Essay Sample on The Crusades: Really a Holy War?

The crusades are often referred to as a Holy War and this is because it was heavily influenced by religion. For the Christians, the war was about regaining the Holy land and protecting their brethren to the east from the barbaric infidels. The Pope, and other members of the church, justified the killings perpetrated by their crusaders by creating scenarios where it was just in God's eyes to kill and it was always justified to kill those who do not follow God. Speeches and sermons wove this story into the minds of the everyday Christian and added bonuses for those who chose to take up the sword in the lord's name. The desecration of what the Christians believed was rightfully given to them by God created an anger and a justification for perpetrating violence against the heretics who inhabited the Holy land. 

Crusading was not an inexpensive endeavor for those who joined which is why the reward had to be worth the cost, “Preaching was the principal means by which the church recruited and organized people for each major crusading expedition”  by showing the rewards that could be received. Pope Urban II preached at the Council of Claremont that “All who die by the way, whether by land or by sea, or in battle against the pagans, shall have immediate remission of sins. This I grant them through the power of God with which I am invested” , those who joined the crusading efforts were rewarded with the opportunity to go to paradise when they die, which outweighed the costs of going. Peter the Hermit was one of the most popular leaders to “embrace Pope Urban II’s call for Christians to go on crusade” . As he was preaching based on Urban's call for a Holy war there were similarities between both of the men's reasonings, although Peter preached about God rewarding his own followers with the idea that a better life awaited them in Jerusalem . The difference between Urban and Peter was that Peter was the organizer of the Peasants’ Crusade which was responsible for the “bloody massacre of the Jews living in the Rhineland” . Peter was disliked by some of his contemporaries as he allowed his followers to perpetrate violence against “gentiles and Christians alike” . Peter the Hermit demonstrates how the preaching of the crusade led to Christians believing that violence in the name of God was just, no matter who it was against, which can be seen again during the Fourth Crusade. The Fourth Crusade and the subsequent sack of Constantinople happened over 100 years after the Council of Clermont, during which the bishops and clergy present needed to come up with a righteous reason for the war on a fellow Christian city. They justified it by preaching that the Greeks had insulted the laws of Rome and “for this reason one ought certainly to attack them, and that it was not a sin, but an act of great charity”  . They made it just to attack fellow Christians as for them it was what God wanted.

The First Crusade was, as the name implies, the first crusade. Pope Urban II initiated this crusade with his speech at Clermont  by invoking his power as the pope to tell people that this war was what God wanted and that he was doing this on Christ's behalf. It was certain that he employed that it was “God’s leadership of the expedition”  not his own in order to convince the people that was only the messenger and the Christians of Europe needed to raise arms to fight for their fellow Christians of the east. Urban II’s speech at the Council of Clermont was recorded by five different men some of which were written years after the actual speech . Although what he actually said was recorded differently the message of the speech was clear: “waging war to regain the Holy Lands was in no way a sin, but rather a righteous and spiritually rewarding act.” . Urban used the ideas of the Peace of God and the Truce of God to directly call for a crusade. The Peace of God was a religious movement that “prohibited [combatants] from causing injury to members of the clergy,... [and] from attacking religiously “consecrated places,” such as monasteries and churches, and prohibited from fighting on Sundays and feast days” , and the Truce of God merely expanded on the Peace of God by restricting the days combatants could fight which included Thursdays to Monday and any holy days during the week . Urban II created a connection between the infidels breaking this agreement and a justification for violence, the enemies were damaging and harming members of the church and as Urban says “If anyone seizes a bishop let him be treated as an outlaw. If anyone seizes or robs monks, or clergymen, or nuns, or their servants, or pilgrims, or merchants, let him be anathema (that is, cursed)” . This is a call for violence against those who attack a Christian and attacking the Holy Land was an attack on Christianity itself.

The height of religion being used to justify the crusades for the Christians would be their battle cry. The crusaders rallying battle cry was “Deus Vult” which translates to “God Wills It”, the strength this cry had is shown during the account of Bohemond’s reaction to it in the Gesta Francorum. Bohemond asked the crusaders how prepared they were to battle, what Christian symbols they bore, and what battle cry they shouted, when he heard their answer, he “he ordered the most precious cloak which he had with him cut to pieces, and straightway he had the whole of it made into crosses” . The battle cry united the people of the First Crusade was a symbol of what the crusades represented and that every casualty that happened was on the behalf of the Lord. Every death of a Christian was worth the cost because it was ‘Deus Vult’ as “the war conducted for its [the churches] preservation had to become a service to God.” . After the Fall of Edessa in 1144, Pope Eugene III wrote a letter to King Conrad III of Germany that explains the thoughts about the crusaders dying at the time: “adversity is part of God's plan for men. Like the ancient Israelites who were impelled by Pharaoh's cruelty to answer God's call and flee from Egypt” . The idea of God having a plan for every person makes it easy for the crusaders to rush into a fight with whichever group the church has determined is the enemy. Only God can determine when a person would die and so a crusader either died and entered eternal paradise or lived on to continue to be a good Christian.

For the Christians pilgrimage was “a journey that has religious or spiritual significance.”  and as Jerusalem was an important city in the life of Jesus Christ it gained even more importance as a pilgrimage spot. Jerusalem is located in the Holy land which was a contested area even before the First Crusade, from 1009 to 1025 due to the Fatimid caliphate’s persecution of Christians in Palestine and the closing of the route by the Greek government Christians were prevented from going on any pilgrimage . When the First Crusades army captured Jerusalem in 1099 there was an outpour of “contemporaries [seeking] to record the deeds of the pilgrims for posterity, situate the conquest in an explanatory theological framework and recruit support – both military and liturgical –” . Propagandists took this ideal Christian and used it to further gain support for the Church. The First Crusade could be considered one large pilgrimage and it inspired “a series of crusades, or war-pilgrimages, to the east” , mainly the Second, Third, and Fourth Crusades. Looking at the crusades as a pilgrimage shows how much Christianity influenced the actions of the crusaders.

The preaching of the crusade, the popularity of the Holy land, and the idea of God’s will all came together to create an environment where violence against those who had gone against God and the church was deserved. Both Pope Urban II and Peter the Hermit set the stage for the types of reasoning that would be given in the subsequent crusades during their speeches in the First Crusade. Urban determined that the acts of violence that would be performed to regain the Holy land was all God’s will, which is a theme that would carry on throughout the crusades. The idea of a Holy war came to exist through the preaching’s of Urban II, which said that regaining the Holy land was God’s will. By using offers of plenary indulgences and building up the anger at any infidels the church convinced its people that the crusades were not only justified but necessary.