PeaceDocs | Bibliography | Alternatives to the Crusades
CHAPTER 7: Alternatives to the Crusades.
Peacemaking in the Non-Christian World 1100-1400
Conversion as an Alternative to the Crusades
510. Berry, Virginia. “Peter the Venerable and the Crusades,” in Giles Constable and James Kritzeck, eds. Petrus Venerabilis 1156-1956. Rome: Studia Anselmiana, 1956, 141-62.
Despite arguments that Peter opposed the Second and Third Crusades, this article presents evidence that this well-known peacemaker actually sympathized with these expeditions. See 518 for the opposing view.
511. Burns, R.I. “Christian-Islamic Confrontation in the West: The Thirteenth Century Dream of Conversion,” American Historical Review 76 (1971): 1386-1434.
Christian attempts to win over Islam through nonviolent means went back to at least the eleventh century: translation projects and missions were all urged by such major figures as Peter the Venerable, abbot of Cluny, Jacques de Vitry, and Roger Bacon. By the thirteenth century these nonviolent methods had taken several distinct forms: secret persuasion via commerce; chaplains at Islamic courts; the direct approach of the Franciscans and other missionaries aimed at nonviolent confrontation.
Intellectual dialogue was carried on most importantly by the Dominicans, who opened language schools for missionaries and wrote intellectual treatises like Thomas Aquinas’ Summa Contra Gentiles to confront the Moslems on the basis of doctrine and reason. Diplomatic work aimed at converting the Moslem leader; and finally, as a last resort, came the military solution. Burns’ carefully balanced article should be read as a caveat to those who would make too simplistic and tight a chronological periodization between mission and warfare.
512. Cutler, Allan. “Catholic Missions to the Moslems to the End of the First Crusade (1099).” Ph.D. dissertation. Los Angeles: University of Southern California, 1963.
Not seen.
513. —. “The First Crusade and the Idea of Conversion,” Muslim World 58 (1968): 57-71, 155-64.
Cutler associates the Crusade with nonviolent conversion because both movements were concerned with winning over the Moslem. As examples of the “missionary” spirit of the First Crusade he cites Peter the Hermit, whose excesses at the head of a band of marauders can scarcely be called either nonviolent or aimed at conversion. Excerpted from 512. See 524 for an alternate view.
514. Dunlop, D.M. “A Christian Mission to Muslim Spain in the Eleventh Century,” Al-Andalus 17 (1952): 259-310.
Concerns a letter sent with a Christian mission by an anonymous “monk of France” to al-Mugtadir bin Hud, ruler of Saragossa (1049-81), urging him to convert to Christianity. The letter and its reply, written in the eleventh century, provide evidence for an alternative to the French “crusaders” then fighting in northern Spain.
515. Flahiff, George B. “Deus non Vult: A Critic of the Third Crusade,” Mediaeval Studies 9 (1947): 162-88.
On Ralph Niger’s systematic criticism of the Third Crusade, written in 1189. The military pilgrimage to Jerusalem is of no avail unless it is joined by a spiritual pilgrimage to the mystical Jerusalem. While no “pacifist,” Niger took a “non-interventionist” position condemning the war for several reasons. These include the need to address the “West’s” own problems, largely heresy; the questionable value of intervention in the “East”; and the physical dangers of the journey. Niger also excludes several groups from participation: clergy (for their pacifism), penitents, women, the poor, the old, and the retired. Flahiff’s treatment is even-handed but is marked by Cold War assumptions.
516. —. “Ralph Niger: An Introduction to his Life and Works,” Mediaeval Studies 2 (1940): 119-20.
Uses Niger’s De re militaris et triplici via peregrinationis Ierosolimitane to illustrate his opposition to the crusades.
517. Kedar, Benjamin Z. Crusade and Mission. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1984.
This is an important book both because of its sweep of the literature and the general balance of its conclusions. Kedar seeks to distinguish clearly the two movements of crusade and missionary activity and to then analyze the relationship between them, in the process exposing scholarly assumptions that, he contends, have conflated them. The book is divided into chapters dealing with the early centuries, the Christian reconquest of Spain, the problem of mission espousal and whether this was actually criticism of the crusades, the mendicant movement, and the contested thesis that crusading was actually seen as a means of advancing missionary work.
