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God's Battalions: The Case for the Crusades
In God’s Battalions, distinguished scholar Rodney Stark puts forth a controversial argument that the Crusades were a justified war waged against Muslim terror and aggression. Stark, the author of The Rise of Christianity, reviews the history of the seven major crusades from 1095-1291 in this fascinating work of religious revisionist history.
288 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 2009
About the author
Rodney Stark
61 books271 followersRodney Stark grew up in Jamestown, North Dakota, and began his career as a newspaper reporter. Following a tour of duty in the U.S. Army, he received his PhD from the University of California, Berkeley, where he held appointments as a research sociologist at the Survey Research Center and at the Center for the Study of Law and Society. He left Berkeley to become Professor of Sociology and of Comparative Religion at the University of Washington. In 2004 he joined the faculty of Baylor University. He has published 30 books and more than 140 scholarly articles on subjects as diverse as prejudice, crime, suicide, and city life in ancient Rome. However, the greater part of his work has been on religion. He is past president of the Society for the Scientific Study of Religion and of the Association for the Sociology of Religion. He also has won a number of national and international awards for distinguished scholarship. Many of his books and articles have been translated and published in foreign languages, including Chinese, Dutch, French, German, Greek, Indonesian, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Polish, Portuguese, Romanian, Spanish, Slovene, and Turkish.
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February 19, 2010
I wonder why Rodney Stark wrote this book. He claims there is a “sinister” (p. 4) trend in Crusader studies that characterizes the Muslim world as the innocent and culturally and morally far superior victim of this first manifestation of European colonialism. That “during the Crusades, an expansionist, imperialistic Christendom brutalized, looted, and colonized a tolerant and peaceful Islam” (p. 8).
Twenty years ago I was entering the world of Medieval Studies as a UCLA grad student. In fact, the period under discussion (c. 1100-1400) and this very region (the Mediterranean) were the areas I was interested in. Even back then, there was no serious expert in the field who would argue that provocations, massacres, brutality, looting, rape, etc. didn’t occur on all sides, that anyone had the moral high ground. Nor would any student of the period argue that purely material interests motivated the Crusaders. Did the Marxist/materialist interpretation dominate a certain era of historiography? Sure. But like all academic fevers, this too passed (though not without a lot of groundbreaking and revelatory data in its wake). A new generation came up through the ranks that accommodated the less material, more idealistic motivations. So Stark’s cabal seems to be a straw man. It’s illustrative that the handful of specific authors he cites as evidence of a conspiracy are all nonexperts in the field. In particular, his bete noire Karen Armstrong, a fine scholar in her own right but not immersed in the sources as a specialist would be. Though, perhaps, she too is as guilty as Stark of slanting her own interpretations. (I tend to agree with Stark’s assessment: IMO, Armstrong, in her recent work on Islam, has evinced an annoying tendency to whitewash its “sins” in comparing it to Christianity. An argument against selecting facts to fit a political/philosophical agenda, but not evidence of an academic conspiracy to demonize Christianity.)
My problem may stem from the book’s subtitle: “The Case for the Crusades.” The case for the Crusades? Is he seriously arguing that a religiously motivated military campaign (jihad) is justified? Is he hypocritically arguing that you shouldn’t use selective data to support one’s opinion yet does so to exonerate Urban II and his successors? Or is his objective of a more contemporary nature? A backhanded justification for the West’s (primarily America’s) response to recent Islamic fundamentalist terrorism? If so, then the facts of his own book doesn’t support his interpretation. If anything, they argue against a military response: Despite better technology and amazing logistical capability on the part of the European princes, no Crusade after the first achieved any lasting success and most were utter debacles*).
*The Fourth Crusade, indeed, perpetrated one of the worst cultural and political crimes in medieval history – the sacking of Constantinople and the utter ruin of the Byzantine state, threatening nary a Saracen.
When Stark sticks to the facts and doesn’t attempt any interpretation, he’s generally spot on. It’s his interpretations that I found fault with in his latest work. I am still amazed and enthralled by The Rise of Christianity How the Obscure Marginal Jesus Movement Became the Dominant Religious Force ..... He marshaled ancient sources and applied modern sociological research on religious conversion to present a powerful case for how and why Christianity prospered even in the face of sporadic but usually fatal persecutions. And his description of life in ancient Antioch, in the same book, is still one of the most harrowing and interesting I’ve read. For the first 2/3rds of Discovering God The Origins of the Great Religions and the Evolution of Belief, he presents a cogent argument for how and why the concept of God developed across time. Then in the final 1/3rd, he begins proselytizing, abandoning the admirable evenhandedness of the first part to shill for the Christian version of deity, and he lost me.
In this book, too, Stark marshals the facts to lay out a mildly revisionist history that brings a more balanced viewpoint to the general reading public. I’ll cite two examples here: First, he debunks the notion of a “dark age” in Europe (already pretty thoroughly a relic in academe, starting with 19th century historiography!) but it never hurts to reemphasize the technological, economic and political innovations that were transforming ancient society from the 5th century on and earlier. He also correctly, IMO, points out that the brightest intellectual lights in the Islamic firmament were often Christians (though not Latin), Jews or otherwise non-Arabs, and that quite soon an intellectual rigidity set in which retarded any exploitation of their insights. He scants a similar, if later, phenomenon in Christianity – though in that case happily, the Church was too weak and intervened too late to do more than delay the advent of the modern world.
A second example is Stark’s corrective to the overly materialistic interpretation of the Crusades, which reduced the movement to a matter of economic and social factors forcing humans to act as they did. For many knights, going to the Holy Land was anything but in their best economic interests. But their zeal (fanaticism, to be less charitable) fueled both their personal ventures and profound economic and political changes in Medieval Europe.
There are some indications of a less-than-complete grasp of regional histories as, for example, when Stark mentions the “oddity” of Charlemagne attacking the Basque (Christian) city of Pamplona in 778. Knowledge of the enmity between the Basques of northern Spain and the Franks of southern France may have made the soon-to-be emperor’s actions less “odd.” Or there is the arbitrary decision to exclude the non-Levantine crusades (i.e., the Reconquista or the Albigensian Crusade) as unrepresentative of the “true” Crusading movement, which goes unjustified.
As a corrective to overly materialistic interpretations of the Crusades, Stark deserves at least 3 stars, and general readers could do worse than to learn a bit about the period from this book.** However, for his conspiracy theories of malfeasance and his (possible) attempt to justify modern “crusades,” he loses a star.
**They might be better served, however, by reading experts in the field like Steven Runciman’s A History of the Crusades, vols. 1-3, dated in many respects but still a brilliant, exciting, well written narrative of the campaigns; Kenneth Setton; or Christopher Tyerman’s recent God's War A New History of the Crusades. And, while Wikipedia is never to be trusted as a source itself, the bibliography sections of the Crusade entries can direct interested parties to interesting books (e.g., http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_cr...).
A final thought that has nothing to do with my praises, objections or opinions of the book but which came to me as I was reading: Stark’s discussion of why Crusaders took up the cross and justified their actions reminded me of Wendy Doniger’s discussion of a similar moral dilemma that faced the kshatriya caste in her book The Hindus - see my review: http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/52.... In the “Bhagavad Gita,” Krishna explains to Arjuna that though the warrior’s dharma (to commit acts of violence and murder in service to his ruler) goes against general dharma and accumulates bad karma, the warrior who can act (karma) without desire (kama) can satisfy both dharmas and avoid bad karma. It seems to me that, in a similar vein, Christianity resolved the problem of controlling its warrior class with theories of “just wars” and plenary absolution of sins committed.
Twenty years ago I was entering the world of Medieval Studies as a UCLA grad student. In fact, the period under discussion (c. 1100-1400) and this very region (the Mediterranean) were the areas I was interested in. Even back then, there was no serious expert in the field who would argue that provocations, massacres, brutality, looting, rape, etc. didn’t occur on all sides, that anyone had the moral high ground. Nor would any student of the period argue that purely material interests motivated the Crusaders. Did the Marxist/materialist interpretation dominate a certain era of historiography? Sure. But like all academic fevers, this too passed (though not without a lot of groundbreaking and revelatory data in its wake). A new generation came up through the ranks that accommodated the less material, more idealistic motivations. So Stark’s cabal seems to be a straw man. It’s illustrative that the handful of specific authors he cites as evidence of a conspiracy are all nonexperts in the field. In particular, his bete noire Karen Armstrong, a fine scholar in her own right but not immersed in the sources as a specialist would be. Though, perhaps, she too is as guilty as Stark of slanting her own interpretations. (I tend to agree with Stark’s assessment: IMO, Armstrong, in her recent work on Islam, has evinced an annoying tendency to whitewash its “sins” in comparing it to Christianity. An argument against selecting facts to fit a political/philosophical agenda, but not evidence of an academic conspiracy to demonize Christianity.)
My problem may stem from the book’s subtitle: “The Case for the Crusades.” The case for the Crusades? Is he seriously arguing that a religiously motivated military campaign (jihad) is justified? Is he hypocritically arguing that you shouldn’t use selective data to support one’s opinion yet does so to exonerate Urban II and his successors? Or is his objective of a more contemporary nature? A backhanded justification for the West’s (primarily America’s) response to recent Islamic fundamentalist terrorism? If so, then the facts of his own book doesn’t support his interpretation. If anything, they argue against a military response: Despite better technology and amazing logistical capability on the part of the European princes, no Crusade after the first achieved any lasting success and most were utter debacles*).
*The Fourth Crusade, indeed, perpetrated one of the worst cultural and political crimes in medieval history – the sacking of Constantinople and the utter ruin of the Byzantine state, threatening nary a Saracen.
When Stark sticks to the facts and doesn’t attempt any interpretation, he’s generally spot on. It’s his interpretations that I found fault with in his latest work. I am still amazed and enthralled by The Rise of Christianity How the Obscure Marginal Jesus Movement Became the Dominant Religious Force ..... He marshaled ancient sources and applied modern sociological research on religious conversion to present a powerful case for how and why Christianity prospered even in the face of sporadic but usually fatal persecutions. And his description of life in ancient Antioch, in the same book, is still one of the most harrowing and interesting I’ve read. For the first 2/3rds of Discovering God The Origins of the Great Religions and the Evolution of Belief, he presents a cogent argument for how and why the concept of God developed across time. Then in the final 1/3rd, he begins proselytizing, abandoning the admirable evenhandedness of the first part to shill for the Christian version of deity, and he lost me.
In this book, too, Stark marshals the facts to lay out a mildly revisionist history that brings a more balanced viewpoint to the general reading public. I’ll cite two examples here: First, he debunks the notion of a “dark age” in Europe (already pretty thoroughly a relic in academe, starting with 19th century historiography!) but it never hurts to reemphasize the technological, economic and political innovations that were transforming ancient society from the 5th century on and earlier. He also correctly, IMO, points out that the brightest intellectual lights in the Islamic firmament were often Christians (though not Latin), Jews or otherwise non-Arabs, and that quite soon an intellectual rigidity set in which retarded any exploitation of their insights. He scants a similar, if later, phenomenon in Christianity – though in that case happily, the Church was too weak and intervened too late to do more than delay the advent of the modern world.
A second example is Stark’s corrective to the overly materialistic interpretation of the Crusades, which reduced the movement to a matter of economic and social factors forcing humans to act as they did. For many knights, going to the Holy Land was anything but in their best economic interests. But their zeal (fanaticism, to be less charitable) fueled both their personal ventures and profound economic and political changes in Medieval Europe.
