The Crusades from the Perspective of Byzantium and the Muslim World.pdf
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Preface
The studies in this volume originated in a symposium organized by Roy P. Mottahedeh
and myself and held at Dumbarton Oaks on 2–4 May 1997. Over the two previous years,
a considerable number of scholarly conferences had been planned, to commemorate the
nine hundredth anniversary of the Council of Clermont and its results. Most of these
focused on the Crusades from the viewpoint of Western Europe. Indeed, the consider-
able and exciting scholarship produced during recent decades has also, to a large extent,
been concerned with the internal, Western, aspects of this movement. Notable excep-
tions do, of course, exist. Still, it seemed to us that there was need of a conference that
would look at the crusade from the perspective of those areas to which it was primarily
directed, namely, the Eastern Muslim areas and the Byzantine Empire.
The Dumbarton Oaks symposium took place on the nine hundredth anniversary of
the appearance of the crusading armies outside the city of Nicaea. Our purpose was to
examine several important issues that, in one way or another, affected the Byzantine and
Muslim worlds at the time of the Crusades or because of them. The movement having
been a lengthy and recurrent one, our time frame extended to the late thirteenth century.
The first essay published here analyzes the development of the historiography of the
Crusades. The other essays discuss various topics ranging from the problem of the holy
war in Byzantium and Islam to the question of attitudes and perceptions, the effect on
art, and the impact of the Crusades on the economies of the East. We neither expected
nor planned a comprehensive examination of the crusading movement seen from Con-
stantinople, Baghdad or Cairo. Rather, we hope that this volume, by contributing to the
very lively scholarly discussion on the Crusades, stimulates further research on develop-
ments that engaged the eastern Mediterranean, both Christian and Muslim, and the
Muslim world generally.
Angeliki E. Laiou
Harvard University and Academy of Athens
The Historiography of the Crusades
Giles Constable
I. The Development of Crusading Historiography
The crusades were from their inception seen from many different points of view, and
every account and reference in the sources must be interpreted in the light of where,
when, by whom, and in whose interests it was written.
1
Each participant made his—
and in few cases her—own crusade, and the leaders had their own interests, motives,
and objectives, which often put them at odds with one another. They were all distrusted
by the Byzantine emperor Alexios Komnenos, whose point of view is presented in the
Alexiad
written in the middle of the twelfth century by his daughter Anna Komnene.
The Turkish sultan Kilij Arslan naturally saw things from another perspective, as did the
indigenous Christian populations in the east, especially the Armenians, and the peoples
of the Muslim principalities of the eastern Mediterranean. The rulers of Edessa, Antioch,
Aleppo, and Damascus, and beyond them Cairo and Baghdad, each had their own atti-
tudes toward the crusades, which are reflected in the sources. To these must be added
the peoples through whose lands the crusaders passed on their way to the east, and in
particular the Jews who suffered at the hands of the followers of Peter the Hermit.
2
The historiography of the crusades thus begins with the earliest accounts of their
origins and history. Aside from some studies of individual sources, however, and a num-
ber of bibliographies and bibliographical articles,
3
the historiography has received com-
This article is a revised version of the paper presented at the symposium. It concentrates on general prob-
lems concerning the crusades to the east. The references to secondary works are illustrative and are not de-
signed to give a bibliography of the crusades. I am indebted to Benjamin Z. Kedar for various suggestions. A
shortened version of part I will appear (in Russian) in the forthcoming Festschrift for Aaron Gurevich.
2
The Jews and the Crusaders: The Hebrew Chronicles of the First and Second Crusades,
ed. and trans. S. Eidelberg
(Madison, Wisc., 1977). Among secondary works, see most recently D. Lohrmann, “Albert von Aachen und
die Judenpogrome des Jahres 1096,”
Zeitschrift des Aachener Geschichtsvereins
100 (1995–96): 129–51.