Kedar examines several movements that have been seen as precursors. The martyrs of Cordova, he asserts, were not seeking conversion but martyrdom; their nonviolence was an act of defiance; and Albar’s “sancta crudelitas” was actually a call for holy war. Conversion was avoided in Norman Sicily, since it would then be more difficult to exploit the conquered Moslems. Conversion was not a specific goal of Urban II at Clermont, nor does it appear as a motive in any extant papal letters for later crusades.
Kedar does find some evidence that espousal of missionary conversion was an implied criticism of the crusades but asks to what extent this was a direct outcome of moral criticism. He rejects such theories by Kritzeck (518) and Daniel (530), but corrects the overstated critique by Siberry (569-570) that Joachite influence was minimal. While Isaac de l’Étoile, Walter Map and Ralph Niger may have criticized the Crusades, Jacques de Vitry and Francis of Assisi praised the crusaders. The mendicants themselves may have preached the gospel to the Saracens, but they simultaneously preached the cross to Christians.
Kedar does demonstrate fairly convincingly that one should not see crusade and mission as part of the same movement. He overstates his position, however. Despite some evidence of “those Christians who objected in principle to all bloodshed,” presumably clergy, there were also those “laymen in search of a high-minded reason for dodging a crusade.” “While mendicants did provide martyrs, practical men could not regard this mendicant activity as a viable solution.” Opponents of the crusades, including William of Tripoli, Roger Bacon (“too much a realist”), John Gower and others cited by Humbert of Romans were certainly not pacifists. Throop (571-572) has mistakenly convinced all later historians that this was the case. Ramon Lull’s stated desire for a life of missionary work was “of course, a literary devise.”
In the end Kedar exhibits the same value-ladden history writing that he begins his book by criticizing. He reveals a modern preoccupation with current political trends and a cynicism toward evidence of peacemaking.
518. Kritzeck, James. Peter the Venerable and Islam. Princeton: Princeton Oriental Studies. Vol. 23, 1964.
An excellent analysis of the abbot of Cluny and his role in the major movements of the day, most especially his attempt to offer an alternative to the Crusades preached by his friend Bernard of Clairvaux. Kritzeck states at the outset that “Peter has been singled out, more than once, as the most peaceful man of his age.” He gained a solid reputation in Europe for his political arbitrations and conciliations, as well as for his staunch opposition to Islam and insistence that the Holy Places be in Christian hands. His calls for the study of Islam and a campaign to convert it therefore show an activist approach to peacemaking and a truly nonviolent alternative to the Crusades in an age that knew little of modern toleration. Kritzeck prints the text of his Liber contra sectam sive haeresim Saracenorum, pp. 220-91.
519. Latourette, Kenneth S. History of the Expansion of Christianity. 7 vols. New York: Harper & Row, 1937-1945. 2: 319-42.
Offers the best introductory survey of the missionary activity conducted as an alternative to the Crusades.
520. Marsh, Adam. Epistolae. J.S. Brewer, ed. Monumenta Franciscana. Roll Series, vol. 4. London: Longmans, 1858, 413-37.
Letter 246 of 1250 extolls martyrdom in the pursuit of peaceful conversion of the non-Christian.
521. Muldoon, James M. Popes, Lawyers, and Infidels: The Church and the Non-Christian World 1250-1550. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1979.
This recounts the history of Christian missions from the papal point of view. We see the papacy as actively involved with attempts at nonviolent conversion, using its diplomatic channels to assure the access and safety of missionaries in North Africa and in Asia as far as Tartary and China. An apocalyptic sense of the nearness of the last days and the necessity to convert the non-Christian world before the end certainly played a part in motivating the popes. Papally sponsored canon law also saw the possibility of coexisting peacefully with the Moslem world. By the late fourteenth century the main interest of the papacy in the Holy Land lay more in protecting pilgrims bound there than in stirring up yet another unsuccessful crusade.
522. Richard, Jean. La papauté et les missions d’Orient au Moyen Age (xiiie-xve siècles). Rome: École Française de Rome, 1977.
