Were the Crusades Justified?

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The Crusades describe the series of holy wars fought during the Middle Ages (from 1095-1291) in which Christians fought to retake a variety of lands stolen by Muslims, one such land being the Holy Land. It specifically began in November of 1095 with a speech from Pope Urban II, and following a series of holy wars in Medieval Europe, it came to an end in the thirteenth century.

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The Historical Context of the Holy War

The Christian empires, which spread throughout Europe, Africa, and the Middle East, had established a peaceful existence for hundreds of years. Access to trade routes was simple and waterways were accessible. However, it was around the 6th century that this all began to change. 

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During the years 600AD-1000AD, Islamic piracy campaigns destroyed Mediterranean trade routes, halting the cultural and academic trade which maintained the European economy. During this time, the Byzantine Christian Empire had struggled to protect these trade routes, which were necessary for rapid multi-national trade, but to no avail.

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 As a result, many non-Muslim nations fell into what has now historically been called "The European Dark Ages" (More on the Historical Context of the Crusades). The financial ruin and inability to communicate with other nations led to halted progress on many fronts during this period of the Middle Ages. As time went on, the Muslim campaigns pressed on beyond the waters to land. Muslims began to take control over land from the Iberian peninsula on the West to areas in the East, Armenia, and Anatolia. 

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At this point, which would have been during the 1070s AD, many Christians in Europe and the Middle East found themselves displaced. It is in this context, following centuries of violent attacks from Muslim nations, that Christians felt pressured to retaliate. And thus, the crusades began. Historian John J. O'Neil says it best in his summary of those events leading up to the First Crusade:

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"These then are the major political events which prefigured the First Crusade. Within a space of 35 years, the Turks had seized control of Christian territories larger than the entire area of France, and they were now a real threat to Europe. We are accustomed to think of the Crusades as, first and foremost, an attempt by Christians to retake the Holy Land and Jerusalem, but this is a mistake."(O'Neill, John J. (2010) "The Crusades: A Response to Islamic Aggression," Comparative Civilizations Review: Vol. 63: No. 63, Article 8.)

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John O'Neil then goes on to clarify the idea that the goal of the Crusades was: "Byzantine Emperor Alexius Comnenus then made his famous plea to the Pope, not to free Jerusalem, but to drive the Turks from his door and to liberate the huge Christian territories in Asia Minor that had so recently been devastated and annexed by the followers of the crescent."

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Many believe that the Crusades were some sort of unsubstantiated, violent, and random act of violence by Christians to retake Jerusalem. However, a more careful and historical evaluation of the data makes clear that the response from the Roman Pontiff of the Catholic Church, Pope Urban II, was originally one crusade for the protection of many from the violent attacks of Seljuk Turks and other Muslim militants.

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 Even in Jerusalem and other Muslim-majority areas, ruler Al-Hakim ordered the persecution of Jews and Christians; an order he believed to be from the God of the Quran. Given how dire the circumstances had been, and after over 500 years of patience from Christians, one should be left asking, "Why didn't Christendom wage holy war earlier?"

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What Was the Purpose of the Crusades?

The whole point of the Crusades, known as a type of "Holy War," was to retake lands that had been violently taken over by Muslim military campaigns. It was meant to be an act of retributive justice against the hundreds of years of attacks by the Islamic world against Christian and non-Christian nations alike. 

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The See of Rome (Pope Urban II), The Emperor of the Byzantine Empire, and the whole of Christendom found here common goals: resistance to the violent persecution caused by Islamic war campaigns and the reclaiming of holy lands important to the Christian (and Jewish) religions.

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How Did the Byzantine Empire Lose Control of Holy Sites?

As one may expect, given the previous information, the Byzantine Empire (330AD-1453 AD) began to lose control of its Holy Sites due to the Muslim Military campaigns. Most notable is the loss of the Levant, which included Jerusalem, during the 7th Century AD.

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 Though later efforts from the first crusades were made to take Jerusalem, Muslim forces would later return to steal the holy city from the Byzantine Empire. It is important to recognize this historical context to understand why Christians were pushed to begin the Crusades.

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What Were Christians Fighting for During the Crusades?

While the purpose of the Crusades changed from one campaign to another, the overall purpose of the Crusades was to retake Holy Lands, which were previously inhabited by Christian or Jewish populations. The Muslim military campaigns, both by sea and by land, had led to a massive financial and cultural decline for all of Europe.

