Title: 1320: Section 15: The Crusades and Medieval Christianity
Headings: SECTION 15
The Crusades and Medieval Christianity


Content: More important, it served as an outlet for Europe's youth and aggression as population exploded during the High Middle Ages (1050-1300 CE). That is, sending young men off to fight in a holy cause stifled, if only briefly, the internal wars which had racked the West since the collapse of Roman government and forestalled the self-destruction that would again characterize European history in the centuries to come. Moreover, the mere fact that a few of these Crusades produced victories of some kind helped Europeans regain a sense of self-confidence—after centuries of losing on nearly every front imaginable, they finally turned the tables on their military and cultural superiors to the east—the resulting surge of optimism that followed the minority of Crusades which eked out some measure of success contributed in no small way to the glorious twelfth-century renaissance in art and literature which swept Europe during the High Middle Ages. But when these meager triumphs are tallied up against the casualties and mayhem resulting from the Crusades, it's hard to say they were worth it, especially in the long run. For instance, crusading brought no significant new territories or allies into the European cultural sphere—at best, it can be said it opened the door slightly for western traders to do business abroad, but even that proved harmful by making the Church seem commercial and greedy—and worse yet, the enormous drain of energy and manpower won the West little more than increased antagonism with its neighbors in the East, a situation which still resonates in modern international relations. So, after they were all done, the Crusades didn't look as much like God's will as a catastrophic mistake. And for those living in the Near East during this period it's fair to say the results of these invasions—"Viking raids" is how many in the Islamic world saw, and still do see, the Crusades—were entirely negative. To the highly civilized and peaceful states there, the crusaders were marauders who left behind in their wake little more than bloodshed, turmoil, ashes and a well-earned hatred, an animus subsequently extended to all Europeans. Indeed, it is as hard to build a case that the Moslem East benefited in any way from the Crusades as it is to argue that the Huns brought blessings to Europe seven centuries prior. But there's another way to situate and see the Crusades in history, not by looking back at their origins and causes—the way historians ever since Herodotus have tended to do—instead, by peering into the future, we can examine them not as a consequence but a cause, as the overture to something more significant than failed attacks on the Near East.