An excellent survey of the topic. Traces papal support for, and formulation of, missions to the non-Christian world, ranging from the Levant to China. Papal motives were diverse, ranging from the political to the spiritual, but such missions as that of the Franciscans to the Levant did offer an alternative to the violence of the crusades.
523. Southern, Richard W. Western Views of Islam in the Middle Ages. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1962.
Reviews the wide range of Christian attitudes. Useful sections on Peter the Venerable, Joachim of Fiore, Roger Bacon, and William of Tripoli, all of whom recommended nonviolent conversion as an alternative to the Crusades.
524. Waltz, James. “Historical Perspectives on ‘Early Missions to the Muslims’: A Response to Allan Cutler,” Muslim World 61 (1971): 170-86.
Takes up Cutler’s (512, 513) association of crusader with missionary. A good rebuttal.
The Missionary Orders
525. Alphandéry, Paul. La chrétienté et l’idée de croisade. Paris: Albin Michel, 1954. II: Recommencements nécessaires (xiie-xiiie siècles). Alphonse Dupront, ed. Paris: Albin Michel, 1959, 210-237. See also 418.
The Franciscan missions were very consciously seen as an alternative to the Crusades.
526. Bacon, Roger. Opus Majus ad Clementem quartem. J.H. Bridges, ed. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1900, 3: 120-22.
Bacon’s Opus Majus covers the intellectual universe of the medieval world. The book, “The Study of Tongues,” chapters 13-14, presents an eloquent plea for the use of words above weapons in the conversion of the non-Christian. Toleration and missionary work for Jews, Saracens, and pagans to the North and East are preferable to their destruction. In the case of the Crusades war brings only hatred and sends the unbeliever to Hell. True Christianity, on the other hand, was spread by simplicity of preaching and purity of life. History recounts many tyrants and evil men who have been overcome by nonviolence. The Teutonic Knights have actually maintained their Slavic victims in paganism because of their brutality. Bacon does not hesitate to expose the myth of the Crusades: the Teutonic Knights do not really want peace but to subject a people to slavery.
527. —. Opus Majus. Robert B. Burke, trans. New York: Russell & Russell, 1962, 110-15.
Another, equally useful, edition.
528. Bonaventure. Legenda maior 9.5-9. In Ewert Cousins, ed. and trans. Bonaventure. New York: Paulist Press, 1978, 266-71.
These chapters reveal Francis’ desire to imitate Christ, even to his suffering and death. His desire for martyrdom lead him to the East to convert the Moslems or to be killed in the effort. A cogent rebuttal to those who would argue that the crusader, who sought to kill the non-Christian or to take his land, and the missionary, who saw his role as converting the non-Christian or being killed in imitation of Christ, were actually part of the same broad movement.
529. Christiansen, Eric. The Northern Crusades. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1980.
Pages 145-46 summarize Roger Bacon’s criticisms of the Crusades against the Slavs.
530. Daniel, E. Randolf. The Franciscan Concept of Mission in the High Middle Ages. Lexington, KY: University Press of Kentucky, 1975.
The Franciscan concept of mission was based primarily on St. Francis’ desire to imitate Christ through suffering and martyrdom. Their efforts were paralleled to an extent by those of the Dominicans, who established missionary colleges, wrote treatises encouraging toleration for the Moslems, and urged peaceful conversion rather than bloodshed. Yet the Franciscan tradition seemed to have been more radical in its approach. Francis set the tone and method in his own missions to the Moslems. Even during Francis’ lifetime, the Franciscans were suffering martyrdom, choosing public confrontations on Islam’s own field to proclaim Christ. Their peacemaking was thus an activist one. Roger Bacon, Raymond Lull, Peter John Olivi, and the radical Franciscan Spirituals all condemned the Crusades and urged nonviolent conversion. Well into the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries Franciscan missionaries were extending themselves out into Asia and the Near East, preaching conversion, willing to face martyrdom in imitation of Christ.
531. Duval, Frederic Victor. De la paix de Dieu a la paix de fer. Paris: Paillard, 1923.
Briefly surveys the efforts of the Franciscans and Dominicans at nonviolent conversion and their criticisms of the Crusades.