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 Furthermore, and more importantly, the attacks from Turkish Muslim and Moroccan Muslim groups required a response from the Christian world. The deaths of countless individuals, and the displacement of tens of thousands (if not more) Christians needed a response. It is this retaking of stolen land and this desire for justice which motivated Christians to fight during the Crusades. Of course, I have been speaking on a national scale. If one were to ask why individual Christians participated in the Crusades, then some other reasons can be given.

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Reclaim Jerusalem for Christianity

Jerusalem is the central location and climactic place where Christ walked, was tortured, crucified, died, and rose again! For many Christians, such a location was sacred, and to have it all overtaken by Muslims who actively denied the resurrection seemed a great injustice. Furthermore, a great number of Christians native to the Levant had been under the rule of Muslims (or otherwise forced out of their homes). 

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To reclaim Jerusalem would be a great success for Christians in their reclamation of such an important Biblical location, and would also be a chance to free many oppressed and displaced by the Muslim regime. The Pope and the Emperor both also had an interest in reclaiming holy artifacts, with the Spear of Destiny being one such artifact (the spear which is believed to have pierced Christ).

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Protect the Pilgrims Traveling to the Holy Land

Given that the Holy Land was such an important location for so many, it is a pity that one could not travel there without fearing for one's life. The Christians desired to make safe paths and easy access for pilgrims traveling to Jerusalem. Be they non-Christian Jewish pilgrims or Christians desiring to see the Land of their Lord, it was an important historical location. 

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Christians were justified in fighting for equal access to the Holy Land. Before the first crusade, the treatment of Christians and Jews by Muslim rule was recognizably poor.

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Furthermore, Muslims who had taken Jerusalem in 637 had established a rule which did not share the Holy Land with other groups in any safe and meaningful way. Christian Empires saw this as a great injustice. Many of the Popes throughout the various Crusades felt justified in their pursuits, feeling that God had given the holy land into their hands.

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Forgiveness of Sins

As a result of the Roman Catholic sacrament of penance, joined with the Roman Catholic Pope's authority to forgive sins through certain actions, many Catholic Christians were motivated by a chance to have forgiveness of sins. Pope Urban II famously stated:

"Whoever for devotion alone, but not to gain honour or money, goes to Jerusalem to liberate the Church of God can substitute this journey for all penance."

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While this may seem like a cheap ploy for finding soldiers and amassing an army, Pope Urban II had a very good reason for offering this to the citizens. At the time, Europe was filled with constant in-fighting of knights. Not upholding a notion of chivalry and honorable living, knights had become violent, deviant, and unrepentantly sinful. 

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Pope Urban II had prayed that such an offer would give the knights a goal to which they could work; an enemy worth fighting other than themselves. What is perhaps most impressive is that it worked! The knights had found a new purpose in fighting an enemy for a matter bigger than their own honor. They were fighting for God's people and justice.

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Put an End to Feudalism

Feudalism often resulted in wicked and unfair rule by the knight and lord classes. The Church, seeing the Crusades as a way to bring about an end to the constant feuds between various feudal classes and enforce greater standards of moral law, hoped that the Crusades would be just such a driving force. Lords and knights also often hoped to act in a way that placed themselves above the rule of the Church, which led to even more in-fighting and unfair treatment of serfs. 

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The Church, by being the leading force being the Crusades, would see itself as a unifying principle that could then weaken the power of the lords and knights (while simultaneously improving their morale). Many Christians saw the Crusades as a way to reestablish trade and improve Europe's economic status so as to improve the spread of wealth in the Latin and Byzantine Empires. Improved trade could result in new jobs and careers, which could provide greater class mobility for those who were otherwise forced to work on the land of their lords. This would be best for the overall wealth and prosperity of Europe and its empires.

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What Were the Effects of the First Crusade?

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The Capture of Jerusalem

Per the request of Byzantine Emperor Alexius Comnenus, Pope Urban II had rallied Nobles/Lords, Knights, and common serfs to rally against the Muslim forces at Jerusalem. After such a multitude gathered at Constantinople, the Armenian Christians (whose homes had been destroyed by the Seljuk Turks) guided the Christian forces to Jerusalem during a 5-week siege. 

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Jerusalem was taken in July of 1099, and many other Mediterranean cities followed soon after. This included a recapturing of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, the recovery of routes important for Christian pilgrims, and the renovation of various holy places within the holy city.

