Crusades

Sources: Alexander Murray, "The Later Middle Ages" in Richard Harries and Henry Mayr-Harting, Christianity: Two Thousand Years (Oxford, 2001); B.Z. Kedar, Crusade and Mission (Princeton, 1983); Brian Moynahan, The Faith (Doubleday, 2001); F.L. Cross, ed., The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church, 2d ed. (Oxford, 1983).

Reading: John 18:33-38.

The "Late 'Middle Ages'"
European "Christendom" (christianitas) doubles in size and in population 1000-1500
Urbanization enriches, then corrupts, then (in the south) sidelines bishops
Hildebrand (1021-1085, Gregory VII from 1073) creates an imperial yet spiritual papacy:

Forbids simony (buying church offices), lay investiture (of abbot-elects and bishop-elects)
After Henry IV's Diet of Worms in 1076, Gregory stares down Henry at Canossa 1077
An ambitious tyrant, or church reformer?

Western Europe begins to roll back Muslim power from 1000-1050
Mediterranean trade revives as Italian cities rise to prominence, and Italian papal power with it

Crusades
Turkish power divides the Muslim east, turns Anatolia into Turkey ~1060, cuts off pilgrimmages
In 1074 Gregory VII calls for a European military expedition in response
In 1095 Urban II at Clermont grants remission of sins, penance, martyrdom to crusaders
After amateurs are annihilated, pros horrifically take Antioch in 1098 and Jerusalem in 1099
Knights Templar and Hospitallers protect pilgrims
After Edessa falls to Turks 1144, Bernard of Clairvaux preaches the failed Second Crusade 1147
Saladin reconquers Palestine 1187
Third Crusade fails in 1189 as European disillusionment and fatigue grow
Fourth Crusade 1202 instead assists in a coup in Constantinople 1203 and sacks it in 1204
Children's Crusade 1212 is aborted in Italy and some are taken into Muslim captivity
Further crusades fail; all the Latin kingdoms fall by 1291
Intermittent efforts fail; the movement dies 1464 after Constantinople falls in 1453

Rationale
Northern Europeans, Romans, Byzantines, Turks, and Arabs mistrust each other
Christian interests are defined in terms of local political interests
Replacement theology (supersessionism) sees Israel as the Church's rightful possession
(e.g., Knights Templar read Deuteronomy, Joshua, and Maccabees — but not Christologically)
Crusaders find theological grounds in Augustine's doctrine of sin as willfully misdirected love
~1140, canon law appeals to forceful correction of heretics and infidels as "peaceful"
Frankish Constantinianism lends plausibility to the figure of the holy warrior
Summary and lesson: Islam puts new pressures on Christians; their poor response warps them
Christianity has plenty of raw materials for abusive theology and practice