532. Francis of Assisi. Opuscula Sancti Patris Francisci Assisiensis. Cajetan Esser, O.F.M., ed. Grottaferrata (Rome): Collegio San Bonaventura, 1978.
Esser’s edition provides the best Latin text of Francis’ works. An analytical index of important words and ideas makes this a useful reference tool. See 533.
533. —. Writings and Early Biographies. English Omnibus of the Sources for the Life of St. Francis. Marion A. Habig, O.F.M., ed. Chicago: Franciscan Herald Press, 1973.
Francis’ Rules and Celano’s Life provide ample evidence of his willingness to lay down his life in imitation of Christ in order to attempt the peaceful conversion of the non-Christian. Nowhere does he show the slightest support of the Crusades. In fact, Celano recounts the story of his condemnation of the Fifth Crusade against Damietta while in the Crusaders’ camp there. Like Christ, Francis sent off his followers two by two to preach the Gospels, “gathering the dispersed of Israel.”
534. Moorman, John. A History of the Franciscan Order from its Origins to the Year 1517. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1968, 226-39, 429-38.
Excellent background to the history, personalities, and motivations of the Franciscan missions to the end of the Middle Ages.
535. William of Tripoli. De statu saracenorum. H. Prutz, ed. Kulturgeschichte der Kreuzzuge. Berlin: Beilagen, 1883, 573-98.
Recommendations for the nonviolent conversion of the Saracens by one who lived on the spot and knew them and the results of crusading warfare well.
Ramon Lull
536. Altaner, Berthold. “Raymundus Lullus und der Sprächenkanon des Konzils von Vienne,” Historisches Jahrbuch 52 (1933): 190-219.
Analyzes Lull’s successful role in lobbying at the general council of Vienne (1311-12) for the inclusion of the decrees mandating the teaching of oriental languages at major European universities to prepare missionaries for their work of nonviolent conversion of the non-Christian.
537. Atiya, Aziz S. The Crusade in the Later Middle Ages. 2nd ed. London: Butler and Tanner, 1938; reprint, New York: Kraus Reprints, 1965.
Pages 74-94 provide good biography of older works and analysis of Lull’s place in the history of the Crusades and in nonviolent conversion. Surveys some of his works, his travels around the Mediterranean, and his ideas on conversion and the study of languages for missionary work.
538. Brummer, Rudolf. Bibliographia Lulliana. Ramon Llull Schriften 1870-1973. Hildesheim: Gerstenberg, 1976.
A useful collection, 1331 items, unannotated, with an index of authors. Pages 61-64 list works on his missionary work and crusade ideas (nos. 873-923). English translations of his works are listed on page 17 (nos. 139-144).
539. Daiber, H. “Der Missionar Raimundus Lullus und seine Kritik am Islam,” Estudios Lullianos 25, 1 (1981-1983): 47-57.
Not seen.
540. De Urmeneta, Fermin. “El pacifismo luliano,” Estudios Lullianos 2 (1958): 197-208.
Modern reflections on the spirit of Lull’s nonviolence. Less useful for a historical understanding.
541. Gibert, Rafael. “Lulio y Vives sobre la paz.” Recueils de la Société Jean Bodin 15 (1961): 125-70.
The first part of this article examines Lull’s writings and sees him as an early internationalist. Analyzes his approach to the winning of the Holy Land as a dual path: one of sensual war and one of intellectual war, for both of which one interested in peace must prepare. Peace is the result of an international order, brought about by an overriding international authority and by its agents, a knighthood devoted to Christian peace. Gibert emphasizes Lull’s military schemes, his sensual war, more than his intellectual war, his plans for nonviolent conversion.
542. Hallack, Cecily, and P.F. Anson. These Made Peace. Paterson, NJ: St. Anthony Guild, 1957.
Pages 65-73 offer a good, brief biography, placing Lull in the context of other medieval peacemakers.
543. Lull, Ramon. Blanquerna: A Thirteenth-Century Romance. E. Allison Peers, ed. London: Jarrold’s, 1926.
The novel is Lull’s treatise on Christian chivalry and his recommendations for its implementation. Chapters 80, “Gloria in excelsis Dei,” and 81, “Et in terra pax hominibus bonae voluntatis,” deal explicitly with Lull’s plans for the papacy as a European peacemaker, which would then coordinate missionary efforts to convert, rather than conquer, the non-Christian world. This edition could use an update.