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Formation of Various Crusader States

As the Crusaders marched on their way through occupied Muslim territory towards the welcoming Armenian populations, they came into contact with many cities along the way. Some of these cities were easy to reclaim due to a lack of Muslim militia (or perhaps because of the massive military force now possible by the Western-Eastern United military front). Once they were overtaken or their political rule subverted, some Latin Counts/Lords were able to establish control over such areas.

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 The first of these "Crusader States" was "The County of Edessa," and became so because of Count Baldwin establishing control due to political instability. Such crusader states became valuable spots of trade and military control for the Crusader armies.

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How Many Crusades Were There?

In the eight Crusade battle campaigns, which comprised "The Crusades", the purpose of each of the battle campaigns was as follows:

• First Campaign: To rescue Christians being displaced and to retake the Holy Land, Jerusalem, from Muslim control. (Successful)
• Second Campaign: To take back Damascus from Muslim control. (Unsuccessful)
• Third Campaign: To take back Cyprus and Acre. The success pushed Muslims to concede access to Jerusalem to both the Christians and Jewish people. (Successful)
• Fourth Campaign: Originally to take Egypt, but then switched to take Constantinople. The Latin West (Roman Catholic) and Byzantine East begin to struggle against each other.
• Fifth to Eighth Campaigns: To retake Jerusalem, along with a variety of back-and-forth battles over contested cities.

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Were the Crusades Justified?

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This question may be a bit too open-ended. Often, when one asks, "Were the Crusades justified?" they are thinking about all of the various Crusade campaigns as a whole. 

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However, it may be better to ask: "Were some of the Crusades justified?" And to this question, we can most definitely answer with a resounding "yes."

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 It would be reasonable to say that the first three crusade campaigns were justified. To be specific, they fit into the Augustinian criterion of "Just War," which asserts that a war can be called "justified" if it had (1) just cause, (2) legitimate authority, (3) and right intention. So what can be said with regard to the first three crusades?

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Just Cause: The first three crusades were justified in that nearly half a millennium of Muslim military disruption and conquest had sent European Empires into a veritable "dark ages." Their culture, their economic prospects, and their faith were all being crushed by the hands of a violent and rapidly growing opposing force. 

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They most definitely had just cause for desiring to take Jerusalem, Anatolia, and Armenia from the Turkish Muslims. Islam, as a religion with doctrine, does not directly teach that they have any right to Jerusalem. What was their "cause"? Simply to strike the non-Muslims and "unbelievers" where they found them. While the forces of Islam waged war against the non-believers, their taking over of Jerusalem had in it no just cause other than violent overthrow.

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Legitimate Authority: It could also be argued that the fighting for Jerusalem and these other lands was on good grounds of authority. After all, it was the Armenians who had their land violently stolen from them. It is only right that this land be returned to those who had been forcefully displaced.

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 If their land could not be returned, it was at least worthwhile to push the Muslim forces back so as to avoid another attempt at stealing their land. In the case of Jerusalem, the Byzantine Empire had full right to Jerusalem as they did to Constantinople. As such, the Muslim forces taking over those cities does not change the fact that these cities were under the proper ownership and under the rightful authority of the Church.

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Right Intention: Perhaps needing the least explanation of all three, it is clear that these first three crusades were honestly concerned with saving the oppressed and establishing justice against a great military threat.

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Conclusion

The Crusades were a series of military campaigns carried out by Christian groups in an attempt to reclaim land stolen by Islamic forces, and to reclaim control of holy sites. Of these eight campaigns, very little effort must be given to show that the Christians were well within their rights to carry out the first three Crusades. 

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While all Christians can admit that some purely political and materialistic desires drove the majority of the crusade campaigns which followed, the most important crusades were the first three campaigns. It seems that most modern historians paint the Crusades as this totally arbitrary and vicious set of violent attacks from Christian forces against a "poor and defenseless opposition."

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 However, even a cursory review of the data would show that this is simply not the case. While we can be honest and admit the parts of the military experience of the Crusades were extraneous and unnecessary, one should be informed by history and let the context be their guide. Warfare is bloody. 

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Warfare is violent. Warfare often foments hatred and violence. But we must also see when holy war is needed to protect those being oppressed by a violent enemy. The Crusades, specifically those first three, were very much so justified.

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