There are some indications of a less-than-complete grasp of regional histories as, for example, when Stark mentions the “oddity” of Charlemagne attacking the Basque (Christian) city of Pamplona in 778. Knowledge of the enmity between the Basques of northern Spain and the Franks of southern France may have made the soon-to-be emperor’s actions less “odd.” Or there is the arbitrary decision to exclude the non-Levantine crusades (i.e., the Reconquista or the Albigensian Crusade) as unrepresentative of the “true” Crusading movement, which goes unjustified.
As a corrective to overly materialistic interpretations of the Crusades, Stark deserves at least 3 stars, and general readers could do worse than to learn a bit about the period from this book.** However, for his conspiracy theories of malfeasance and his (possible) attempt to justify modern “crusades,” he loses a star.
**They might be better served, however, by reading experts in the field like Steven Runciman’s A History of the Crusades, vols. 1-3, dated in many respects but still a brilliant, exciting, well written narrative of the campaigns; Kenneth Setton; or Christopher Tyerman’s recent God's War A New History of the Crusades. And, while Wikipedia is never to be trusted as a source itself, the bibliography sections of the Crusade entries can direct interested parties to interesting books (e.g., http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_cr...).
A final thought that has nothing to do with my praises, objections or opinions of the book but which came to me as I was reading: Stark’s discussion of why Crusaders took up the cross and justified their actions reminded me of Wendy Doniger’s discussion of a similar moral dilemma that faced the kshatriya caste in her book The Hindus - see my review: http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/52.... In the “Bhagavad Gita,” Krishna explains to Arjuna that though the warrior’s dharma (to commit acts of violence and murder in service to his ruler) goes against general dharma and accumulates bad karma, the warrior who can act (karma) without desire (kama) can satisfy both dharmas and avoid bad karma. It seems to me that, in a similar vein, Christianity resolved the problem of controlling its warrior class with theories of “just wars” and plenary absolution of sins committed.
February 26, 2010
Perhaps a better title would be something like Don’t Allow the Crusades to be Thoughtlessly Added to a Parade of Christian Horribles without Knowing More about It, but I wanted to get your attention.
Rodney Stark’s God’s Batallions is an outstanding book designed to help the educated reader (not only the academic reader) understand the Crusades. You know the routine. You want to talk about Christianity and the village atheist wonders just how you are getting past the horrors of the Crusades and the Inquisition. This book answers the question with regard to the Crusades. Stark brilliantly explains how the Crusades started, what happened in the course of events, and why they finally ended. All in all, the western church comes off pretty sympathetically. Readers who know Stark find it easy to trust him because he always questions excessive claims and makes sure to back his own assertions up with data.
What becomes clear is that the Crusades failed for three reasons.
First, despite the fact that the westerners regularly decimated their Muslim rivals in combat thanks to superior tactics and technology, they were always on the wrong end of a numbers game. The western armies arrived in the Holy Land already diminished from disease and harrying attacks along the way. They never had large enough armies to begin with. And whenever they secured their objectives, a substantial number of troops and/or nobles would return home leaving ridiculously small numbers to hold on, which amazingly, they did for decades at a time.
Second, Crusading was expensive. Although it has been suggested the Crusades were about wealth, nobles didn’t get rich on them. They borrowed, scraped, and imposed heavy taxes just to be able to afford equipping, paying, and feeding their armies. When they captured an area, the land was not revenue-producing in the same way their European farm land was.
Third, the Byzantines never came through with the help they promised. Crusaders regularly expected help from the Comnenus family of rulers which began the Crusades by appealing to the pope for help. But the help was virtually never forthcoming. Had the Byzantine empire allied itself with the Crusaders, the Holy Land might still be in Christian hands today.
Read for yourself. I found the book highly enjoyable. Rodney Stark has reached the point to which many academics aspire. He writes about things that interest him for a mass audience with the aid of a major publishing company (Harper). And the books come to us rather than sitting staidly in university libraries.
Rodney Stark’s God’s Batallions is an outstanding book designed to help the educated reader (not only the academic reader) understand the Crusades. You know the routine. You want to talk about Christianity and the village atheist wonders just how you are getting past the horrors of the Crusades and the Inquisition. This book answers the question with regard to the Crusades. Stark brilliantly explains how the Crusades started, what happened in the course of events, and why they finally ended. All in all, the western church comes off pretty sympathetically. Readers who know Stark find it easy to trust him because he always questions excessive claims and makes sure to back his own assertions up with data.
What becomes clear is that the Crusades failed for three reasons.
First, despite the fact that the westerners regularly decimated their Muslim rivals in combat thanks to superior tactics and technology, they were always on the wrong end of a numbers game. The western armies arrived in the Holy Land already diminished from disease and harrying attacks along the way. They never had large enough armies to begin with. And whenever they secured their objectives, a substantial number of troops and/or nobles would return home leaving ridiculously small numbers to hold on, which amazingly, they did for decades at a time.
Second, Crusading was expensive. Although it has been suggested the Crusades were about wealth, nobles didn’t get rich on them. They borrowed, scraped, and imposed heavy taxes just to be able to afford equipping, paying, and feeding their armies. When they captured an area, the land was not revenue-producing in the same way their European farm land was.
Third, the Byzantines never came through with the help they promised. Crusaders regularly expected help from the Comnenus family of rulers which began the Crusades by appealing to the pope for help. But the help was virtually never forthcoming. Had the Byzantine empire allied itself with the Crusaders, the Holy Land might still be in Christian hands today.
Read for yourself. I found the book highly enjoyable. Rodney Stark has reached the point to which many academics aspire. He writes about things that interest him for a mass audience with the aid of a major publishing company (Harper). And the books come to us rather than sitting staidly in university libraries.
July 15, 2019
This was an enjoyable book, and one that was very easy to carry on my recent journeys. In my perspective this isn’t really a book at all – it’s an extended essay published as a book and one that I would imagine to be a starting point for historians that want to find the truth about the Crusades. There are some bold truths to the battles of time and some realities of what the Crusades were and to what they have become in modern times. This being said, there must be a balanced approach to the considerations of events as they occurred. I will in a manner of speaking attempt to provide my own balance as I perceived this work.
Stark is a polemicist with an independent mind for seeking truth. He points out early how there was an apologist march (that was dubbed a reconciliation walk) in 1999 of Europeans wearing t-shirts that read in Arabic I apologize on the 900th Anniversary of the first Crusade to Jerusalem. The walk started in Germany and ended in the Holy Land. This was the first I read of the account of the article published in the New York Times in 1999. Each Crusade is referenced in this book. It was at times a bit overwhelming. The Crusades occur between the 11th and 13th centuries and with the end of the Crusades any modern-day attempt by apologists to state these were Europe’s first ways of attempting to colonize the Holy Land is refuted by the time period alone. The Crusades were called for to ensure protection of pilgrims seeking to visit the location of the birth and death of Jesus Christ. Jerusalem was not considered a holy site by Islam until after the Crusades began. In the early 8th century there was a slaughter of Christian Monks and pilgrims, a ransacking of the monastery in Jerusalem, and a continuation of the same slaughtering that caused for a calling to protect the pilgrims who wanted to visit the Holy Christian locations. What is missing in this work was the specific calling from the Saint John’s Hospitallers who asked the Pope to intervene. Many myths and objectionable current day beliefs were successfully dispelled.
What is lacking in the extended essay turned book was the following: A shortened book from an extended essay such as this does nothing to provide a deeper analysis to the total time frame it covers. On many of the battles that occur within the two centuries I found myself feeling empty or inadequate on detail – generalizations of outcomes do nothing when attempting to locate the strategy employed. The goal may have been to protect the Holy Land and pilgrims and Monks, but too many short cuts were taken in the process on battle information – for me, this was a disappointment.
The art work within the book is appropriate, historically factual and I did find one to be so interesting that I hope to gain a print of it and hang it in my home office one day soon.
The extended essay turned short book gets two stars – I cannot in good conscience muster more than this.
Stark is a polemicist with an independent mind for seeking truth. He points out early how there was an apologist march (that was dubbed a reconciliation walk) in 1999 of Europeans wearing t-shirts that read in Arabic I apologize on the 900th Anniversary of the first Crusade to Jerusalem. The walk started in Germany and ended in the Holy Land. This was the first I read of the account of the article published in the New York Times in 1999. Each Crusade is referenced in this book. It was at times a bit overwhelming. The Crusades occur between the 11th and 13th centuries and with the end of the Crusades any modern-day attempt by apologists to state these were Europe’s first ways of attempting to colonize the Holy Land is refuted by the time period alone. The Crusades were called for to ensure protection of pilgrims seeking to visit the location of the birth and death of Jesus Christ. Jerusalem was not considered a holy site by Islam until after the Crusades began. In the early 8th century there was a slaughter of Christian Monks and pilgrims, a ransacking of the monastery in Jerusalem, and a continuation of the same slaughtering that caused for a calling to protect the pilgrims who wanted to visit the Holy Christian locations. What is missing in this work was the specific calling from the Saint John’s Hospitallers who asked the Pope to intervene. Many myths and objectionable current day beliefs were successfully dispelled.
What is lacking in the extended essay turned book was the following: A shortened book from an extended essay such as this does nothing to provide a deeper analysis to the total time frame it covers. On many of the battles that occur within the two centuries I found myself feeling empty or inadequate on detail – generalizations of outcomes do nothing when attempting to locate the strategy employed. The goal may have been to protect the Holy Land and pilgrims and Monks, but too many short cuts were taken in the process on battle information – for me, this was a disappointment.
The art work within the book is appropriate, historically factual and I did find one to be so interesting that I hope to gain a print of it and hang it in my home office one day soon.
The extended essay turned short book gets two stars – I cannot in good conscience muster more than this.
August 14, 2016
Rodney Stark’s rollicking and highly accessible account of the Crusades serves as an eye-opener to its readers. In it, Stark clears away many modern misconceptions about the Crusades, such as false claims that the Christian soldiers were savages whereas the Muslims were enlightened and peaceful and that the Crusader forays into the Holy Land were the first attempts of European colonialism. Stark dismisses such allegations as absurd. Indeed, he declares that Muslim bitterness regarding the Crusades is an invention of the twentieth century.
Stark presents a broad summary of the five major Crusades. He begins by laying out the context in which the Crusades eventually erupted, including aggressive Muslim campaigns against the weakened Byzantine Empire. Stark demonstrates that the Muslims had imposed harsh conditions on their newly-conquered Christian subjects, including exorbitant taxes and forms of humiliation (e.g. not being allowed to pray either in public or private). He devotes more time to the First Crusade than all subsequent battles but the reader is given a concise outline of the major figures and battles that were fought. The Byzantines, beginning with the reign of Alexius Comnenos, are vilified and depicted as scheming backstabbers (Alexius, Manuel and Isaac bear the brunt of this criticism; they either reneged on agreements to help the Western Christians, treated them with animosity or signed pacts with the Muslims AGAINST the Crusaders). As well, Stark reveals the ineptitude of certain leaders who had no clue how to manage their armies or draw up military strategies, such as Cardinal Pelagius.
Some intriguing gleanings I gained from this book was that the Knights Templars and Knights Hospitallers (who still exist as the Knights of Malta) were able to acquire enormous wealth and play a major part in European economic affairs, which partly led to their downfall as envious rulers sought after their riches. Also, while I had heard of Bernard of Clairvaux, I did not know he was such a significant figure; Stark intimates that he may have even been more influential than the pope. This can be seen from his role in helping to establish the Knights Templars as well as his propaganda efforts to rally support for the Second Crusade and his impassioned defense of the Jews during a spate of anti-Semitic massacres.
