Editor's Note: The following is a speech written and presented by high school senior and RCH member, Peter Seferian, for his 3rd Period Communications Class. This is a great example of the sort of work we here at RCH hope to provide scholarly support and feedback for those interested in becoming Crusades scholars. Individuals like Peter will be the next generation of historians who will hopefully turn back the tide of modern misunderstanding about the Crusades and the medieval period in general.
How The Crusades Saved Western Civilization
It is evening of November 13th, 2015. 130 people
have been killed by Islamic State militants in Paris, 89 of which were gunned
down at the Bataclan Theatre, while attending a performance by The Eagles of
Death Metal. President Francois Hollande orders a national state of emergency
and declares war on the Islamic State. Fast forward three weeks later. Fourteen
people are killed at a Christmas party in San Bernadino, California. The
perpetrators, a Muslim couple wielding assault rifles, who had just previously
left their six-month old daughter at home, to slaughter their coworkers.
Shortly after both of these atrocities, President Obama rushed to remind us not
to be persuaded into thinking that events such as these “be defined as [part
of] a war between America and Islam.” Adding that groups like ISIS are not
Islamic and that they are merely just “thugs and killers-part of a cult of
death. And account for a tiny fraction of more than a billion Muslims around
the world”. Following the Charlie Hebdo attacks of last year, he even told us
“not to get on our high horse and think that this is unique to some other
place” and “to remember that during the Crusades and the Inquisition, people
committed terrible deeds in the name of Christ.” Obama is not alone in this
line of thinking. After every deplorable act of violence committed in the name
of Islam, apologists in the West always claim that Islam is incompatible with
this kind of behavior and that other religions, specifically Christianity, have
done far worse in the past. What is their proof of this? Why, the Crusades of
course. After all, the Crusades were nothing more than a series of unprovoked
attacks against peaceful Muslims by angry, European bigots, right? Isn’t the
reason why the Islamic world is so cross with us because of what our ancestors
did hundreds of years ago? Or, is the answer to why the Crusades happened not
as simple as that? We need to re-evaluate our understanding of the Crusades. To
do this, we need to go back to a particular series of events in history that
would eventually lead to what we know today as the Crusades.
So what
were the Crusades? Well, contrary to the popular belief that the Crusades were
a series of religious conquests motivated by power hungry popes, whose hatred
for Muslims was dwarfed only by their desire for wealth, the Crusades were
actually defensive in nature. Since it’s inception, Islam was a faith founded
on conquest. After the death of the prophet Muhammed, a series of caliphs (a
type of warrior king in Islamic though) continued his tradition of jihad (the
Islamic concept of holy war) against the unbelievers. Within a century, Muslims
had conquered Persia, Egypt, and Syria, formerly ruled by Christians and
Polytheists. In the following centuries, Arab Muslims would conquer Spain,
invade parts of France, and sack the city of Rome. In 1095, Emperor Alexius I
Comnenus, ruler of the Byzantine Empire wrote to Pope Urban II for help. The
Byzantines were quickly losing their war against the Seljuk Empire and feared
for their annihilation. Pope Urban called upon the lords of Europe to come
together and help the Byzantines repel the Seljuks and reclaim the holy city of
Jerusalem. According to leading Crusades historian Jonathan Riley-Smith of
Oxford University, crusading was seen as “an act of love”. This was because
thousands of men, many of whom were wealthy and owned vast swaths of land,
risked their lives and possessions to come to the aid of their Christian
brethren. This is not to say everyone that went on the Crusades was a saint or
that Christians have never committed any atrocities of their own. Of course
they have. In fact, on the way to the Holy Land during the First Crusade, a
rogue continent of crusaders slaughtered a massive number of Jews living in the
Rhineland. However, this was condemned by the Church and had nothing to do with
the original intent of the Crusades. Regardless, you can see now that the
Crusades were not a series of unprovoked attacks against peaceful Muslims, but
rather a delayed response to four centuries of Islamic aggression against the
West.
So where
does this idea of the Crusades come from? Why is it that when we think of the
Crusades, we immediately think of Christian Europe and the Catholic Church
calling upon their armies to conquer in the name of God? This narrative has
been perpetuated ever since Sir Walter Scott published his novel, The Talisman, in 1825. In The Talisman, Scott portrays the
Crusaders, such as Richard The Lionheart, as barbaric, backward, brutes, while
the Muslims, specifically Saladin, as nineteenth century liberal gentlemen.
Scott’s view of the Crusades was strongly influenced by his upbringing during
the Enlightenment. A time in which Europeans looked back on the Crusades as an
event manifested in unnecessary barbarism against a superior Eastern
civilization. This sentiment was echoed by English writer, Sir Steven Runciman,
in his three-volume work, A History of
The Crusades, published in the 1950s. The Runciman narrative became the
traditional narrative of the Crusades during the 20th century, as it
was used as the principle reference for a 1995 BBC documentary series about the
Crusades, hosted by Terry Jones of Monty Python fame, and for the 2005
Hollywood feature film, Kingdom of Heaven,
starring Orlando Bloom and directed by Ridley Scott. Both of these films,
though wildly inaccurate, reflect the West’s current attitude towards the
Crusades. The West feels a sense of immeasurable guilt for the sins of it’s
past, such as colonialism and the slave trade, and blames it’s actions for the
current problems of the world. While self-criticism can be a healthy endeavor,
going so far as to distort history and create a false sense of moral
equivalency between the West and the Islamic world, does nothing to solve our
current conflict.
While the
West certainly has plenty of things to be ashamed of, the Crusades are not one
of them. In fact, the Crusades may have saved the West. Before the Crusades,
Europe was impoverished and fraught with disunity. Internal squabbles between
neighboring kingdoms over land and power were commonplace. It wasn’t until the
Crusades began that the lords of Europe put aside their differences in order to
combat this external, alien threat. Though the Crusaders were eventually forced
out of the Holy Land, it was the idea of crusading that forced the European
nations to band together when threatened by the Ottoman Turks during later
centuries. Had the Europeans not come together to face this threat, the values
that we hold so dear, such as individual rights, freedom of religion, and
freedom of speech may have been lost forever.
In
conclusion, the legacy of the Crusades should not be looked at as another historical
atrocity, but a source of pride in European history. Those of us of European
descent owe our ancestors a debt of gratitude for fighting to ensure our
future. Those men were no less heroic than the men who fought for the Allies
during the World War II. The negative image of the Crusades in our culture
prohibits us from recognizing the true nature of the threat we face today.
Islamic totalitarian regimes such as Iran and Saudi Arabia continue to be the
two greatest sponsors of global terrorism on the planet. Our ignorance of
history causes us to fear correctly identifying the enemy, and leads us to
think of ourselves as no better than they are. We need to reject this line of
thinking and champion the spirit of those that came before if we are to prevail.
04/19/16
-Peter Seferain will be attending St. Edward's University in Austin, TX, this fall and has plans to continue writing on medieval history and the Crusades.
