Introduction A cursory examination of the medieval Crusades reveals innumerable evils perpetrated in the name of Christ. They are commonly construed as indelible blots corroborating the fettering iniquities in Ecclesiastical history. Demonstrating the epitome of religious intolerance, purported self-righteousness, and violent ethnocentrism, the barbarous Crusaders occasioned a series of long-standing conquests on an enlightened and refined Muslim civilization in the Middle East.1 General Interpretation and Misconception This sweeping and punctuated historical distortion—of the Crusades being taken as logical outworkings of bonafide Christianity2—was perhaps inaugurated by Sir Walter Scott’s novel, The Talisman, and Sir Steven Runciman’s three-volume, A History of the Crusades, and popularized more recently by the blockbuster film, Kingdom of Heaven, all of which championed the reviling sentiment: “…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.”3 Morally equating the Crusades as indefensible perversions was also freshly given by President Barack Obama in his address at the National Prayer Breakfast in 2015: “And lest we get on our high horse and think [murderous Islamic terrorism] is unique to some other place, remember that during the Crusades and the Inquisition, people committed terrible deeds in the name of Christ.”4 And although the Crusades Thomas F. Madden, “The Real History of the Crusades.” Accessed November 25, 2017. http://www.thearma.org/essays/Crusades.htm#.Whoq4nmQyUk. 2 This conception is also well-captured by Philip Jenkins, distinguished professor of History at Baylor University, who writes: “We are told, the Catholic Church in western Europe suddenly decided to launch a war of aggression against the Muslim nations of the Middle East. Preaching hatred and extermination against all other faiths, the Church inspired Europeans to attack and invade the Levant, slaughtering countless Jews and Muslims in a racial war that foreshadowed both the worst features of European colonialism and the Holocaust of the 1940s;” excised from: Philip Jenkins, The New Anti-Catholicism: The Last Acceptable Prejudice. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004), 183. 3 Steven Runciman, A History of the Crusades, Vol. III: The Kingdom of Acre and the Later Crusades. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999), 480. 4 Juliet Eilperin, "Critics Pounce as Obama Again Shows He Isn't Easy on America." The Washington Post. February 05, 2015. Accessed November 25, 2017. https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/obamas-speech-atprayer-breakfast-called-offensive-to-christians/2015/02/05/6a15a240-ad50-11e4-ad717b9eba0f87d6_story.html?utm_term=.25be657d0b8b. 1 were attributed historically as morally repugnant by philosophers like David Hume and Bertrand Russell, among many others,5 their dissolution remains a phenomenon originally invented by Enlightenment thinkers like Voltaire.6 Recently, however, many leading Crusading scholars have argued that this interpretation serves only as a bare reading and proffers a fallacious understanding—if not outright unhistorical—of the much-convoluted subject matters situated beneath. Thomas F. Madden, former chair of History at St. Louis University and historian of Medieval and Renaissance studies remarks, “Since the 1970s the Crusades have attracted many hundreds of scholars who have meticulously poked, prodded, and examined them. As a result, much more is known about Christianity’s holy wars than ever before.”7 Nevertheless, the historical technicalities and obvious reluctance among historians to reverse Runciman’s pervasive influence, as Madden indicates, is among the chief reasons that the fruits of Crusades scholarship continue to be belated or even controverted in public understanding.8 The collective misrepresentation of the Crusades demonstrates one such impediment and points to an ineluctable anti-Christian propaganda.9 Jenkins’ critique of the proclivity of ascribing the labyrinthine Crusades as entirely religiously incited is a case in point: “In most Hume writes: “The Crusades – the most signal and most durable monument of human folly that has yet appeared in any age or nation.” (David Hume, The History of England from the Invasion of Julius Caesar to the Revolution in 1688. (New York: Harper & Brothers, Franklin Square, 1879), 255); and Russell writes: “Throughout the Middle Ages, the Mohammedans were more civilized and more humane than the Christians. Christians persecuted Jews, especially at times of religious excitement; the Crusades were associated with appalling pogroms. In Mohammedan countries, on the contrary, Jews at most times were not in any way ill-treated…” (Bertrand Russell, History of Western Philosophy. (Routledge, 1994), 323). 6 As American sociologist and comparative professor Rodney Stark writes, “Western condemnation of the Crusades were widespread during the ‘Enlightenment,’ that utterly misnamed era during which French and British intellectuals invented the ‘Dark Ages’ in order to glorify themselves and vilify the Catholic Church.” Rodney Stark, God’s Battalions: The Case for the Crusades (New York: HarperCollins, 2009), 13. 