While this is a great book, Stark summarizes the most important information in his later publication, “The Triumph of Christianity.” Stark should have included far more maps in order to help the reader understand the different Crusade and Muslim routes and advances.
Stark presents a broad summary of the five major Crusades. He begins by laying out the context in which the Crusades eventually erupted, including aggressive Muslim campaigns against the weakened Byzantine Empire. Stark demonstrates that the Muslims had imposed harsh conditions on their newly-conquered Christian subjects, including exorbitant taxes and forms of humiliation (e.g. not being allowed to pray either in public or private). He devotes more time to the First Crusade than all subsequent battles but the reader is given a concise outline of the major figures and battles that were fought. The Byzantines, beginning with the reign of Alexius Comnenos, are vilified and depicted as scheming backstabbers (Alexius, Manuel and Isaac bear the brunt of this criticism; they either reneged on agreements to help the Western Christians, treated them with animosity or signed pacts with the Muslims AGAINST the Crusaders). As well, Stark reveals the ineptitude of certain leaders who had no clue how to manage their armies or draw up military strategies, such as Cardinal Pelagius.
Some intriguing gleanings I gained from this book was that the Knights Templars and Knights Hospitallers (who still exist as the Knights of Malta) were able to acquire enormous wealth and play a major part in European economic affairs, which partly led to their downfall as envious rulers sought after their riches. Also, while I had heard of Bernard of Clairvaux, I did not know he was such a significant figure; Stark intimates that he may have even been more influential than the pope. This can be seen from his role in helping to establish the Knights Templars as well as his propaganda efforts to rally support for the Second Crusade and his impassioned defense of the Jews during a spate of anti-Semitic massacres.
While this is a great book, Stark summarizes the most important information in his later publication, “The Triumph of Christianity.” Stark should have included far more maps in order to help the reader understand the different Crusade and Muslim routes and advances.
October 30, 2015
I know a book is superb, when the data presented opens up my eyes to new perspectives that I had not encountered before in my education and reading. Rodney Stark makes a thoroughly referenced case for the rationale and motivation of the Crusades. In contrast to the message I encountered in school, Stark argues convincingly that:
"The Crusades were not unprovoked. They were not the first round of European colonialism. They were not conducted for land, loot, or converts." (page 348).
Particularly troubling for me was Stark's evidence that modern scholarship deliberately overlooks many atrocities directed at Christians and citizens in Christian centres such as Baibars's treacherous massacres of Christian and Crusader populations even after surrender agreements had been pledged (inter alia see for example page 232).
I can only suggest you read this book and weigh the evidence for yourself. It is well worth the read and will serve to counter balance much of the one-sided information that is taught about this important era in history today.
"The Crusades were not unprovoked. They were not the first round of European colonialism. They were not conducted for land, loot, or converts." (page 348).
Particularly troubling for me was Stark's evidence that modern scholarship deliberately overlooks many atrocities directed at Christians and citizens in Christian centres such as Baibars's treacherous massacres of Christian and Crusader populations even after surrender agreements had been pledged (inter alia see for example page 232).
I can only suggest you read this book and weigh the evidence for yourself. It is well worth the read and will serve to counter balance much of the one-sided information that is taught about this important era in history today.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
April 26, 2011
This book serves two useful purposes:
(1) It is a good short, readable history of the crusades. If you don't know much about the period, it's a good introduction. Stark relates an excellent overview of the history, culture, and military realities of the era. This is pretty straightforward so I'll leave it at that.
(2) The clear goal of this book is to explain the motivations of the crusaders. The "pop culture" understanding of the crusades today is that it was an unprovoked attack on Arabs by Europeans. Depending on who's telling the story, it was either a bunch of Christian religious fanatics who saw it as their pious duty to massacre Muslims out of intolerance, or religion had nothing to do with it and it was all an effort to steal land and exploit it for profit. Or both.
Stark points out that this makes no sense. The immediate cause of the crusades was that Muslims attacked the Christian city of Constantinople, and the people of Constantinople sent out an appeal for help to the rest of Europe. In the longer term, the Muslims had invaded and conquered huge tracts of land that were populated by Christians, and massacred and/or enslaved the inhabitants. (Including north Africa, Syria, and Turkey -- once Christian places -- and Spain and Italy.) By the time of the First Crusade, Europe was finally mustering the strength and resolve to fight back. The war wasn't started by the Christians: it was started by the Muslims. When Muslims complain about the Crusaders invading the Middle East, what they are saying is that when they invade a country, it is grossly immoral and unjust for that country to fight back.
He also explains that the Crusaders could not have been motivated by greed because the Crusades were not a profitable enterprise by any measure. Building an army, transporting it to the Middle East, supplying and maintaining it were hugely expensive. The lands they conquered or tried to conquer were not particularly wealthy. No one got rich from being a Crusader, and quite a few bankrupted themselves and their families. Not to mention that the majority of the Crusaders died in the effort -- at one point Stark says that only 10% of the people who started out in the First Crusade reached Jerusalem. Some number of these turned back and went home, but most died in battle or from the hardships of the campaign, starvation, disease, etc. I suppose someone could reply to Stark that even if the Crusaders didn't get rich, maybe they thought they would. But the Crusades stretched over hundreds of years. Surely if what people were after was money, after they saw that the first few tens of thousands of people had not gotten rich but instead died terrible deaths, enthusiams would have tapered off rapidly.
On the minuses:
(1) There's a lot of discussion of specific places and routes in this book. This army marched along such-and-such a route and a battle was fought in this city and so on. But there are only a few maps and most of these have little detail. I think I have a fairly good knowledge of geography, but I certainly don't know the name and location of every small town in the Middle East in AD 1090.
(2) The book is almost entirely from the Crusader's point of view. I don't mean "pro-Crusader" here, though it is that. I mean, I think it would have been helpful if he had included more discussion of what was going on in the Muslim side. Maybe this is an unfair criticism: maybe that just wasn't the author's purpose or would have made the book longer than he wanted.
(3) At a few points Stark defends the Crusaders with the argument that some action violates our standards today but was accepted at the time. Most notably, he offers this defense for killing the inhabitants of a city after a succesful siege. Personally I don't buy this argument. Even if it's true that "everybody was doing it", that doesn't make it right.
(1) It is a good short, readable history of the crusades. If you don't know much about the period, it's a good introduction. Stark relates an excellent overview of the history, culture, and military realities of the era. This is pretty straightforward so I'll leave it at that.
(2) The clear goal of this book is to explain the motivations of the crusaders. The "pop culture" understanding of the crusades today is that it was an unprovoked attack on Arabs by Europeans. Depending on who's telling the story, it was either a bunch of Christian religious fanatics who saw it as their pious duty to massacre Muslims out of intolerance, or religion had nothing to do with it and it was all an effort to steal land and exploit it for profit. Or both.
Stark points out that this makes no sense. The immediate cause of the crusades was that Muslims attacked the Christian city of Constantinople, and the people of Constantinople sent out an appeal for help to the rest of Europe. In the longer term, the Muslims had invaded and conquered huge tracts of land that were populated by Christians, and massacred and/or enslaved the inhabitants. (Including north Africa, Syria, and Turkey -- once Christian places -- and Spain and Italy.) By the time of the First Crusade, Europe was finally mustering the strength and resolve to fight back. The war wasn't started by the Christians: it was started by the Muslims. When Muslims complain about the Crusaders invading the Middle East, what they are saying is that when they invade a country, it is grossly immoral and unjust for that country to fight back.
He also explains that the Crusaders could not have been motivated by greed because the Crusades were not a profitable enterprise by any measure. Building an army, transporting it to the Middle East, supplying and maintaining it were hugely expensive. The lands they conquered or tried to conquer were not particularly wealthy. No one got rich from being a Crusader, and quite a few bankrupted themselves and their families. Not to mention that the majority of the Crusaders died in the effort -- at one point Stark says that only 10% of the people who started out in the First Crusade reached Jerusalem. Some number of these turned back and went home, but most died in battle or from the hardships of the campaign, starvation, disease, etc. I suppose someone could reply to Stark that even if the Crusaders didn't get rich, maybe they thought they would. But the Crusades stretched over hundreds of years. Surely if what people were after was money, after they saw that the first few tens of thousands of people had not gotten rich but instead died terrible deaths, enthusiams would have tapered off rapidly.
On the minuses:
(1) There's a lot of discussion of specific places and routes in this book. This army marched along such-and-such a route and a battle was fought in this city and so on. But there are only a few maps and most of these have little detail. I think I have a fairly good knowledge of geography, but I certainly don't know the name and location of every small town in the Middle East in AD 1090.
(2) The book is almost entirely from the Crusader's point of view. I don't mean "pro-Crusader" here, though it is that. I mean, I think it would have been helpful if he had included more discussion of what was going on in the Muslim side. Maybe this is an unfair criticism: maybe that just wasn't the author's purpose or would have made the book longer than he wanted.
(3) At a few points Stark defends the Crusaders with the argument that some action violates our standards today but was accepted at the time. Most notably, he offers this defense for killing the inhabitants of a city after a succesful siege. Personally I don't buy this argument. Even if it's true that "everybody was doing it", that doesn't make it right.
January 13, 2010
It's such a joy to find a book that doesn't seek to downplay or denigrate the Christian history of the West and the Middle East. Stark takes us into the reasons of the Crusades by relating the attacks and massacres of Christian pilgrims to the Holy Places. The Crusades and their so-called barbarity are put into the context of the time and the practice of war and diplomacy.
The relationship between the Latin church, the Orthodox church, the Western Kingdoms, the Byzantine empire and the Islamic world is wonderfully told. Enough information to enlighten but not too much to create a turgid narrative. The diplomacy, negotiation and intrigue involved in the preparation and continuation of the Crusades is fascinating to read.
The summing up also looks at how the historical accuracy of the Crusading period has been manipulated and used by West and East to fit their own desired version of history.
It's only January but for me this will be the book of the year.
The relationship between the Latin church, the Orthodox church, the Western Kingdoms, the Byzantine empire and the Islamic world is wonderfully told. Enough information to enlighten but not too much to create a turgid narrative. The diplomacy, negotiation and intrigue involved in the preparation and continuation of the Crusades is fascinating to read.
The summing up also looks at how the historical accuracy of the Crusading period has been manipulated and used by West and East to fit their own desired version of history.
It's only January but for me this will be the book of the year.
April 15, 2016
A fascinating polemic in which the 'traditional' anti-Western pacificist interpretation of the Crusades is aggressively challenged--and with good reason.
As a polemic it overstates its case on occasion and the reader may find themselves rolling their eyes, but for the most part this is an excellent 'corrective' to the overstated case of 'traditional', mainstream, anti-Western, pacifist,academic historiographers.
Highly Recommended.
As a polemic it overstates its case on occasion and the reader may find themselves rolling their eyes, but for the most part this is an excellent 'corrective' to the overstated case of 'traditional', mainstream, anti-Western, pacifist,academic historiographers.
Highly Recommended.
September 9, 2010
This book's aim is to justify the actions of the crusaders by contextualizing their mission and then to give their side of the story in an age that is unwilling to admit the crusaders were justified in their mission. That isn't to say that it was wise or proper, or even moral. But the cause was certainly defensible. Muslims had overrun former Byzantine territory, slaughtering Christians, terrorizing pilgrims, and invading Europe and threatening Byzantium. Europeans took the offensive and fought back against the Jihadists.