544. —. Selected Works of Ramon Llull (1232-1316). Anthony Bonner, ed. and trans. 2 vols. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1985.
A good, well illustrated and edited collection. Good indexes. Not very useful for Lull as a peacemaker, however.
545. Peers, E. Allison. Ramon Lull. London: S.P.C.K., 1929.
A good biography with analysis of his works and missionary ideas.
546. Petry, Ray C. Late Medieval Mysticism. Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1957, 142-69.
Reprints sections from Peers’ edition of the Blanquerna (543).
The Apocalyptic Tradition
547. Bloomfield, Morton W. Piers Plowman as a Fourteenth-Century Apocalypse. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1962.
The apocalyptic tradition of Piers Plowman stretches back to the early Christian literature of consolation in tribulation, a promise of coming perfection, and the end of suffering. It offers a vision of unarmed struggle and nonviolent victory brought about through virtue and faith.
548. Costa, Dennis. Irenic Apocalypse: Some Uses of Apocalyptic in Dante, Petrarch and Rabelais. Stanford French and Italian Studies 21. Saratoga, CA: Anma Libri, 1981.
This is a dense, very difficult, but ultimately rewarding study of the apocalyptic subtext of several important works. Of interest here are Costa’s comments on the uses of apocalyptic imagery and structures in Piers Plowman, Petrarch, and Dante’s Divine Comedy. Apocalyptic is essentially a nonviolent process of transformation, of revelation, and of renewal that emphasizes the patientia, or nonviolent suffering of the apocalyptic characters. It is an anticipation of Paradise on earth that is made present in the very process of tribulation.
The medieval exegetical tradition, as exemplified by Rupert of Deutz, understood the nonviolence of the apocalyptic text; and Dante clearly understood that the text implied the passage to Paradise of an elect threatened by the violence of the age. Petrarch’s De vita solitaria expressed this apocalyptic experience for the layperson, using the tradition of monasticism as a bloodless martyrdom.
549. Daniel, E. Randolf. “Apocalyptic Conversion: The Joachite Alternative to the Crusades,” Traditio 25 (1969): 127-54.
This is a groundbreaking article, one of the first to make the connection between the Apocalypse and nonviolence in medieval society. The impact of this work is even more striking in that it discusses a group long considered one of the most dangerously “revolutionary” in the medieval church: the Franciscan and other Joachites. The anti-Crusade tradition was strong among these Joachites and can be traced back to the influence of the Calabrian abbot, Joachim of Fiore.
Joachim wrote of the events of his own lifetime in apocalyptic terms, and he saw the Moslem occupation of the Holy Land as one of the signs of the end time. Saladin was thus God’s instrument to war against the Lamb sent to kill both the impious and the innocent in the process. Yet
Joachim himself experienced a conversion from wholehearted support of the Crusade effort to opposition, realizing that the suffering of the innocent in the Apocalypse was that of nonviolent martyrs, not of earthly warriors. Christianity would triumph, he concluded, not by military victory but by preaching the word, by the faith and patience of those holy people who would introduce the Third Status of world history. Military struggle would only interfere with God’s historic plan. In the end the “spiritual men” of the last days would convert the Saracens, the schismatic Greeks, and the Jews without violence, and all humanity would be united in peace, freedom, and contemplation.
With the development of the Spiritual faction within the Franciscan Order, this role was naturally associated with these contemplatives devoted to a life of poverty. Their literature, in works like Super Hieremiam, criticized papal efforts to launch further crusades. Any attempt to conquer the earthly Jerusalem ignored the historical role of the Heavenly Jerusalem, the apocalyptic Vision of Peace. Salimbene da Adam (475, 478-479) recounts the widespread anti-crusade feeling among these and in the Dominican order. Such Spirituals as Angelo Clareno, Peter John Olivi, and Ubertino da Casale, when they did speak of the Crusades, expressed only opposition. The article concludes with a selection of texts from Joachim and the Joachite tradition expressing this opposition.
550. —. Concept. See 530, 76-100.
