Bartosz Ćwir "In defence of the Crusades"

The book covers the topic of the Crusades and its title suggests an apologetic intent. This is beacause there is a lot of misunderstanding about the subject matter — beginning with the question of what constitutes a crusade and what does not. According to the author, the key criterion for recognizing a given war as a crusade is its approval of the Holy See and giving indulgences (the remission of purgatorial punishment for sins) for the participants. Thus, in addition to the expeditions to the Holy Land, we should count the wars to reclaim the Iberian Peninsula from Muslim hands — usually called the Reconquista (indeed, they began earlier than the First Crusade, in 1064). The so-called “Northern Crusades,” however, conducted under the patronage of the German emperors against pagan Slavs and Balts, do not fall into this category.

Taking this perspective places the Palestinian and Spanish crusades as a part of the broader conflict between the Christian and Muslim worlds. This conflict, in fact, had existed since the birth of Islam, which rapidly conquered the southern shores of the Mediterranean. We have become accustomed to treating regions such as Egypt or North Africa as Islamic, but in antiquity these lands were at the heart of Christianity — let us just mention such figures as St. Athanasius of Alexandria and St. Augustine of Hippo. The conquest also reached the Iberian Peninsula and was only barely stopped at the walls of Constantinople and at the Battle of Poitiers (732). Nor was this the end of the problem, as Arab corsairs even threatened Rome. As we know from later history, Europe could breathe freely again only after the victorious wars against Turkey, as late as the end of the seventeenth century. The author, however, argues that without the crusading effort, the Islamic conquest might have succeeded. Although neither the Crusader states nor even Byzantium survived, the Iberian Peninsula was reclaimed, which had immense significance for the further course of history.

Let us return for a moment to the capture of Jerusalem, which, according to some, was accompanied by a massacre of the inhabitants. The author explains why this could not have been the case; the fighting was indeed brutal, but no more than in other medieval battles. A chronicler writes that “a great number of men and women were taken captive” and that “living Saracens carried the dead out through the gates.” Thus, there was no question of the massacre of all inhabitants, as some historians would have it.

These are only some of the issues I wished to highlight — the author discusses many more, such as the Northern Crusades, the knightly orders, the custom of the Peace and Truce of God, the infamous attack of the crusaders on Constantinople (for which an important context is provided), and the crusade against the Albigensians. This book is definitely worth reading.