Stark is fair and balanced presenting both sides of the conflict--giving credit where it is due, and blame to those that abused their power and authority. The crusades were a fascinating time and Stark shows how poorly understood the Medieval era is and has been for centuries. Any with an interest in history will enjoy this book.
Stark is fair and balanced presenting both sides of the conflict--giving credit where it is due, and blame to those that abused their power and authority. The crusades were a fascinating time and Stark shows how poorly understood the Medieval era is and has been for centuries. Any with an interest in history will enjoy this book.
February 22, 2015
I like this book with reservations. On the one hand, it does address the imbalance of anti-crusader sentiment. It doesn't really whitewash or justify the crusades, but it does point to some valid points that help dispel the idea that they were completely unprovoked, a view that has come into vogue over the past century. Stark's agenda is very pro-Christian, or comes across as such, and it feels anti-Muslim, but that doesn't prevent him from making some good points about the correct sequence and prioritization of certain events leading up to, simultaneous with, and proceeding from the Crusades. It is worth reading with a critical eye.
March 7, 2021
Very good. We've been sold a bill of goods about how entirely bad the Crusades were. I found Stark's argument persuasive that they were instead a mixed bag of justified and unjustified, justly carried out and unjustly carried out, and mostly just sad. I got lost sometimes in the barrage of dates and names and battles and places, not to mention politics and military strategies, but that's par for the course with me.
The narrator was good.
The narrator was good.
October 10, 2014
Well-Founded Refutation of Popular Misconceptions
God’s Battalions by Rodney Stark
This well-researched book with its profuse bibliography and copious notes is not a history of the crusades. Nor is it, as some reviewers suggest, an apology for the crusades. Rather this is an extended essay which refutes a number of common myths or outdated theories about the crusades and the crusader states. Stark is not a polemicist, but a professor at Baylor University, who has published extensively on religion and sociology. In short, he is a scholar intent on paring away legend and prejudice to enable academic and popular discourse shaped by fact not fiction. Any serious scholar of the crusades and the crusader states should start with this book — and then get on with their actual research unencumbered with false notions. Even more important, this ought to be required reading in all classes that touch on the topic of the crusades.
Stark systematically dissects and destroys the following notions about the crusades that still dominate public perceptions and debate.
1. The idea that the crusaders were aggressors, who fell upon peace-loving and tolerant Muslim states without provocation.
2. The equally anachronistic idea that the crusades were an early form of European colonialism.
3. The claim that Jerusalem was particularly “holy” to Muslims in the period before the Crusades.
4. The thesis that crusaders were primarily motivated by greed.
5. The portrayal of crusaders as uncultivated barbarians fighting a “higher” civilization in the Muslim east.
6. The assertion that the Christians conducted warfare in ways that were more brutal and cruel than their enemies.
7. The myth that the Muslim rulers were more tolerant of other religions — and their own heretics — than Christian rulers.
8. The thesis that Western/Latin crusaders fell upon Constantinople without provocation and “destroyed” the city without cause.
9. The notion that bitterness over the crusades persisted (despite the Muslim’s complete and utter victory over the Crusader States in the second half of the 13th century) to the present day.
Stark starts by cataloguing the long list of Muslim conquests against Christian states and peoples from Syria and North Africa to Armenia, Spain and Southern France, but he also provides a chilling list of mass murders of Christian monks and pilgrims — each with dates and numbers: 70 Christian pilgrims executed in Caesura for refusing to convert to Islam and 60 crucified in Jerusalem in the early eighth century, the sack and slaughter of the monastery near Bethlehem in the later eighth century, the destruction of two nearby churches gradually escalating to multiple attacks on churches, convents and monasteries in and around Jerusalem including mass rapes in 808 and 813, a new wave of atrocities in 923, the destruction of an estimated 30,000 (yes, thirty-thousand) Christian churches including the Church of the Holy Sepulcher in 1009. So much for Muslim “tolerance.”
Stark also brings considerable evidence that the alleged “superiority” of Muslim/Arab culture was largely based on accomplishments of Persian, Jewish, Indian and, indeed, Christian scholars living under Muslim rule. Thus the alleged mathematical superiority of the Arabs came from the Hindus, the great libraries and legacy of learning came from the Greeks, Arab medicine was, Stark argues, “Nestorian Christian” in origin and so on. He then contends that the Christian west was anything but “backward” and the so-called “Dark Ages” is a misnomer that says more about the ignorance of historians than the state of civilization in the period between the fall of Rome and the First Crusade. Stark points out that the military technology of the crusaders — from stirrups, horseshoes and crossbows to the devastatingly effective “Greek Fire” — was markedly superior to the military technology of their opponents. But it wasn’t just in military matters that the crusaders were ahead of the Saracens. In the fields of agricultural, land-transportation and nautical technology, Western technology also significantly out-stripped that of the Middle East.
Stark is perhaps at his best in documenting the many times that Muslim victors slaughtered the garrisons and inhabitants of conquered cities — long before the first crusaders even set out from Europe. He points out the hyperbole in popular accounts of the fall of Jerusalem in the First Crusade as well. But he is most effective in countering the myth of Muslim chivalry is his account of the fall of the Kingdom of Jerusalem in the second half of the 13th Century, where time and again the Mamluk leaders broke their word and enslaved or massacred those to whom they had promised freedom and life. One quote from a primary, Muslim source about the sack of the great Roman city of Antioch should suffice to make this point. The source is a letter to the Prince of Antioch (who had not be present in his city to defend it) by none other than the Muslim Sultan himself. Sultan Baibars gloated: “You would have seen your Muslim enemy trampling on the place where you celebrate Mass, cutting the throats of monks, priests and deacons upon the altars, bringing sudden death to the Patriarchs and slavery to the royal princes. You would have seen fire running through your palaces, your dead burned in this world before going down to the fires of the next.” Ah, yes, Saracen “chivalry” at its best indeed.
The book does have its weaknesses, of course. Stark is covering far too great a canvas to provide any analysis or detail. His book is structured as a rebuttal to unfounded allegations and theses, but for the most part he does not provide alternative theses. Certainly, he does not describe personalities and their impact on events except in some rare instances. His explanations of developments are often facile, and occasionally he falls into outright errors. (For example, he claims plate armor was so heavy a knight needed a crane to mount his horse; in reality it was much lighter than chainmail and a knight in his prime could vault onto his horse without use of a stirrup much less a crane. ) But the bottom line is that this book does what it sets out to do: it destroys a whole series of insidious myths that turn the crusades into an excuse for all subsequent barbarity; it clears the way for a more productive debate based on fact rather than falsehood.
God’s Battalions by Rodney Stark
This well-researched book with its profuse bibliography and copious notes is not a history of the crusades. Nor is it, as some reviewers suggest, an apology for the crusades. Rather this is an extended essay which refutes a number of common myths or outdated theories about the crusades and the crusader states. Stark is not a polemicist, but a professor at Baylor University, who has published extensively on religion and sociology. In short, he is a scholar intent on paring away legend and prejudice to enable academic and popular discourse shaped by fact not fiction. Any serious scholar of the crusades and the crusader states should start with this book — and then get on with their actual research unencumbered with false notions. Even more important, this ought to be required reading in all classes that touch on the topic of the crusades.
Stark systematically dissects and destroys the following notions about the crusades that still dominate public perceptions and debate.
1. The idea that the crusaders were aggressors, who fell upon peace-loving and tolerant Muslim states without provocation.
2. The equally anachronistic idea that the crusades were an early form of European colonialism.
3. The claim that Jerusalem was particularly “holy” to Muslims in the period before the Crusades.
4. The thesis that crusaders were primarily motivated by greed.
5. The portrayal of crusaders as uncultivated barbarians fighting a “higher” civilization in the Muslim east.
6. The assertion that the Christians conducted warfare in ways that were more brutal and cruel than their enemies.
7. The myth that the Muslim rulers were more tolerant of other religions — and their own heretics — than Christian rulers.
8. The thesis that Western/Latin crusaders fell upon Constantinople without provocation and “destroyed” the city without cause.
9. The notion that bitterness over the crusades persisted (despite the Muslim’s complete and utter victory over the Crusader States in the second half of the 13th century) to the present day.
Stark starts by cataloguing the long list of Muslim conquests against Christian states and peoples from Syria and North Africa to Armenia, Spain and Southern France, but he also provides a chilling list of mass murders of Christian monks and pilgrims — each with dates and numbers: 70 Christian pilgrims executed in Caesura for refusing to convert to Islam and 60 crucified in Jerusalem in the early eighth century, the sack and slaughter of the monastery near Bethlehem in the later eighth century, the destruction of two nearby churches gradually escalating to multiple attacks on churches, convents and monasteries in and around Jerusalem including mass rapes in 808 and 813, a new wave of atrocities in 923, the destruction of an estimated 30,000 (yes, thirty-thousand) Christian churches including the Church of the Holy Sepulcher in 1009. So much for Muslim “tolerance.”
Stark also brings considerable evidence that the alleged “superiority” of Muslim/Arab culture was largely based on accomplishments of Persian, Jewish, Indian and, indeed, Christian scholars living under Muslim rule. Thus the alleged mathematical superiority of the Arabs came from the Hindus, the great libraries and legacy of learning came from the Greeks, Arab medicine was, Stark argues, “Nestorian Christian” in origin and so on. He then contends that the Christian west was anything but “backward” and the so-called “Dark Ages” is a misnomer that says more about the ignorance of historians than the state of civilization in the period between the fall of Rome and the First Crusade. Stark points out that the military technology of the crusaders — from stirrups, horseshoes and crossbows to the devastatingly effective “Greek Fire” — was markedly superior to the military technology of their opponents. But it wasn’t just in military matters that the crusaders were ahead of the Saracens. In the fields of agricultural, land-transportation and nautical technology, Western technology also significantly out-stripped that of the Middle East.
Stark is perhaps at his best in documenting the many times that Muslim victors slaughtered the garrisons and inhabitants of conquered cities — long before the first crusaders even set out from Europe. He points out the hyperbole in popular accounts of the fall of Jerusalem in the First Crusade as well. But he is most effective in countering the myth of Muslim chivalry is his account of the fall of the Kingdom of Jerusalem in the second half of the 13th Century, where time and again the Mamluk leaders broke their word and enslaved or massacred those to whom they had promised freedom and life. One quote from a primary, Muslim source about the sack of the great Roman city of Antioch should suffice to make this point. The source is a letter to the Prince of Antioch (who had not be present in his city to defend it) by none other than the Muslim Sultan himself. Sultan Baibars gloated: “You would have seen your Muslim enemy trampling on the place where you celebrate Mass, cutting the throats of monks, priests and deacons upon the altars, bringing sudden death to the Patriarchs and slavery to the royal princes. You would have seen fire running through your palaces, your dead burned in this world before going down to the fires of the next.” Ah, yes, Saracen “chivalry” at its best indeed.
The book does have its weaknesses, of course. Stark is covering far too great a canvas to provide any analysis or detail. His book is structured as a rebuttal to unfounded allegations and theses, but for the most part he does not provide alternative theses. Certainly, he does not describe personalities and their impact on events except in some rare instances. His explanations of developments are often facile, and occasionally he falls into outright errors. (For example, he claims plate armor was so heavy a knight needed a crane to mount his horse; in reality it was much lighter than chainmail and a knight in his prime could vault onto his horse without use of a stirrup much less a crane. ) But the bottom line is that this book does what it sets out to do: it destroys a whole series of insidious myths that turn the crusades into an excuse for all subsequent barbarity; it clears the way for a more productive debate based on fact rather than falsehood.
