
imagine, this only encouraged Crusaders to engage in the worst types of sin --
rape, robbery, murder -- during the
Crusades. By the time of the Crusades, indulgences were already granted by
the Church to Christians for various reasons -- a pilgrimage to Jerusalem could
already buy one partial or full remission of sins, and those who died during the
pilgrimage were believed to go directly to heaven, regardless of previous sins.
Consider how these Indulgences are represented symbolically in the Medieval
Romances we read (The Story of the Grail, Sir Gawain And The Green Knight),
especially as they relate to the quest motif, as the knight journeys toward some
mystical goal that will, ultimately, lead him toward spiritual wisdom.
Catholic indulgences will, of course, also play a major role in the
Protestant Reformation,
beginning in 1517.
The
Turkish, Arab and Islamic Perspective
Mohammed recited the Koran or Qur’an from
610-632 and sparked both a religious and political movement whose geopolitical
and religious impact easily matches that of Christianity and the Bible (today,
roughly 20% of the world is Muslim and 30% Christian). Obviously, each of us
still feels that impact today, as the battle lines in the so called "war on
terror" are actually drawn exactly along these same lines. Unfortunately, that
story occurs outside of the purview of this course. We should, however,
consider how, from an Arab and Islamic perspective, our recent and current
American and European influence in places like Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran, Israel,
Lebanon, Saudi Arabia etc. represents a continuation of
the European Crusade mentality, if not, in fact, an actual continuation of the
Crusades themselves: European Christians invading Arab and Persian
countries to establish political, military and religious dominance and control.
Relevant to other literature in this class, these wars connect as much to a Greco-Roman-European
sense of domination as to the emerging European Christian identity, for the
Byzantine Empire was, actually, the last vestige of the Roman Empire and
Alexander's Greek Empire that preceded the Romans: the Byzantines wrote and
spoke Greek, and the Greek Orthodox Church traces its origin here;
Constantinople had of course been founded by the Roman
Constantine (274-337),
now best remembered as the first Roman Emperor to convert from Paganism to
Christianity. Notably, he converted in battle.
The
Jewish Perspective
Before the Crusades, Jews lived in relative harmony in
Christianized Europe and were explicitly protected by Papal edict. The
Crusades ended that peace and began a reign of terror, discrimination and
frequent pogroms against European Jews that would last the next thousand years,
culminating in the Holocaust. During the Crusades, throughout Europe,
thousands of Jews were given the choice between conversion/baptism and death,
and tens of thousands died as a result. Upwards of 10,000 Jews are believed to
have been murdered throughout Europe during the First Crusade. Tens of
thousands of Jews were executed by the Crusaders when they overtook Jerusalem.
The
Church itself opposed these acts and Bishops often intervened to save Jews.
The Papacy did not support the forced conversion of Jews until the 16th century.
This, I believe, brings into relief one of the central themes we find throughout
Medieval Romantic literature: an inherent tension between the Christian theology
(of love, forgiveness, humility etc) and the violent legacy left in the wake up
both Roman and Dark Ages Europe.
See: Jewish
Persp. on Crusades
Pilgrimage, Relics and The Quest
Medieval European Christians had inherited the ancient
Pagan belief that certain objects and places contained unique spiritual and
magical/supernatural powers. Recall that both Pagans and Jews (and perhaps
all other ancient religions) locate their gods in specific places: Apollo's
Oracle at Delphi, Mount Olympus, the Temple in Jerusalem etc. In a
Medieval European Christian cosmology, visiting these places could grant the
visitor unique power to heal disease and absolve one of sin.
The
holiest Christian sites throughout Europe -- including Saint Peter's, the
Vatican, Rome -- were and are still places believed to house the remains of
these holy men. Saint Mark's, in Venice, for example, is believed to house
the body of Mark
the Evangelist,
stolen from Alexandria Egypt in 828. Chartres (Cathédrale
Notre-Dame de Chartres) was
believed to house the Sancta
Camisa, the
tunic worn by Mary when she carried the Christ child.
Powerful religious figures -- Christ, the Apostles, Saints -- could also imbue objects or
relics with these powers, allowing churches and communities to obtain relics
(objects and bones) that would bestow special powers and authority.
Through these beliefs Medieval Europeans developed a culture of pilgrimage to
holy sites simply to come in contact with the bones of holy men or the relics
that they had touched.
Of
course the holiest of these holy were located in Jerusalem: the body of Christ
Himself, the ground where He had walked, was crucified etc., as well as those
objects associated with his passion: the spear used to pierce his side, upon the
cross, relics of the cross itself, and the "holy grail": the cup from which he
had drank during his last Passover meal: the "last supper.
This pilgrimage culture explains both the Crusades themselves (as the mother of
all pilgrimages) as well as much of the obsession with "magical" totems found
throughout Medieval legends, the most obvious being the quest for
The Holy Grail.
But, more broadly:
the quest itself is an emblem of the
Crusades: a religious journey fraught with physical, moral and spiritual peril.
History Channel, The Crescent And The Cross,
episode one: watch c. first 00:35 minutes, then skip to ch. on "Bartholemew's
Vision" at 01:03. Skip last siege but show last 10 minutes or so.