What I knew about the Crusades was limited to Robin Hood
movies, Ridley Scott’s rip-roaring Kingdom
of Heaven, and a few black-and-white films (notably, Cecil B. DeMille’s
historically off-base The Crusades,
starring the luminescent Loretta Young). My Hollywood glasses quite effectively
obscured actual facts and I’m not the only one suffering from Crusades
confusion.
According to author Rodney Stark, there’s been a smear
campaign in place for centuries that assigns total blame to the European Crusaders
and excuses the beleaguered and besmirched Muslims on the ground of self-defense.
This Euro-bashing view has gained wide acceptance, especially recently, as
Western Civilization retreats from anything resembling criticism towards the
Eastern religions in general and especially Muslims in particular. God’s Battalions: The Case for the Crusades
examines infrequently cited yet indisputable historical facts to expose a fresh
(and undoubtedly unpopular) perspective, detailing ways pre-Crusade Muslims
(led by jihadist, land-grabbing rulers) invaded Europe (seriously, who knew?) and
set in motion a deadly rotation of retaliation and revenge.
I stumbled into this blazing controversy, all unawares,
simply looking for a 21st Century perspective on the Crusades. I’d
just finished reading the Chautauqua-listed, compulsively fascinating 19th
century novel In His Name by Edward
Everett Hale. This page-turner was set in medieval Europe, in the days of the
final Crusade (see last post here). Hale’s novel focused on those left behind
in France; Stark’s book jumps the channel, leaves fiction behind, and takes us to
“bridle-high blood” Jerusalem and surrounding holy lands. Although the pace of
this book drags at times, hindered by having to pick our way through heaps of corpses
and complicated battle plans, the professorial author neatly bundles hundreds
of years into simple, non-academic segments.
Stark makes a compellingly solid, if non-PC, case for the
Crusades to be more about a heartfelt response to infidels in Jerusalem/Holy
Land than a landgrab by disinherited younger sons. Using reams of historic
documents (including property transfers, birth records, ship lading invoices,
etc), Stark traces the makeup of the Crusades crews—and they were largely nobility
(many, many of them intertwined family units) who sold off inherited land,
property, and the family jewels and sewed crosses on their tunics for the
dubious glory of swathing through Muslim hordes and more than likely, dying in
the process. Amazing. Egged on by barefoot prophets and Papal promises of reduced
Purgatory time, armor-encrusted royals by the thousands boarded ships and sailed
to glory in the Holy Lands. They were joined by indulgence-seeking rabble—these
rarely made it to Palestine’s shores, dying of disease, drowning or picked off
by Muslim bandits along the way. The ever-intriguing Knights Templar come in
for some particular notice—good and bad—as does the famous warrior-king Saladin
(turns out he's not exactly the gentleman portrayed in popular fiction).
As is often the case in these heroic times, superstars
emerge. While Hale celebrated mostly fictitious protagonists, Stark turns a lowkey
spotlight on bruisers like Norman Crusader Prince Bohemond, named for his massive physique. When
Bohemond, with his wickedly strategic mind and audaciousness, strides from
dusty history to vibrant life, somehow, you can’t help dashing over to Google
and seeing if anyone snapped a selfie with him. Sadly, we’ll have to be content
with literary portraits, although today's cartoonists have discovered him (see hilarious cartoon below).
Medieval contemporary Anna Konmene, fourteen-year-old Byzantine
princess and historian, penned this about him: “For
by his nostrils nature had given free passage for the high spirit which bubbled
up from his heart. A certain charm hung about this man but was partly marred by
a general air of the horrible.” Can a Game
of Thrones-style epic starring Chris Hemsworth be far behind?
Atrocities abound in this centuries-long conflict—on both
sides—and facts support that no one was innocent and everyone was guilty and
the whole thing was truly horrible and a gigantic waste of life.
So, I ask myself—what if I lived then and heard that the
places where my precious Lord Jesus walked were overrun with those making it
their special task to deface and defile (in some pretty horrendous ways)
everything that Christianity held sacred? Would I unload my heritage and leave
my homeland to defend these sacred sites? Or would I, by God’s grace, be able
to recognize that the more important defense was to keep my heart—and the Name
of Christ—from being defiled by hate and bloodletting?
"For 'the name of God is blasphemed among the Gentiles because of you,' just as it is written." Romans 2:24
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