December 10, 2015
Well, that was crap. This thing is so rife with contradictions, half-truths and fallacies that in all honesty, I can't work up the energy to give it a proper review at this point, the reading of it having exhausted my patience for sorting through half-assed political tripe. Maybe later. Maybe never. At this point, all I'll say is there's no good reason to read this book. Not even as an exercise in propaganda or callow, self-serving bigotry, or to get an idea on what the latest is among the anti-scholarly crowd. There are better, more astute versions of that out there, and this particular installment is a lackluster exercise at best. If you're interested in the Crusades, the crusaders or the period then you're better off just going to the established historians on the subject--who are, incidentally, the real target of Stark's meta-history. Don't bother with this thing.
December 5, 2013
Rodney Stark's "God's Battalions: The Case for the Crusades" is a minor masterpiece. I've never read another book that performs this book's very tough task this well: taking a massive amount of data, on a very complicated topic, and reducing it to a reader-friendly, briskly-paced, 248-page book that an amateur could read in a few enjoyable sittings.
To write this book, Rodney Stark had to master a library full of material: the history of medieval Europe, the history of Islam, battle strategies, technology, theology, and more. He had to winnow all that data until only the bare facts, needed by an interested amateur, remained.
Stark doesn't just tell you the history of the Crusades in a pocket-sized form. He also tells you how this history has been twisted to suit the political crusades of polemicists who hate Western Civilization and the Catholic Church.
At every turn in his text, Stark tells the reader what really happened, and what powerful, Christophobic voices insisted happened. He cites by name historians and commentators who have distorted the history of the Crusades in order to sell a tawdry bigotry against Christians.
These commentators include Bill Clinton, who blamed 9-11 on the Crusades, pop celebrity "scholars" ex-nun and ex-priest Karen Armstrong and James Carroll, who both overtly distort history to serve nefarious ends, and Enlightenment authors like Voltaire and Diderot. Sadly, those who distort the Crusades include Protestants maligning the big, bad, Catholic Church.
Perhaps the most egregious example of this kind of perverse distortion of history is Cambridge historian Steven Runciman saying, "There was a never a greater crime against humanity than the Fourth Crusade," in reference to the Sack of Byzantium.
The Sack of Byzantium was a tragic event, but Stark places it in context. It was prompted by repeated Byzantine betrayals of Crusaders, and it was a relatively mild sack in the context of the times. What makes Runciman's comment all the more despicable is that he wrote these words within six years of the discovery of the Nazi Holocaust that took the lives of six million Jews and millions of non-Jews. The world was still reeling from knowledge of Auschwitz when a Cambridge historian called the Fourth Crusade the worst thing that ever happened. Sheesh.
The first 98 pages of Stark's book provide the historical events that caused the Crusades. In the seventh century, Arabs burst out of their peninsula. The decaying Roman and Persian empires were no match for them. By 711, jihad had reached Spain. By 732 and the Battle of Tours-Poitiers, jihad was near Paris, France. Jihad would reach Rome, and southern Italy would be Muslim territory for two hundred years.
Egypt, Africa, the Middle East and Turkey had been Christian, Jewish, and Pagan. It took centuries for many of these places to become majority Muslim. Non-Muslims living under Muslim rulers were mistreated. Pilgrims to Jerusalem were robbed, tortured, and massacred in large numbers. Christian holy places were desecrated – Muslims defecated on altars, and splashed them with the blood of Christians.
The church of the Holy Sepulcher, where Jesus was placed after crucifixion, was completely destroyed. Its foundations were gauged down to bedrock and carted away. Such maniacal atrocities – indeed a cultural and biological genocide directed against Christians – went on for centuries. Christendom had the choice of fighting back or submitting to the sword. Christendom heeded Augustine's teachings on just war and fought for its life.
In demonstrating the inevitability of the Crusades as a military response to jihad, Stark does nothing to whitewash every aspect of the Crusades. He exposes all the ugliness of war, on all sides. Stark's Crusaders are often complete lunatics, misguided, sloppy, even genocidal themselves, as when some of them turn on Jews in Europe. Not just Jews. In the Wendish Crusade, Germans and Poles participated in a campaign against pagan Slavs until they were "converted or deleted." This and the massacres of Jews were condemned by clerics who pointed out the contradiction between such campaigns and Christian teaching. Bishops and the pope protected Jews when they could.
Stark provides fascinating insights into the technology of war. After the Muslim conquest, the wheel disappeared from North Africa. Wheels required roads; Muslims preferred camels. European technology of the misnamed "Dark Ages" contributed to Europeans' battle successes.
Stark offers a much needed corrective to the invented concept of an "Islamic Golden Age" during which Islam produced great scholarship. What actually happened, Stark shows, is that advancing Arab armies co-opted the science and culture of the states they conquered. He cites many examples to support this.
Perhaps the most famous case is "Arabic" numerals, the numbers we use today. They aren't "Arabic" at all, but products of the Hindu civilization of the Indian subcontinent, a culture all but destroyed by the Muslim Conquest.
One prototypical Muslim structure, the Dome of the Rock, was built with non-Muslim architects using Byzantine plans. Baghdad was designed by a Zoroastrian and a Jew. "'Muslim' or 'Arab' medicine was in fact Nestorian Christian medicine." A Nestorian Christian supervised collection and translation of Ancient Greek manuscripts (60). Scribes and physicians were Christian (61).
Stark argues that as Islam became the predominant system of conquered territory, innovation ceased and decline set in. Stark points out that it was a Muslim historian who accused Muslims – whether accurately or not is unknown – of destroying the legendary, ancient library at Alexandria, using its books to heat bath water. It is a historical fact that Saladin closed the Cairo library and discarded its books.
The theological attitude demanded by the Koran – this is perfect, settled truth – became the attitude Muslims adopted to the Ancient Greeks. This was the incorrect approach – the Greeks were advancing questions and inviting debate. The "settled truth, not to be questioned" approach to Greek philosophy stifled the Muslim world (62-3).
Stark describes a medieval anti-war movement that sprang up in response to the Crusades. Some debated whether or not Christians could kill. Others were simply war weary. People didn't want to pay Crusader taxes.
One of the overwhelming senses I got from this book is that human life on earth is a giant cluster----. Murphy's Law and the Law of Unintended Consequences ultimately rule the day. The Crusaders went through massive amounts of wealth. They were often quite brave, Knights Templar vowing to fight to the death. Yet the Crusaders never achieved their long-term goal. Luck as much as skill or virtue seemed to be behind victories; laziness or stupidity was behind defeats. Christian v Muslim may have been the main event, but Christians betraying other Christians was a key subplot. Looking at the big picture, you don't think, "Wow, Bravo!" You think, "Gee I'm lucky to have been born in modern, peacetime America, and I have no idea what God makes of all this."
To write this book, Rodney Stark had to master a library full of material: the history of medieval Europe, the history of Islam, battle strategies, technology, theology, and more. He had to winnow all that data until only the bare facts, needed by an interested amateur, remained.
Stark doesn't just tell you the history of the Crusades in a pocket-sized form. He also tells you how this history has been twisted to suit the political crusades of polemicists who hate Western Civilization and the Catholic Church.
At every turn in his text, Stark tells the reader what really happened, and what powerful, Christophobic voices insisted happened. He cites by name historians and commentators who have distorted the history of the Crusades in order to sell a tawdry bigotry against Christians.
These commentators include Bill Clinton, who blamed 9-11 on the Crusades, pop celebrity "scholars" ex-nun and ex-priest Karen Armstrong and James Carroll, who both overtly distort history to serve nefarious ends, and Enlightenment authors like Voltaire and Diderot. Sadly, those who distort the Crusades include Protestants maligning the big, bad, Catholic Church.
Perhaps the most egregious example of this kind of perverse distortion of history is Cambridge historian Steven Runciman saying, "There was a never a greater crime against humanity than the Fourth Crusade," in reference to the Sack of Byzantium.
The Sack of Byzantium was a tragic event, but Stark places it in context. It was prompted by repeated Byzantine betrayals of Crusaders, and it was a relatively mild sack in the context of the times. What makes Runciman's comment all the more despicable is that he wrote these words within six years of the discovery of the Nazi Holocaust that took the lives of six million Jews and millions of non-Jews. The world was still reeling from knowledge of Auschwitz when a Cambridge historian called the Fourth Crusade the worst thing that ever happened. Sheesh.
The first 98 pages of Stark's book provide the historical events that caused the Crusades. In the seventh century, Arabs burst out of their peninsula. The decaying Roman and Persian empires were no match for them. By 711, jihad had reached Spain. By 732 and the Battle of Tours-Poitiers, jihad was near Paris, France. Jihad would reach Rome, and southern Italy would be Muslim territory for two hundred years.
Egypt, Africa, the Middle East and Turkey had been Christian, Jewish, and Pagan. It took centuries for many of these places to become majority Muslim. Non-Muslims living under Muslim rulers were mistreated. Pilgrims to Jerusalem were robbed, tortured, and massacred in large numbers. Christian holy places were desecrated – Muslims defecated on altars, and splashed them with the blood of Christians.
The church of the Holy Sepulcher, where Jesus was placed after crucifixion, was completely destroyed. Its foundations were gauged down to bedrock and carted away. Such maniacal atrocities – indeed a cultural and biological genocide directed against Christians – went on for centuries. Christendom had the choice of fighting back or submitting to the sword. Christendom heeded Augustine's teachings on just war and fought for its life.
In demonstrating the inevitability of the Crusades as a military response to jihad, Stark does nothing to whitewash every aspect of the Crusades. He exposes all the ugliness of war, on all sides. Stark's Crusaders are often complete lunatics, misguided, sloppy, even genocidal themselves, as when some of them turn on Jews in Europe. Not just Jews. In the Wendish Crusade, Germans and Poles participated in a campaign against pagan Slavs until they were "converted or deleted." This and the massacres of Jews were condemned by clerics who pointed out the contradiction between such campaigns and Christian teaching. Bishops and the pope protected Jews when they could.
Stark provides fascinating insights into the technology of war. After the Muslim conquest, the wheel disappeared from North Africa. Wheels required roads; Muslims preferred camels. European technology of the misnamed "Dark Ages" contributed to Europeans' battle successes.
Stark offers a much needed corrective to the invented concept of an "Islamic Golden Age" during which Islam produced great scholarship. What actually happened, Stark shows, is that advancing Arab armies co-opted the science and culture of the states they conquered. He cites many examples to support this.
Perhaps the most famous case is "Arabic" numerals, the numbers we use today. They aren't "Arabic" at all, but products of the Hindu civilization of the Indian subcontinent, a culture all but destroyed by the Muslim Conquest.
One prototypical Muslim structure, the Dome of the Rock, was built with non-Muslim architects using Byzantine plans. Baghdad was designed by a Zoroastrian and a Jew. "'Muslim' or 'Arab' medicine was in fact Nestorian Christian medicine." A Nestorian Christian supervised collection and translation of Ancient Greek manuscripts (60). Scribes and physicians were Christian (61).
Stark argues that as Islam became the predominant system of conquered territory, innovation ceased and decline set in. Stark points out that it was a Muslim historian who accused Muslims – whether accurately or not is unknown – of destroying the legendary, ancient library at Alexandria, using its books to heat bath water. It is a historical fact that Saladin closed the Cairo library and discarded its books.