3
¨
H. E. Mayer,
Bibliographie zur Geschichte der Kreuzzuge
(Hannover, 1960), and idem and J. McLellan, “Se-
lect Bibliography of the Crusades,” in
A History of the Crusades,
ed. K. M. Setton (Madison, Wisc., 1955–89),
`
6:511–664. Other general bibliographies are L. de Germon and L. Polain,
Catalogue de la bibliotheque de feu M. le
comte Riant,
pt. 2 (Paris, 1899), and A. S. Atiya,
The Crusade: Historiography and Bibliography
(Bloomington, Ind.-
London, 1962), which has a section on historiography (17–28). Among the review articles, see G. Schnurer,
¨
“Neuere Arbeiten zur Geschichte der Kreuzzuge,”
HJ
34 (1914): 848–55; T. S. R. Boase, “Recent Develop-
¨
ments in Crusading Historiography,”
History,
n.s., 22 (1937): 110–25; J. La Monte, “Some Problems in Crusad-
ing Historiography,”
Speculum
15 (1940): 57–75; J. A. Brundage, “Recent Crusade Historiography: Some
Observations and Suggestions,”
CHR
49 (1964): 493–507; F. Cardini, “Gli studi sulle crociate dal 1945 ad
oggi,”
RSI
80 (1968): 79–106; and H. Mohring, “Kreuzzug und Dschihad in der mediaevistischen und orienta-
¨
1
[ 2 ]
Historiography of the Crusades
paratively little attention from scholars. The only general works are a long and still useful
appendix to the first (but not the second) edition of Heinrich von Sybel’s
Geschichte des
ersten Kreuzzugs,
which appeared at Dusseldorf in 1841 and was translated into English
¨
in 1861, and the two volumes (in Russian) by M. A. Zaborov entitled
Vvedenie v istorio-
grafiju Krestovykh pokhodov
(Introduction to the historiography of the crusades), which
deals with the medieval sources, and
Istoriografija Krestovykh pokhodov (XV–XIX vv.)
(His-
toriography of the crusades [15th–19th century]), which were published in Moscow in
1966 and 1971 respectively.
4
To these can be added a long article, partly historiographical
and partly bibliographical, by Laetitia Boehm entitled “‘Gesta Dei per Francos’—oder
‘Gesta Francorum’? Die Kreuzzuge als historiographisches Problem” and a chapter by
¨
Jonathan Riley-Smith on “The Crusading Movement and Historians” in the
Oxford
Illustrated History of the Crusades.
5
It is interesting, and perhaps significant, that there is no
´
sustained treatment of historiography in the general histories of the crusades by Rene
Grousset, Steven Runciman, and Hans Eberhard Mayer, nor in the six-volume coopera-
tive
History of the Crusades
edited by Kenneth Setton.
The historiography of the crusades as seen from the west, with which this article is
concerned, can be divided into three periods, of which the first, and longest, went from
1095 until the end of the sixteenth century; the second covered the seventeenth and
eighteenth centuries; and the third began in the early nineteenth century and comes
down to the present. There was some overlap between the periods, but broadly speaking,
during the first, the Muslims were a continuing threat to Western Europe and the de-
fense of Christendom was seen as a pressing concern. In the second period, the crusades
moved increasingly into the past, but a past that was colored by confessional or rationalist
values, which changed in the third period, when the crusades were subjected to serious,
though not always impartial, scholarly investigation. This third period breaks down into
the nineteenth century, when the crusades were generally well regarded, and the twenti-
eth century, when there has been a rising tide of criticism and, more recently, a growing
division between scholarly and popular views of the crusades.
Interest in the crusades today is still influenced by political and ideological interests,
including the consequences of European colonialism, the tensions between western and
non-western societies, especially in the Middle East, and, more broadly, the legitimacy
of using force to promote even worthy and legitimate causes.
6
These concerns contrib-
listischen Forschung 1965–1985,”
Innsbrucker historische Studien
10–11 (1988): 361–86. See also H. E. Mayer,
“America and the Crusades,”
PAPS
125 (1981): 38–45; C. R. Young, “The Crusades: A Tragic Episode in
East-West Relations,”
South Atlantic Quarterly
55 (1956): 87–97; and the collection of reprints and excerpts in
The Crusades: Motives and Achievements,
ed. J. A. Brundage, Problems in European Civilization (Boston, 1964).
4
H. von Sybel,
Geschichte des ersten Kreuzzugs
(Dusseldorf, 1841), 148–80, trans. L. D. Gordon,
The History
¨
and Literature of the Crusades
(London, 1861), 311–56; and M. A. Zaborov,
Vvedenie v istoriografiju Krestovykh
pokhodov
(Moscow, 1966) and
Istoriografija Krestovykh pokhodov (XV–XIX vv.)
(Moscow, 1971). For these refer-
ences I am indebted to Alexander Kazhdan, who also summarized the contents for me.
5
L. Boehm, “‘Gesta Dei per Francos’—oder ‘Gesta Francorum’? Die Kreuzzuge als historiographisches
¨
Problem,”
Saeculum
8 (1957): 43–81, and J. Riley-Smith, “The Crusading Movement and Historians,” in
The
Oxford Illustrated History of the Crusades,
ed. J. Riley-Smith (Oxford, 1995), 1–12. See also L. Boehm, “Die
Kreuzzuge in bibliographischer und historiographischer Sicht,”
HJ
81 (1962): 223–37.
