Page 104 - Encyclopedia Of World History

454 berkshire encyclopedia of world history

Those who say religion has nothing to do with politics do not
know what religion is. • Mohandas Gandhi (1869–1948)

liberation of Jerusalem and other sites in the Middle East spective of this essay is pluralist. Crusading, as ideal and
sacred to Christendom, but by the early thirteenth cen- reality, was in constant flux.As an idea and an institution,
tury the crusade had evolved into an institution of the the crusade took a century to develop into full theoreti-
Roman Catholic Church with a more general mission: cal and institutional form. Even after it had achieved this
upholding and extending Christian order against all ene- level of coherence, crusading continued to respond to
mies everywhere. As a result, western Europe came into new stimuli and challenges.
conflict not only with the Islamic world but also with the Despite such evolution, certain crusade constants were
Byzantine empire and the peoples of the Baltic. Crusad- in place from the beginning and remained an integral
ing zeal and objectives also impelled the Roman church part of crusading to the end. These were: (1) the belief
to send diplomats and missionaries to Mongolia and that a crusade was a holy war waged on behalf of Jesus
China between the mid-thirteenth and mid-fourteenth Christ and given legitimacy by the Roman papacy; (2) the
centuries and played an equally significant role in pro- fact that its participants, women as well as men, enjoyed
pelling Europe’s transoceanic voyages of discovery of the a special, quasiclerical status by virtue of their crusade
fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. Likewise, Catholic vows; (3) the belief that engagement in this undertaking
Iberia’s overseas policies in the Americas, along the earned spiritual merit, chief of which was a plenary
coastal shores of Africa, and in South and East Asia were indulgence, or full remission of the penance due for sins;
colored by crusading values. (4) and the obligation and right to wear a cross, thereby
Historians debate the dates encompassed by the Cru- becoming a crucesignatus—one signed with a cross.
sades and the crusaders’ theaters of operation. One
school, known as the “traditionalists,” limits the Crusades The Reconquista:
to the period 1095–1291, from the calling of the First Iberia’s Crusades
Crusade in 1095 to the destruction of the last crusader The Crusades can be said to have roots in the struggle in
strongholds on the mainland of Syria-Palestine in 1291. Iberia between Christians and Moors. In April 711 an
Traditionalists further limit the Crusades to holy wars Islamic force crossed the strait separating Africa and
fought between western Christians and Muslims in the Spain, and by 715 most of the peninsula, except for the
Middle East and North Africa during these two centuries. Northwest, was in Muslim hands. However, Christian
For the traditionalists, true Crusades had Jerusalem and counterattack was underway by century’s end.These ear-
the rest of the Holy Land as their exclusive focal points. liest battles were not crusades, but they were the opening
The other school, known as the “pluralists,” which is in rounds of the Reconquista, a series of Iberian wars
current ascendancy in scholarly circles, has a broader between Muslims and Christians that became official
view. Pluralists count as Crusades the Spanish Recon- Crusades in the early twelfth century and lasted down to
quista, holy wars launched against pagans and other per- 1492. These early struggles, particularly those of the
ceived enemies in the Baltic and eastern Europe, and wars eleventh century, provided a model for the First Crusade.
called by the papacy against heretics and political ene- In 1064 an army of Spaniards and French captured and
mies in western Europe. They also greatly expand the plundered Barbastro, with the support of Pope Alexander
chronological limits of the Crusades, finding proto- II, who offered the soldiers a plenary indulgence for their
Crusades well before 1095 and a vibrant crusading tra- efforts.
dition well after 1291. Some take the Age of the Crusades As Spain was the land that gave the papacy inspiration
down to as late as 1798, when Napoleon captured the for the crusade, it was fitting that in 1118 Pope Gelasius
island of Malta from the Order of the Hospital of Saint II granted unambiguous crusader status to an expedition
John, a religious order that assumed military functions in against Muslim Saragossa. For the almost four hundred
the twelfth-century crucible of the Crusades. The per- years that followed, Christian crusaders, both Spanish