The theological attitude demanded by the Koran – this is perfect, settled truth – became the attitude Muslims adopted to the Ancient Greeks. This was the incorrect approach – the Greeks were advancing questions and inviting debate. The "settled truth, not to be questioned" approach to Greek philosophy stifled the Muslim world (62-3).
Stark describes a medieval anti-war movement that sprang up in response to the Crusades. Some debated whether or not Christians could kill. Others were simply war weary. People didn't want to pay Crusader taxes.
One of the overwhelming senses I got from this book is that human life on earth is a giant cluster----. Murphy's Law and the Law of Unintended Consequences ultimately rule the day. The Crusaders went through massive amounts of wealth. They were often quite brave, Knights Templar vowing to fight to the death. Yet the Crusaders never achieved their long-term goal. Luck as much as skill or virtue seemed to be behind victories; laziness or stupidity was behind defeats. Christian v Muslim may have been the main event, but Christians betraying other Christians was a key subplot. Looking at the big picture, you don't think, "Wow, Bravo!" You think, "Gee I'm lucky to have been born in modern, peacetime America, and I have no idea what God makes of all this."
July 1, 2019
Stark provides his readers with a succinct account of the Crusades as we know them today, as well as providing a background into the events. The wars have had overwhelmingly negative coverage in history books, owing due to revisionism, prejudice against the Catholic Church and its affiliates, Islamic apologetics and/or ignorance which has been fuelled by the first three. Stark rapidly progresses through the false claims that have been made regarding the Crusades. The first of these is that these were unprovoked wars of greed and precursor colonialism, a claim that couldn’t be further from the truth. The first wave of Islamic Conquests saw the entire Middle East and North Africa conquered and converted, the indigenous locals being compelled to either convert, pay a poll tax or leave. Major religious buildings had been seized and converted after the bloody assaults on the city and periodic bursts of violent ethno-religious cleansing continued. The Fatimid ruler of Egypt even destroyed the Holy Sepulchre without provocation, the act being part of the megalomania which has blackened his name in history. 400 years later, the conversion of the Central Asian Turks, known as the Seljuks, had invigorated Islam with a fresh fighting force, the Arabs having become complacent and adjusted to a life of comfort. The Eastern Roman Empire had been nearly wiped out when the Seljuk Turks defeated them at Manzikert in 1071 AD and seized most of Anatolia, compelling the succeeding emperor Alexius to plead for assistance from the Pope. Pope Urban II was compelled to act, having seen that Europe was plagued by warfare and sought to channel that towards a greater cause and end fraternal fighting. The call was made for knights and lords to make the journey, the disabled, elderly, sick and women were ordered to refrain as they would only delay the trip and endanger the entire column. People did not suddenly pick up a sword and march barefoot to the Levantine coast in the hope that they could kill a Muslim for his bag of gold coins. This was an expensive undertaken which required knights to take 1-3 war horses, transport horses, servants to help them as well as the cost of food and upkeep for the journey. Knights and kings alike were selling property or mortgaging it in order to raise the heavy cost of embarking on such a journey, some were even known to lease their princedoms to the kings to finance their endeavour. Various kings of England and France as well as the emperor of the Germans also participated in the Crusades, raising new taxes on the clergy in order to pay for the coalitions and provide the Crusader kingdoms with a source of income. The conquered lands were not being exploited by a select, foreign elite but rather they were being injected with funds from their new overlords.
The war was depicted as an ignorant, barbarian West attacking the advanced, pacific East, a misleading claim that holds no water. The Europeans were already ahead of the Islamic world with their technology, the actual criteria for determining a society's level of development. The fact that the Arabs were reading Greek philosophy that had been translated by Assyrian, Persian and Jewish middlemen mostly after the Abassid caliphate was established, but the study of metaphysics does not compare to hard, tangible equipment that improved farming, the land and the economy. Even then, when each side had things to learn from the other, it was the Europeans who were willing to learn and embrace anything that could further improve their society or culture. Besides medical practices and castle-building techniques, many of them became fluent in Arabic and Greek to an extent, the Arabs refusing to learn Latin, English, French or German or anything else that could be learnt from the Crusaders as it was seen as wholesale betrayal of the Muslim world.
Perhaps worst of all is the myth of chivalry and mercy at the hands of the Muslims and the depraved violence of the Crusaders. To apply the Geneva Convention on events of eras and society different to the present is dishonest and useless. With that being said, warfare had certain practices which applied in these cases and was universal across Europe and the Middle East. If, for example, a city was besieged, the defenders could try to beat off the attack. If they were not confident in the outcome, negotiations would take place where the city or castle would be surrendered and the occupants be allowed safe passage or a guarantee of safety after occupation. This minimised the loss of life for the attackers as well as the costs of time spent on the siege and the money spent of siege engines and salaries. The case of Salahaddin allowing the people of Jerusalem to buy their freedom after the city's fall is not unusual nor is it an example of an excellent character, it is standard adherence to unwritten laws of conduct. This changed when Salahaddin's descendants were dethroned by the Mamluks whose ruthless campaigns were as treacherous as they were violent. Negotiations would often be made with knights in castles but upon surrender, the Mamluks would slaughter them all, an act which was repeated until it gained notoriety and future defenders chose to fight to the death rather than believe their offers.
Last but certainly not least is the infamous Sack of Constantinople during the Fourth Crusade and the establishment of the Latin Empire. This has been idealised as the climax of the Crusaders' crimes, an event in which all human sense vanished and they gave in to their primitive desires. Again, this is simply false. From the onset of the Crusades, the Eastern Romans had not kept their part of the agreement and continued to scheme against the Europeans, even going so far as to abandon the forces in the Levant and reaching agreements with Egyptians against the Crusaders. The Europeans continued to let it slide and did not attack them. In fact, when Alexios IV sought the assistance of the leaders of the Fourth Crusade in order restore him to the throne of Constantinople, offering to finance the whole undertaking as well as offering military assistance and bringing the Greek Orthodox Church back into communion under the Pope. The Crusaders and Republic of Venice completed the herculean feat and payments for the 200,000 silver marks debt began but quickly ceased. The emperor even had the audacity to launch fire ships at the fleets in the Bosporus. The Crusaders managed to take the city and the emperor fled. Looting took placed around the city to cover the costs, but the death toll wasn't that high, a small fraction of the death toll from the Massacre of the Latins that took place two decades earlier.
Of course, none of this is mentioned in the conventional discussions of the Crusades. It is far easier to have everything spoon-fed than to read the truth of the matter. The English, the French, the Germans and the rest of Europe stand vindicated in the objective view of the war, the only view that matters.
The war was depicted as an ignorant, barbarian West attacking the advanced, pacific East, a misleading claim that holds no water. The Europeans were already ahead of the Islamic world with their technology, the actual criteria for determining a society's level of development. The fact that the Arabs were reading Greek philosophy that had been translated by Assyrian, Persian and Jewish middlemen mostly after the Abassid caliphate was established, but the study of metaphysics does not compare to hard, tangible equipment that improved farming, the land and the economy. Even then, when each side had things to learn from the other, it was the Europeans who were willing to learn and embrace anything that could further improve their society or culture. Besides medical practices and castle-building techniques, many of them became fluent in Arabic and Greek to an extent, the Arabs refusing to learn Latin, English, French or German or anything else that could be learnt from the Crusaders as it was seen as wholesale betrayal of the Muslim world.
Perhaps worst of all is the myth of chivalry and mercy at the hands of the Muslims and the depraved violence of the Crusaders. To apply the Geneva Convention on events of eras and society different to the present is dishonest and useless. With that being said, warfare had certain practices which applied in these cases and was universal across Europe and the Middle East. If, for example, a city was besieged, the defenders could try to beat off the attack. If they were not confident in the outcome, negotiations would take place where the city or castle would be surrendered and the occupants be allowed safe passage or a guarantee of safety after occupation. This minimised the loss of life for the attackers as well as the costs of time spent on the siege and the money spent of siege engines and salaries. The case of Salahaddin allowing the people of Jerusalem to buy their freedom after the city's fall is not unusual nor is it an example of an excellent character, it is standard adherence to unwritten laws of conduct. This changed when Salahaddin's descendants were dethroned by the Mamluks whose ruthless campaigns were as treacherous as they were violent. Negotiations would often be made with knights in castles but upon surrender, the Mamluks would slaughter them all, an act which was repeated until it gained notoriety and future defenders chose to fight to the death rather than believe their offers.
Last but certainly not least is the infamous Sack of Constantinople during the Fourth Crusade and the establishment of the Latin Empire. This has been idealised as the climax of the Crusaders' crimes, an event in which all human sense vanished and they gave in to their primitive desires. Again, this is simply false. From the onset of the Crusades, the Eastern Romans had not kept their part of the agreement and continued to scheme against the Europeans, even going so far as to abandon the forces in the Levant and reaching agreements with Egyptians against the Crusaders. The Europeans continued to let it slide and did not attack them. In fact, when Alexios IV sought the assistance of the leaders of the Fourth Crusade in order restore him to the throne of Constantinople, offering to finance the whole undertaking as well as offering military assistance and bringing the Greek Orthodox Church back into communion under the Pope. The Crusaders and Republic of Venice completed the herculean feat and payments for the 200,000 silver marks debt began but quickly ceased. The emperor even had the audacity to launch fire ships at the fleets in the Bosporus. The Crusaders managed to take the city and the emperor fled. Looting took placed around the city to cover the costs, but the death toll wasn't that high, a small fraction of the death toll from the Massacre of the Latins that took place two decades earlier.
Of course, none of this is mentioned in the conventional discussions of the Crusades. It is far easier to have everything spoon-fed than to read the truth of the matter. The English, the French, the Germans and the rest of Europe stand vindicated in the objective view of the war, the only view that matters.
January 9, 2012
One of the most interesting things about studying history is learning the popular version of the story, and then learning that things are not so simple as they seem. In God's Battalions: The Case for the Crusades, author Rodney Stark debunks many of the popular myths surrounding the Crusades and gives a justification for one of the most poorly reputed military actions in history. This book provides a good balance to the typical view of the Crusades--"Bigoted and land-hungry European Christians brutally attack Muslims minding their own business." Rodney Stark's provocative statements fly in the face of much of the popular rhetoric concerning the Crusades, and while I don't necessarily agree with every stance Stark takes, each chapter of the book provides interesting fodder for thought.
One of Stark's most important claims is that the Crusades were not unprovoked. He describes the Muslim aggression during the 7th-11th centuries, showing how the forces of Islam conquered Christian territory from Jerusalem, to Spain, to Italy, all the way up to the walls of Constantinople. For Stark, the Crusades were a response to this Muslim expansionism.
He also makes a point of showing that the Christians in the conquered areas (the majority of whom failed to convert to Islam) were treated very poorly by their Islamic overlords.
"A great deal of nonsense has been written about Muslim tolerance--that, in contrast to Christian brutality against Jews and heretics, Islam showed remarkable tolerance for conquered people, treated them with respect, and allowed them to pursue their faiths without interference. This claim probably began with Voltaire, Gibbon, and other eighteenth-century writers who used it to cast the Catholic Church in the worst possible light. The truth about life under Muslim rule is quite different...." --Chapter One: Muslim Invaders
Related to this idea of tolerance, Stark also addresses the issue of Muslim enlightenment and intellectual sophistication. He looks at the technology and scientific advances of the period and concludes that:
"The belief that once upon a time Muslim culture was superior to that of Europe is at best an illusion. To the extent that Arab elites acquired a sophisticated culture, they learned it from their subject peoples...." --Chapter Three: Western "Ignorance" versus Eastern "Culture"
These subject peoples included Nestorian Christians, Zoroastrians, and Indian Hindus. Stark argues that "Muslim" advances in medicine, literature, mathematics, etc. are entirely due to the ingenuity of the conquered races/religions.