¨
6
´
P. Rousset,
Histoire d’une ideologie: La croisade
(Lausanne, 1983), 206–8; K. Armstrong,
Holy War
(London,
1988), xiii–xiv; J. Riley-Smith, “History, the Crusades and the Latin East, 1095–1204: A Personal View,” in
Giles Constable
[ 3 ]
uted to the change from the comparatively favorable attitude toward the crusades that
prevailed in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries into a more critical, and even
hostile, view. Steven Runciman, in the conclusion to his
History of the Crusades,
called
the crusades “a tragic and destructive episode” and said that “the Holy War itself was
nothing more than a long act of intolerance in the name of God, which is the sin against
the Holy Ghost.”
7
Geoffrey Barraclough echoed this view in 1970: “We no longer re-
gard the crusades . . . as a great movement in defense of Western Christendom, but
rather as the manifestation of a new, driving, aggressive spirit which now became the
mark of Western civilization. We no longer regard the Latin states of Asia Minor as
outposts of civilization in a world of unbelievers, but rather as radically unstable centers
of colonial exploitation.” He attributed this change in “our verdict on the Crusades” to
“our experience of total war and the hazards of living in a thermonuclear age. War is
always evil, if sometimes an inescapable evil; Holy War is the evil of evils.”
8
And John
Ward described the crusades in 1995 as “a movement of violent white supremacist colo-
nialism.”
9
This view is now common in works addressed to the general public, including popular
presentations and movies. A leaflet distributed in Clermont during the conference held
in 1995 to commemorate the summons to the First Crusade was headed “The Cru-
sades—did God will it?” echoing the crusading cry of “Deus le volt.” It went on to ask
“Can the Church memorialize the Crusades without asking forgiveness?” and called on
the pope to deny that any war can be holy and that sins can be forgiven by killing pagans.
According to this view, the crusaders were inspired by greed and religious fanaticism and
the Muslims were the innocent victims of expansionist aggression. Many scholars today,
however, reject this hostile judgment and emphasize the defensive character of the cru-
sades as they were seen by contemporaries, who believed that Christianity was endan-
gered by enemies who had already overrun much of the traditional Christian world,
including Jerusalem and the Holy Land, and who threatened to take over the remainder.
Almost all the historians and chroniclers of the expeditions that were later called the
First Crusade considered them a response to the Muslim threats to Christian holy places
and peoples in the east.
10
They wrote from different points of view, however, and used
Crusaders and Muslims in Twelfth-Century Syria,
ed. M. Shatzmiller, The Medieval Mediterranean 1 (Leiden-
New York-Cologne, 1993), 7–8; and idem, “Revival and Survival,” in
Oxford History
(as in note 5), 386.
7
S. Runciman,
A History of the Crusades,
3 vols. (Cambridge, 1952–54), 3:480.
8
G. Barraclough, “Deus le volt?”
New York Review of Books,
21 May 1970, 16.
9
J. Ward, “The First Crusade as Disaster: Apocalypticism and the Genesis of the Crusading Movement,” in
Medieval Studies in Honour of Avrom Saltman,
Bar-Ilan Studies in History 4 (Ramat-Gan, 1995), 255. Cf. on the
current unfavorable view of the crusades M. Balard,
Les Croisades
(Paris, 1988), 9; Riley-Smith, “History” (as in
note 6), 1–2; and the review of T. Jones and A. Ereira,
Crusades,
by M. Evans, D. Green, and J. M. B. Porter in
Nottingham Medieval Studies
39 (1995): 201.
10
C. Erdmann,
The Origin of the Idea of Crusade,
trans. M. Baldwin and W. Goffart (Princeton, 1977), 8, 349;
ˆ
´
E. Delaruelle,
Idee de croisade au moyen-age
(Turin, 1980), 23; and J. Riley-Smith,
What Were the Crusades?
(London-Basingstoke, 1977), 22–33, who stressed the recurrence of “the ideas of liberation (another word for
recovery) and defence” (23) and said that “a crusade, whenever and against whomsoever it was aimed, was re-
´
garded as being essentially defensive” (29). See also J. Flori, “Guerre sainte et retributions spirituelles dans la 2e
´
`
moitie du XIe siecle,”
RHE
85 (1990): 627–28, on the concept of the legitimacy of recovering wrongly taken
lands.
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