Incorporates much of the materials of 549 into a larger analysis of Franciscan opposition to the Crusades and alternative means of peacemaking.
551. —. “The Medieval Crusade and Vietnam: A Debate About War,” Lexington Theological Quarterly 6 (1971): 93-101.
Not seen.
552. Douie, Decima L. The Nature and the Effect of the Heresy of the Fraticelli. Manchester: University of Manchester Press, 1932; reprint, New York: AMS, 1978.
While superseded in most regards by more recent research this still provides good introduction to the lives, works, and ideas of the leading Spirituals discussed by Daniel in 549 and 550, including Peter John Olivi, Ubertino da Casale, and Angelo Clareno.
553. Duby, Georges. The Three Orders: Feudal Society Imagined. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1980.
The image of Jerusalem as the Vision of Peace, the Heavenly City, became associated in the eyes of many of the poor pilgrims who made up the mass of crusaders with the real physical city. Duby pinpoints the apocalyptic role that the city and the pilgrimage to it thus played.
554. Mayer. Mayer, Hans Eberhard. The Crusades. John Gillingham, trans. New York: Oxford University Press, 1972, 9-40.
Both the millennial expectations of reaching the Heavenly Jerusalem and the long tradition of penitential pilgrimage combined in the popular imagination to launch thousands of the poor and unarmed toward the earthly Jerusalem both before and during the Crusade era. In fact, in launching the Crusades Pope Urban II tapped both eschatological and penitential currents. He also used the imagery of the Peace of God to stir Europeans to make the journey. While the military class may have been partially motivated by greed for conquest, the mass of Christians went to the Holy Land for three reasons: pilgrimage, penitence, and eschatology.
555. Porges, W. “The Clergy, the Poor, and the Non-Combatants on the First Crusade,” Speculum 21 (1946): 1-23.
Urban II knew that an appeal to a purely military expedition would not rouse Europe to the Crusade, but that an appeal to pilgrimage would. He had a long tradition of unarmed pilgrimage to draw on, one that saw as many as 12,000 unarmed Christians make their way toward Jerusalem in a single expedition. When the pope realized the groundswell of support among the unarmed, he tried to eliminate or arm them, but all to no avail. The ranks of the Crusaders were swelled with the sick, the old, the unarmed, prostitutes, penitents, and pilgrims of all types seeking the New Jerusalem. Only one-sixth of the expedition were fully armed by the time it reached Nicea in Asia Minor, thereupon the proportion of the unarmed became even greater. Porges then goes on to analyze the various groups that made up the crusade: clergy, poor, women, children, etc.
556. Reeves, Marjorie. The Influence of Prophesy in the Later Middle Ages. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1969.
A foundational introduction to the medieval Joachite tradition of apocalyptic prophesy and expectation.
557.—. Joachim of Fiore and the Prophetic Future. London: S.P.C.K., 1976.
A shorter version of 556, with some new research.
558. Runciman. Crusades, 1: 38-50.
Provides useful background to the long tradition of penitential pilgrimage to the Holy Land dating back at least to St. Helena in the fourth century. By the eleventh century unarmed pilgrims numbered in the thousands.
559. Vogel, C. “Les pèlerinages pénitentiels,” Revue des Sciences Réligieuses 38 (1964): 113-45.
Not seen.
Voices of Protest
560. Adams, Richard T. “Pre-Renaissance Courtly Propaganda for Peace in English Literature,” Papers of the Michigan Academy 32 (1946-48): 431-46.
English writers in the courtly tradition, from Hoccleve to Caxton, paid lip service to the idea of the just war, yet their works reveal some very urgent pleas for peace and condemnations of the disastrous effects of war upon a people. Such criticism came from a variety of sources: the standard medieval arguments against the spilling of Christian blood, the fact that war was both unprofitable and unreasonable, and a new bourgeois aversion to the disruption of commerce that war entailed. Some criticism also derived from the genre of advice to princes, reminding the prince that peace was one of his chief functions. Useful reminder that while such sentiments may well have been commonplace, the age saw no blanket glorification of war, even in the literature aimed at the warrior class.
