SPECIAL REPORT: Should We Be Ashamed Of the Crusades III

The First Crusade was the most successful. Jerusalem and Antioch were captured and held by the Europeans. Through the next two hundred years, these and several other small polities would go back and forth between the Crusaders and the Muslims and between factions among the Crusaders.

Since most Crusaders returned to Europe immediately after winning Jerusalem, these little “kingdoms” never had more than a small handful of fighting men at any given time. The little kingdoms were primarily populated by indigenous peoples – Christians and Jews (the dhimmi, freed from their servitude by the Crusaders) and by Muslims.

The fortunes of these kingdoms waxed and waned with the strength of the Muslim forces around them. They entered into local alliances and treaties with Muslims and with other Christians. The most important function of the later Crusades was to provide reinforcements and to win back territory lost.

Enthusiasm for Crusading petered out by the end, but the liberation of the holy places, the churches and relics of the saints – external signs of the faith – was genuinely important to the Europeans. While it’s true some individual Christian nobles personally gained by the Crusades, they also preserved a Christian presence in its own birthplace for two hundred years and made holy pilgrimage once again possible.

The Mongols upset the fragile balance of power that had developed in the Middle East. In 1256, Hulagu, grandson of Genghis Kahn, conquered Persia and completely destroyed Baghdad. The Caliph was beaten to death. Christians and Muslims alike quaked with fear before the Mongol advance until the Mamluk Baybars of Egypt defeated them -- and then went on to conquer the little Christian states. The 8th Crusade failed, and by 1291, the Crusaders had been completely swept from the Holy Lands. The Islamic Empire again ruled unopposed.

The Resumption of Muslim Advance into Europe

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“Have a heart that never hardens, and a temper that never tires, and a touch that never hurts.”

The Crusades are a very difficult thing for me to reconcile. I really struggle with them and the fact that the Church sanctioned them, especially since so much evil came out of them.