After holding a microscope up against common myths regarding the Muslims, Stark moves to dispel some common vilifications of the Crusaders. Historians have a tendency to ignore Muslim intolerance and to harp upon the Crusaders' behavior toward people of other faiths (particularly the Jews). Stark points out, however, that the Church did not intend for the Crusaders to harm the innocent:
"It is worth noting that the pope [Alexander II] was very concerned that the knights setting out to fight the Muslims not attack Jews along the way. Having directed that the Jews be protected, he subsequently wrote that he was glad to learn "that you protect the Jews who live among you, so that they may not be killed by those setting out for Spain against the Saracens...for the situation of the Jews is greatly different from that of the Saracens. One may justly fight against those [Saracens because they] persecute Christians." --Chapter Two: Christendom Strikes Back
My own reading of primary sources definitely corroborates this section of Stark's book. In the early stages of the First Crusade, when mobs of "Crusaders" in the Rhineland tried to exterminate the Jews, it was the bishops of the Church who hid the Jews and protected them. The Church which called the Crusade did not condone all actions that were done in the name of the Crusade.
Another issue Stark addresses is the incompatibility of modern expectations of piety with medieval expectations. In my book Road from the West, some have seen it as odd (or hypocritical) that Tancred--after feeling guilty for killing Christians--sets out to make amends by slaughtering Saracens. To modern sensibilities, true piety means a commitment to non-violence. Is it possible that Crusaders who continue to cleave skulls in two can be truly religious? Stark writes:
"Many skeptics have noted that the pilgrimages often failed to improve the subsequent behavior of pilgrims.... The issue seems to be the expectation that an authentic pilgrimage ought to have fundamentally transformed a pilgrim's character and personality--or at least to have changed an individual into a far more peaceful and forgiving sort of person. But that was not a typical outcome. Instead, most of the fighting men who went on a pilgrimage returned as fierce and ready to do battle as before.... That even very pious knights found pacifism incomprehensible may puzzle some having modern sensibilities, but that assumption was fundamental to Pope Urban's call for a Crusade." --Chapter Five: Enlisting Crusaders
Although some may quibble with aspects of Stark's research, I found this book incredibly refreshing. Instead of merely accepting the dogma of 18th century historians, Stark places the Crusades in their historical context and finds a different way of looking at them. As one of the quotes on the back cover says, Stark's "greatest achievement is to make us see the crusaders on their own terms."
One of Stark's most important claims is that the Crusades were not unprovoked. He describes the Muslim aggression during the 7th-11th centuries, showing how the forces of Islam conquered Christian territory from Jerusalem, to Spain, to Italy, all the way up to the walls of Constantinople. For Stark, the Crusades were a response to this Muslim expansionism.
He also makes a point of showing that the Christians in the conquered areas (the majority of whom failed to convert to Islam) were treated very poorly by their Islamic overlords.
"A great deal of nonsense has been written about Muslim tolerance--that, in contrast to Christian brutality against Jews and heretics, Islam showed remarkable tolerance for conquered people, treated them with respect, and allowed them to pursue their faiths without interference. This claim probably began with Voltaire, Gibbon, and other eighteenth-century writers who used it to cast the Catholic Church in the worst possible light. The truth about life under Muslim rule is quite different...." --Chapter One: Muslim Invaders
Related to this idea of tolerance, Stark also addresses the issue of Muslim enlightenment and intellectual sophistication. He looks at the technology and scientific advances of the period and concludes that:
"The belief that once upon a time Muslim culture was superior to that of Europe is at best an illusion. To the extent that Arab elites acquired a sophisticated culture, they learned it from their subject peoples...." --Chapter Three: Western "Ignorance" versus Eastern "Culture"
These subject peoples included Nestorian Christians, Zoroastrians, and Indian Hindus. Stark argues that "Muslim" advances in medicine, literature, mathematics, etc. are entirely due to the ingenuity of the conquered races/religions.
After holding a microscope up against common myths regarding the Muslims, Stark moves to dispel some common vilifications of the Crusaders. Historians have a tendency to ignore Muslim intolerance and to harp upon the Crusaders' behavior toward people of other faiths (particularly the Jews). Stark points out, however, that the Church did not intend for the Crusaders to harm the innocent:
"It is worth noting that the pope [Alexander II] was very concerned that the knights setting out to fight the Muslims not attack Jews along the way. Having directed that the Jews be protected, he subsequently wrote that he was glad to learn "that you protect the Jews who live among you, so that they may not be killed by those setting out for Spain against the Saracens...for the situation of the Jews is greatly different from that of the Saracens. One may justly fight against those [Saracens because they] persecute Christians." --Chapter Two: Christendom Strikes Back
My own reading of primary sources definitely corroborates this section of Stark's book. In the early stages of the First Crusade, when mobs of "Crusaders" in the Rhineland tried to exterminate the Jews, it was the bishops of the Church who hid the Jews and protected them. The Church which called the Crusade did not condone all actions that were done in the name of the Crusade.
Another issue Stark addresses is the incompatibility of modern expectations of piety with medieval expectations. In my book Road from the West, some have seen it as odd (or hypocritical) that Tancred--after feeling guilty for killing Christians--sets out to make amends by slaughtering Saracens. To modern sensibilities, true piety means a commitment to non-violence. Is it possible that Crusaders who continue to cleave skulls in two can be truly religious? Stark writes:
"Many skeptics have noted that the pilgrimages often failed to improve the subsequent behavior of pilgrims.... The issue seems to be the expectation that an authentic pilgrimage ought to have fundamentally transformed a pilgrim's character and personality--or at least to have changed an individual into a far more peaceful and forgiving sort of person. But that was not a typical outcome. Instead, most of the fighting men who went on a pilgrimage returned as fierce and ready to do battle as before.... That even very pious knights found pacifism incomprehensible may puzzle some having modern sensibilities, but that assumption was fundamental to Pope Urban's call for a Crusade." --Chapter Five: Enlisting Crusaders
Although some may quibble with aspects of Stark's research, I found this book incredibly refreshing. Instead of merely accepting the dogma of 18th century historians, Stark places the Crusades in their historical context and finds a different way of looking at them. As one of the quotes on the back cover says, Stark's "greatest achievement is to make us see the crusaders on their own terms."
November 3, 2022
Good and helpful pushing back the secular mainstream account, without concealing the bad parts.
December 30, 2017
So, were the Crusades an early exercise in Western imperialism, a pilgrimage of greed and violence visited upon the peaceful and civilised peoples of the Middle East, as the modern understanding of them suggests? This useful revisionist overview of the most recent scholarship argues strongly that they were not. Rodney Stark’s main targets are the popular historians and the film makers and writers who have filtered this view of the Crusades into everyday consciousness and done so so successfully that that great medieval hero, Richard the Lion Heart, is now regularly traduced as a psychopathic killer and, in the word’s of one popular historian, ‘the worst king in England’s history’.
As anyone giving the matter a little thought would surely recognise, the current view is as partial as the high Victorian view of the Crusaders as exemplars of Christian martial piety. The truth is more mixed, and more interesting, than that – but the Victorians were closer than the moderns. Most notably, the Crusades were not imperialist adventures, nor land grabs by the landless by blows, the younger sons of noble families, but rather serious enterprises by a network of interconnected families who committed their money and their blood to the retaking and the defence of the Holy Land. Careful work by historians on wills, charters and the other deep sources of history confirm this: the Crusaders were, indeed, what they said they were: pilgrims for Christ, sacrificing wealth and, often, health and life, for the sake of reclaiming and protecting the holy places in the Holy Land. As to the reputation for chivalry of their Muslim enemies, it is clear that they were no more chivalrous than the Crusaders, and just as frequently they waded through blood and bodies.
In the end, the Crusades failed because the European nations that had supported them became unwilling to fund the vast expenditure, in money and men, required to maintain Outremer. But reading this fascinating account of the whole enterprise, one can only be impressed, sometimes appalled, but never less than respectful of the men and women who committed their lives and resources to the enterprise. A crusade is something we should all commit ourselves to.
As anyone giving the matter a little thought would surely recognise, the current view is as partial as the high Victorian view of the Crusaders as exemplars of Christian martial piety. The truth is more mixed, and more interesting, than that – but the Victorians were closer than the moderns. Most notably, the Crusades were not imperialist adventures, nor land grabs by the landless by blows, the younger sons of noble families, but rather serious enterprises by a network of interconnected families who committed their money and their blood to the retaking and the defence of the Holy Land. Careful work by historians on wills, charters and the other deep sources of history confirm this: the Crusaders were, indeed, what they said they were: pilgrims for Christ, sacrificing wealth and, often, health and life, for the sake of reclaiming and protecting the holy places in the Holy Land. As to the reputation for chivalry of their Muslim enemies, it is clear that they were no more chivalrous than the Crusaders, and just as frequently they waded through blood and bodies.
In the end, the Crusades failed because the European nations that had supported them became unwilling to fund the vast expenditure, in money and men, required to maintain Outremer. But reading this fascinating account of the whole enterprise, one can only be impressed, sometimes appalled, but never less than respectful of the men and women who committed their lives and resources to the enterprise. A crusade is something we should all commit ourselves to.
January 19, 2010
Over the past few years, I've grown in my appreciation for the writing of Stark, the sociologist of religion who teaches at Baylor University. He's an entertaining and engaging writer, and he seems to delight in turning conventional wisdom about the history of Christianity on its head. In this book, he takes on historians who argue that the Crusades were fought by greedy and opportunistic knights, that they were unprovoked, and that Muslim culture was superior to medieval European Christianity. The final paragraph of the book sums up his conclusions:
The Crusades were not unprovoked. They were not the first round of European colonialism. They were not conducted for land, loot, or converts. The crusaders were not barbarians who victimized the cultivated Muslims. They sincerely believed that they served in God's battalions. (248)
Note that this is not a biblical defense of the Crusades. Stark is not trying to prove that crusaders were following the commands of Jesus when they went to Palestine. This is a historical argument that the crusaders thought they were fighting for Jesus. It's meant for a popular audience, and is a very informative and entertaining book, even if it is controversial.
The Crusades were not unprovoked. They were not the first round of European colonialism. They were not conducted for land, loot, or converts. The crusaders were not barbarians who victimized the cultivated Muslims. They sincerely believed that they served in God's battalions. (248)
Note that this is not a biblical defense of the Crusades. Stark is not trying to prove that crusaders were following the commands of Jesus when they went to Palestine. This is a historical argument that the crusaders thought they were fighting for Jesus. It's meant for a popular audience, and is a very informative and entertaining book, even if it is controversial.
December 29, 2009
Stark delves into another controversial chapter of Christian history. In this volume about the Crusades he exposes many myths about them which are currently circulated. The first is that the Crusades were mounted by Christians to amass land and wealth. Actually, they were a defensive action against Muslim aggression into Southern France and Constantinople, not a greedy colonial enterprise by European Christians. He demonstrates how many crusaders believed going on these expeditions would make atonement for their sins. Many of them went into considerable debt to finance their trips. They did not make money, but lost considerable fortunes. They also were motivated to keep the holy land open to Christian pilgrims who had undergone persecution at the hands of the Muslim conquerors.