561. Delaruelle, Étienne. “La critique de la guerre sainte dans la littérature méridionale.” In L’Idée de croisade au Moyen Age. Turin: Bottega d’Erasmo, 1980, 128-39.
This criticism stemmed from several sources. These include the Cluniac order and its emphasis on preaching and conversion, and the poets of Languedoc in their criticisms of the Albigensian Crusade.
562. Gower, John. Confessio Amantis. Terence Tiller, trans. and ed. Baltimore: Penguin Books, 1963.
Book III, lines 2226-2626, presents a detailed discussion of the merits of the just-war theory. Gower concludes that wars are really fought out of greed and bring destruction on nature, human virtue, God’s law, and Christ’s commandments. He then turns to the Crusades and determines that Christ preached peace and sent his disciples to do the same, not by killing but by the example of peace. He concludes by stating that all slaying is evil, no matter what the excuse. Tiller provides a good introduction to Gower’s life and historical setting.
563. Langland, William. Piers the Plowman. J.F. Goodridge, trans. and ed. Baltimore: Penguin Books, 1968. Many editions.
Books III, IV, and XV offer some glimpses into the popular expectations of apocalyptic conversion of the Saracens without the need for the Crusades. A good modern English edition.
564. Morris, Colin. “Propaganda for War. The Dissemination of the Crusading Ideal in the Twelfth Century.” In W.J. Shiels, ed. The Church and War. Papers of the Twenty-First and Twenty-Second Meetings of the Ecclesiastical History Society. Studies in Church History 20. Oxford: Basil Blackwell, New York: Harper & Row, 1983, 79-101.
A good reminder that the same forms of communication æ troubadours poetry, pulpits, the influence of princely courts, the use of religious symbols like the cross æ were used to promote, as well as to criticize, the Crusades.
565. Owst, G.R. Literature and Pulpit in Medieval England. 2nd, rev. ed. New York: Barnes & Noble, 1961.
This study, still of use to students of literature and popular religion, analyzes sermons for insights into popular attitudes and literary genres that found their way into popular literature. Devotes some attention to sermons on war, the just war, and the knight. On the whole, as one might expect, unjust wars are condemned. Yet, at the same time, even just wars come in for some criticism, since it is usually the poor called upon to defend a land who are made to suffer for the conflicts of the nobility. The knights themselves are a lawless class who plunder the poor in peacetime and who flee battle in war, who despoil the church and crucify Christ. They are a burden on the people in both war and peace. Though many of these are stock topoi of the genre, the fact that such criticism was made before the most popular audience, sermon hearers, meant that a definite strain of antimilitarism did exist in late medieval England, one that finds its way into the more sophisticated pages of Langland and Gower.
566. Prawer, Joshua. Histoire du Royaume latin de Jérusalem. G. Nahon, trans. 2 vols. Paris: Editions du Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, 1969-70.
Volume 2: 375-95 discusses medieval criticisms of the Crusades, relying heavily on Throop (571, 572).
567. Purcell, Maureen. Papal Crusading Policy 1244-1291. Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1975.
While Purcell’s aim is to outline papal attempts to promote crusades with spiritual and material incentives, her introductory comment that the crusade was a form of imperialism whose demise escaped its proponents in large part because of the papacy’s own role in diverting them to its own political ends is worth noting.
568. Runciman, Steven. “The Decline of the Crusading Idea,” Relazioni del Xo Congresso Internazionale di Scienze Storiche 3. Florence: International Congress of Historical Sciences, 1955, 637-52.
The major obstacle to further crusades at the end of the Middle Ages was the widespread skepticism about their Christian value. By the time of the Fifth Crusade peaceful conversion had become a major alternative the the Crusade movement. These strains of skepticism are reflected in as divergent sources as Humbert of Romans’ Opus tripartitum and in Langland’s Piers Plowman.
569. Siberry, Elizabeth. Criticism of Crusading 1095-1274. New York: Oxford University Press, 1985.
Like Kedar’s work (517), this book’s explicit purpose is to “refute” both the notion that there was a religious opposition to the crusades that offered conversion as an alternative to violence and that the crusades themselves were actually fought to further missionary conversion. Using much of the same evidence, uncovering more, and ignoring some more, Siberry rejects out of hand, and one by one, the theses of Kritzeck (518), Throop (571, 572), Daniel (530, 549), Prawer (566) and Richard (522), among others cited.
