Some view the crusades as the last of the barbarian invasions. Raymond of Aguilers described the fall of Jerusalem in 1099 in the following way, graphically illustrating the atrocities committed in the name of the Father.
In all the ... streets and squares of the city, mounds of heads, hands and feet were to be seen ... But I have yet described only the minor horrors .... If I described what I actually saw you would not believe me! What an apt punishment! The very place that had endured for so long blasphemies against God was now marked in the blood of the blasphemers. It was most rewarding to see the devotion of the pilgrims before the Holy Sepulchre; how they clapped in exultation, singing a new song to the Lord...
For others the Crusades are the most romantic and chivalrous of medieval religious exploits. For Robin Hood in Kevin Costner's Prince of Thieves they were a 'foolish quest'.
Few, if any regarded the Crusades as a 'foolish quest' in 1095, for this was the year when Pope Urban II preached the first great Crusade to the Holy Land. At the church council of Clermont on 27 November, he responded to a request from the Byzantine Emperor in Constantinople for military help. It is hard to know what Urban intended and impossible to know what he actually said, but what actually happened was a military enterprise that not only helped the Byzantine emperor repel Moslem incursions, but also exceeded everyone's expectations by capturing Jerusalem in 1099. Urban emphasised that the Crusade was an opportunity to unite the church and relieve the suffering of Christian brothers. To encourage people to go he emphasised the significance of Jerusalem in Christian tradition and the role of the French in history as the 'elect' of God.
These ideas alone just go to show how many different strands of Medieval thought came together to create Crusading and became of this, Crusading pulled at the heart strings of all in Western Christendom. This made it popular for prince and peasant alike as people were propelled to the Holy Land for religious, social, economic, political and military reasons.
Because Crusading was so nebulous in nature it could evolve and adapt, and it was to remain prominent in religious thought for at least seven centuries. Even today we still speak of evangelistic 'crusades'. The effect of the Crusades on us today is not only limited to the language we use but has also shaped the doctrine that some practise. The Catholic doctrine of indulgences, whereby individuals pay for their salvation, sprang directly from the need to finance crusading enterprises and parts of Eastern Europe owe their 'conversion' almost entirely to the Slavic Crusades which increased Christian influence through military conquest.
In 1147 St Bernard of Clairvaux spent much time preaching to propagate the second Crusade. When this enterprise failed he had to explain to all who had trusted him why God allowed his people to be defeated and humiliated. What Bernard wrote became one of the greatest resignations to the sovereign will of God ever written:
How can human beings be so rash as to dare to pass judgement on something that they are not in the least able to understand? The promises of God never prejudice the justice of God...
Spiritually some blamed the failure of the Crusade on the sinfulness of Western Christendom while others saw the whole expedition as a demonic scheme to lead God's people astray and into ruin.
Crusades against Moslems in Spain and the Holy Land and against pagans in Eastern Europe all defended Western Christendom from the threats without, but by the 13th century the Crusade was being used to protect Christendom from the enemy within.
The Papacy, especially under Innocent III, used Christian violence against heretics, Christian kings who didn't follow papal policy, and eventually against the Eastern Byzantine Empire and the Orthodox Church. This gives an idea of how far Crusading had come and also how convenient a weapon Crusading was in a world where the church discovered that secular weapons were needed to exercise spiritual power effectively. Crusading was now not only directed at a specific place (ie: Jerusalem), but was for a specific purpose (the furtherance of the church's ends - whatever they may be).
Crusading was God's will for God's elect for the benefit of God's flock, therefore prayer, confession and penance were vital to its success. The picture shows a Crusader at prayer from a 13th century English prayer book (Source: The Atlas of the Crusades, J Riley-Smith (Ed), Times Books 1991).
Despite such belief, the effectiveness of the Crusades was limited. They were very expensive, very harsh on the participants, very unreliable in execution and over time, the response of people to the consistent call to arms by the church became less and less. The Western enclaves in the Holy Land were short lived and Jerusalem itself was re-taken by Saladin in 1187. It had been in Western hands for under 90 years.