Stark does not sugar coat the Christians sins, but he brings to the table the Muslim's as well. He shows that history is much more complex than the superficial popular treatments offer. Critics should no longer use the Crusades as an unqualified example of blatant abuses of Christianity.
Stark does not sugar coat the Christians sins, but he brings to the table the Muslim's as well. He shows that history is much more complex than the superficial popular treatments offer. Critics should no longer use the Crusades as an unqualified example of blatant abuses of Christianity.
August 12, 2022
This was my first Rodney Clark book. I wasn't disappointed at all. As Clark states, the aim of the book was to show that "the Crusades were not unprovoked." And that "they were not the first round of European colonialism," neither were they "conducted for land, loot, or coverts." And the "crusaders were not barbarians who victimized the cultivated Muslims," and that finally the crusaders "sincerely believed that they served in God's battalions." These points are all roundly examined in the book.
Clark tells his story of the crusades chronologically, crusade expedition by crusade expedition with much clarity and very readable prose. It's about 250 pages, so it's not a detailed examination of everything about each period. It is however exhaustively documented and footnoted, so if one wanted to read further on this subject, the bibliography would be very helpful.
Clark tells his story of the crusades chronologically, crusade expedition by crusade expedition with much clarity and very readable prose. It's about 250 pages, so it's not a detailed examination of everything about each period. It is however exhaustively documented and footnoted, so if one wanted to read further on this subject, the bibliography would be very helpful.
Read
August 3, 2011A short, brash book by a respected Baylor University professor, this volume provides a healthy dose of revisionism about the Crusades. Stark argues they were not an act of colonial imperialism, but instead the rational response of a beleaguered West to centuries of aggressive Islamic expansionism. The core of the Crusades were deeply religious families who mortgaged their lands and depleted their fortunes for the cause of liberating the Holy Lands. And the whole enterprise eventually dwindled and then was extinguished not by the superior fighting prowess of the Muslim world but by the rejection in West of the onerous taxes needed to sustain the Christian warriors and their fortresses. A darn good quick read.
January 1, 2018
“Revisionist history” is the description of this book. The popular myth of the Crusades being the product of racist power hungry and greedy Europeans is refuted. Reading history without anti-Christian bias will lead you to the same conclusion as in this book. The conclusion reads “The Crusades were not unprovoked. They were not the first round of European colonialism. They were not conducted for land, loot, or converts. The crusaders were not barbarians who victimized the cultivated Muslims. They sincerely believed that they served in God’s battalions.”
This is a well written easy read, full of fascinating nuggets of information.
The “religion of peace” has not been so from the barbarous tyranny of Mohamed up through the barbarism of ISIS and the Muslim Brotherhood.
This is a well written easy read, full of fascinating nuggets of information.
The “religion of peace” has not been so from the barbarous tyranny of Mohamed up through the barbarism of ISIS and the Muslim Brotherhood.
June 27, 2016
The crusades have been seen in the modern mind as nothing more than stain on European history for which we must be perennially apologetic. Rodney stark goes on a crusade of his own to debunk the outdated research which has allowed these sentiments to take root in universities across the world. I finished Stark's exciting work on the subject reassured that my possible ancestors fought for a just cause and helped to ensure Europe was defended from re-invasion. Well worth the read.
January 23, 2012
An excellent history of the Crusades with 2 points of note: 1) Stark shows how the modern Islamic obsession with the Crusades is really a byproduct of the weakness of the Ottoman Empire in the late 19th and 20th century; 2) he puts the sack of Constantinople by the Crusaders in perspective: each crusading army had been betrayed by the Byzantines.
Read
July 1, 2024As someone who's main experience with the Crusades was from Age of Empires, I found Stark's pro-Crusade analysis to be fascinating. It really gets interesting is that Start doesn't have a dog in the fight; he's an agnostic. There are moments where he could have been more condemning but really much of this was solid historical work.
It's worth quoting the conclusion to the book here, "The thrust of the preceding chapters can be summarized very briefly. The Crusades were not unprovoked. They were not the first round of European colonialism. They were not conducted for land, loot, or converts. The crusaders were not barbarians who victimized the cultivated Muslims. They sincerely believed that they served in God's battalions."
It's worth quoting the conclusion to the book here, "The thrust of the preceding chapters can be summarized very briefly. The Crusades were not unprovoked. They were not the first round of European colonialism. They were not conducted for land, loot, or converts. The crusaders were not barbarians who victimized the cultivated Muslims. They sincerely believed that they served in God's battalions."
July 21, 2024
I definitely enjoyed this book! It is a pushback against the common idea that the Crusades were all land hungry savage killers. It surveys the history of the events and presents a case that the crusades were a defensive response to the brutality of the Muslims in the area. The book has lots of sources, and he makes a good case. It’s also just a very interesting read for anyone who likes history!
February 4, 2024
Insightful book on a topic that most moderns are ignorant about. I really enjoy medieval history, and this book scratched that itch. If you’re a Christian, don’t be too shamed by the Crusades.
January 25, 2023
Excellent introduction to the Crusades, dispelling some modern myths and half truths. Stark writes in a captivating, accessible manner making for an enjoyable read, and not just for lovers of history.
November 4, 2014
When people begin to list the many faults of the Christian church throughout the ages, the crusades are right at the top of the list. The image of barbaric knights journeying to the middle east and slaughtering Muslims is not uncommon. Rodney Stark argues in God’s Battalions: The Case for the Crusades that we have the crusades all wrong and that this is not the story.
I have enjoyed Stark’s books in the past. The Rise of Christianity is one of my all time favorites and many of his other books are also great. That said, I found this offering somewhat disappointing. Perhaps the main problem is that the book does not deliver what the title promises – there is no “case” for the crusades. A better title would have been along the lines of, “a case for why the crusades were not as bad as you have heard.”
Stark sets out to tell the story of what really happened. For example, the crusaders are seen as evil invaders, encroaching on Muslim lands. Stark shows what any student of history ought to know – the lands were only Muslim lands because the Muslims had conquered them from Christians over previous centuries. It is often argued that the European crusaders were barbaric and uneducated while the Muslims were honorable and chivalrous. Stark demolishes this claim too. He shows that the reason why the crusaders were often so successful, at least early on, was more advanced military technology. Things like heavy calvary and the crossbow allowed smaller crusader armies to win victories they ought not have won. Stark also shows that the crusaders were no more brutal then the Muslims when it came to sacking cities. Too often historians ignore the Muslim atrocities of this period and emphasize the crusader ones. Saladin, the Muslim leader, is often praised for allowing the Christians in Jerusalem to leave after they surrendered. But in those days the rule of war was to allow surrendering people to desert their cities. If they resisted and forced a sieging army to storm the walls, then murder and rape ensued. Saladin engaged in such acts on cities that did not surrender.
To some degree, Stark’s book is a big effort to show the crusades were a response to Muslim aggression (“you started it”). The crusades were a response to Muslim advances rather than unprovoked attacks. Further, in the face of the claim that Muslims have never forgotten the crusades, Stark shows that until the early 1900s the crusades were not high in the mind of Muslims, they kind of were forgotten.
Yet all of this is not really a case “for” the crusades. He shows that what happened is different, and perhaps not as bad when put in historical context, as what most think. But he does not provide a case for why the crusades were a good idea, which is what I expected. Or to be more blunt, he never offered any sort of argument for why people who claim to follow Jesus, the Jesus who commanded his followers to love their enemies, ought to have gone warring against those of other religions.
The closest he comes is a discussion on the Church of Peace and the Church of Power. The Church of Power came to prominence after the conversion of Constantine. Those who still wanted the intense, living like Jesus, form of discipleship found a place in the church of peace. The Church of Power set about running the world.
Perhaps it is harsh to criticize Stark for writing as a historian and not a Christian theologian or ethicist. Maybe he didn’t even choose the title. But in light of the title, it would have been very beneficial to include a discussion of whether crusading is a good idea for Christians today. It seems somewhat blind to offer a case for the crusades that happened 800 years ago without mentioning how such a case plays out today. We live in a world still filled with religious warfare. Should Christians see fighting and killing others as a God-blessed thing? Stark’s book alone could be seen as arguing yes – if crusading was a good idea then why is it not a good idea now?
The mere fact that such a conclusion could be drawn shows why Stark needed to add a chapter on what he thinks about war today. Crusading and religious war is never a good idea. Stark does show the crusades were not as bad as we have been told but in light of Jesus we Christians should not settle for “not as bad as”. Instead we should strive for a much higher ethic.
I have enjoyed Stark’s books in the past. The Rise of Christianity is one of my all time favorites and many of his other books are also great. That said, I found this offering somewhat disappointing. Perhaps the main problem is that the book does not deliver what the title promises – there is no “case” for the crusades. A better title would have been along the lines of, “a case for why the crusades were not as bad as you have heard.”
Stark sets out to tell the story of what really happened. For example, the crusaders are seen as evil invaders, encroaching on Muslim lands. Stark shows what any student of history ought to know – the lands were only Muslim lands because the Muslims had conquered them from Christians over previous centuries. It is often argued that the European crusaders were barbaric and uneducated while the Muslims were honorable and chivalrous. Stark demolishes this claim too. He shows that the reason why the crusaders were often so successful, at least early on, was more advanced military technology. Things like heavy calvary and the crossbow allowed smaller crusader armies to win victories they ought not have won. Stark also shows that the crusaders were no more brutal then the Muslims when it came to sacking cities. Too often historians ignore the Muslim atrocities of this period and emphasize the crusader ones. Saladin, the Muslim leader, is often praised for allowing the Christians in Jerusalem to leave after they surrendered. But in those days the rule of war was to allow surrendering people to desert their cities. If they resisted and forced a sieging army to storm the walls, then murder and rape ensued. Saladin engaged in such acts on cities that did not surrender.
To some degree, Stark’s book is a big effort to show the crusades were a response to Muslim aggression (“you started it”). The crusades were a response to Muslim advances rather than unprovoked attacks. Further, in the face of the claim that Muslims have never forgotten the crusades, Stark shows that until the early 1900s the crusades were not high in the mind of Muslims, they kind of were forgotten.
Yet all of this is not really a case “for” the crusades. He shows that what happened is different, and perhaps not as bad when put in historical context, as what most think. But he does not provide a case for why the crusades were a good idea, which is what I expected. Or to be more blunt, he never offered any sort of argument for why people who claim to follow Jesus, the Jesus who commanded his followers to love their enemies, ought to have gone warring against those of other religions.
The closest he comes is a discussion on the Church of Peace and the Church of Power. The Church of Power came to prominence after the conversion of Constantine. Those who still wanted the intense, living like Jesus, form of discipleship found a place in the church of peace. The Church of Power set about running the world.
Perhaps it is harsh to criticize Stark for writing as a historian and not a Christian theologian or ethicist. Maybe he didn’t even choose the title. But in light of the title, it would have been very beneficial to include a discussion of whether crusading is a good idea for Christians today. It seems somewhat blind to offer a case for the crusades that happened 800 years ago without mentioning how such a case plays out today. We live in a world still filled with religious warfare. Should Christians see fighting and killing others as a God-blessed thing? Stark’s book alone could be seen as arguing yes – if crusading was a good idea then why is it not a good idea now?
The mere fact that such a conclusion could be drawn shows why Stark needed to add a chapter on what he thinks about war today. Crusading and religious war is never a good idea. Stark does show the crusades were not as bad as we have been told but in light of Jesus we Christians should not settle for “not as bad as”. Instead we should strive for a much higher ethic.
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