While the criticisms collected by Humbert of Romans were certainly strong and reflected real opposition, they were overwhelmingly intended to reform the crusade mechanism and aimed against specific abuses, not against the movement as a whole. Despite the fact that the thirteenth century saw the end of the crusades, Siberry asserts that these “still enjoyed considerable support from the faithful. There is no evidence to justify the claim that the thirteenth century saw a significant decline in popular enthusiasm.” In fact, she notes, “a number of recent studies have shown that in the fourteenth century princes and nobles remained eager to avenge the Muslim victories, but their efforts were frustrated by dissension and internal problems in the West.” In short, while popular support remained strong, and the military was eager to fight it out, “dissension” at home frustrated adventures abroad.
Good bibliography and excellent notes.
570. —. “Missionaries and Crusaders, 1095-1274: Opponents or Allies?” In W.J. Shiels, ed. The Church and War. Papers of the Twenty-First and Twenty-Second Meetings of the Ecclesiastical History Society. Studies in Church History 20. Oxford: Basil Blackwell, New York: Harper & Row, 1983, 103-110.
A prelude to 569. Siberry’s use of Humbert of Romans’ Opus tripartitum (see 571) to show strong support for the crusade movement is tendentious.
571. Throop, Palmer A. Criticism of the Crusades: A Study of Public Opinion and Crusade Propaganda. Amsterdam: Swets & Zeitlinger, 1940; reprinted Philadelphia: Porcupine Press, 1975; New York: Gordon Press, 1983.
This is one of the most important books for the history of Christian peacemaking and for the peace tradition in the Middle Ages. It directly tackles the topic of opposition to the Crusades. This sprang up from the twelfth century, almost from the start of the expeditions. Even the heroic chansons de geste contained some sentiment for the conversion of Moslems, rather than for their destruction. The troubadour sirventes expressed the widespread horror at the Christian crusade against the Albigensian heretics of southern France. Roger Bacon expressed similar misgivings at the Teutonic Knights’ efforts in the Baltic. William of Tripoli, writing in the Holy Land, called for the peaceful conversion of the Moslem. Throop examines this form of missionary pacifism at some length, tracing the Franciscan and Dominican traditions.
By the late thirteenth century this sentiment had grown so widespread that Pope Gregory IX found himself unable to stir further crusade fever. He therefore commissioned the Dominican Minister General, Humbert of Romans, to launch an investigation and to report his findings. The result was Humbert’s Opus tripartitum. According to Humbert, among the opponents to the Crusades pacifists were the most important element, and the most dangerous, since their opposition was based solely on the teachings of the Gospels. Then there were the missionary pacifists, and the selective pacifists, who saw just-war criteria as inapplicable to the Crusades, then the Joachites who expected a nonviolent conversion foreshadowed by the Apocalypse, then the troubadours, and wives separated from their husbands, and so on through all the classes and most of the occupations of medieval society.
572. —. “Criticism of Papal Crusade Policy in Old French and Provençal,” Speculum 13 (1938): 379-412.
This criticism came from all walks of life. The greater part of the critics were laypeople of all social classes and occupations from tailor to courtly poet. Much of this article is incorporated into 571.
573. Wood, Mary M. The Spirit of Protest in Old French Literature. New York: Columbia University Press, 1917, reprint, New York: AMS, 1983.
Examines the literature of the southern French troubadours who criticized the Crusades as un-Christian and the churchmen who called for them as corrupt. Criticism was leveled not only against the church, but also the nobility, who in both war and peace used their power to exploit the poor. The poets thus make clear the connection between peacemaking and social justice. Examines such poets as Étienne de Fougères, Guillaume le Clerc, and Guilhem de Tudela.
574. Wentzlaff-Eggebert, Friedrich-W. Kreuzzugsdichtung des Mittelalters. Berlin: De Gruyter, 1960.
Surveys the large medieval literature in favor of the Crusades, including the writings of Bernard of Clairvaux. A good reminder that issues and positions were as complex in the Middle Ages are they are today.
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