7 Thomas F. Madden. “Crusade Myths.” Accessed November 25, 2017. http://www.ignatiusinsight.com/features2005/tmadden_crusademyths_feb05.asp. 8 Ibid. 9 Stark, God’s Battalions, 6. 5 1 cases, obviously, soldiers fought because a government drafted them and gave them a rifle. At every point too, we see the role of nationalistic sentiment, commercial rivalries, and simple greed. But can we ever separate out such motives from the religious? Was that not also true of the medieval crusades?”10 Equally telling is Walter Brandmüller’s11 proposition that the immense complexity of the Crusades must be carefully interpreted, suggesting that their historicities are, in whole or in part, regularly distorted, censured, and/or censored: An adequate historical judgment on the Crusades must above all take into account the extremely complex nature of this historical phenomenon. What provokes the most criticism is the idea of holy war, war in God’s name! We must keep in mind, however, that this was not a purely Christian phenomenon but rather a universal idea of premodern cultures.12 The critical methodologies and deductions—that of Stark, Madden, Jenkins, Brandmüller, and Jonathan Riley-Smith’s—which avoid consigning the Crusades as events to be examined in a historic vacuum—are conclusions not demonstrative of contemporary Crusading studies.13 The prevailing wisdom that the Crusades, even when examined comprehensively, model a murderous bloodthirsty campaign of religious instigation of callous simpletons seeking salvation via the destruction of neighboring cultures, is what has more historical purchase today.14 A Contextual and Historical Appraisal Jonathan Riley-Smith, leading Crusading historian and former Dixie Professor of Ecclesiastical History at Cambridge, defines the Crusades as “war-pilgrimages proclaimed by the 10 Jesus Creed. "Philip Jenkins, An Interview." Jesus Creed. January 23, 2016. Accessed November 25, 2017. http://www.patheos.com/blogs/jesuscreed/2016/01/23/philip-jenkins-an-interview/#disqus_thread, italics mine. 11 Walter Brandmüller is a cardinal of the Catholic Church and President Emeritus of the Pontifical Committee for Historical Sciences (http://www2.fiu.edu/~mirandas/bios2010.htm#Brandmuller). 12 Walter Brandmüller, Light and Shadows: Church History Amid Faith, Fact, and Legend. (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2009), 133, italics mine. 13 Thomas F. Madden, “Crusade Propaganda” National Review Online, available through http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/220747/crusade-propaganda/thomas-f-madden. Accessed November 25, 2017. & Madden, “The Real Crusades.” 14 Thomas F. Madden, The Concise History of the Crusades. (Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield, 2014), 228. 2 Popes on Christ’s behalf and waged for the recovery of Christian territory or people, or in their defense.”15 This definition can only aptly be understood in the historical context of the 500 years of sustained Islamic military advancement into the West and resultant belligerent climate that preceded the Crusades.16 The death of Muhammad in A.D. 632 and his farewell address gave added impetus to his heirs and further supplied Muslims with the Geist of vicious and vigorous conquest17: “I was ordered to fight all men until they say ‘there is no god but Allah,’” which, as Stark notes, is given Quranic endorsement in Qur’an (9:5): “[S]lay the idolators wherever ye find them, and take them [captive], and besiege them, and prepare for them each ambush.”18 With unrelenting fervor for expansion, the Muslim armies were successful and by the eleventh century captured almost two-thirds of Christendom, including all of North Africa, the Middle East, Asia Minor, and most of Spain.19 With the rapid succumbing of Christian lands to the warriors of Islam, the Turkish usurpation of the Christian Asia Minor (modern Turkey)—which had been Christian since the time of the apostle Paul—culminated in what is retroactively referred to as the First Crusade in 1095.20 Stark evinces Pope Urban II’s gruesome depiction and ensuing call to arms resulting in the First Crusade: [The Islam Invaders] destroy the altars, after having defiled them with their uncleanness. They circumcise the Christians, and the blood of the circumcision they either pour on the altars or pour into the vases of the baptismal font. When they wish to torture people by a base death, they perforate their navels, and dragging forth the extremity of the intestines, bind it to a stake; then with flogging they lead the victim around until the viscera having Jonathan Riley-Smith, “Rethinking the Crusades” First Things 101 (7 January 2007): 20-23. Available at http://www.firstthings.com/article/2007/01/rethinking-the-crusades. Accessed 11-25-2017. 16 Norman Geisler, "The Crusades: Were they Justified? (2015)." Accessed November 25, 2017. http://normangeisler.com/the-crusades-were-they-justified/. 17 Stark makes clear: “It is true that the Qur’an forbids forced conversions. However, that recedes to an empty legalism given that many subject peoples were ‘free to choose’ conversion as an alternative to death or enslavement. That was the usual choice presented to pagans, and often Jews and Christians were faced with that option or with one only somewhat less extreme;” (God’s Battalion, 35). 18 Stark, God’s Battalions, 19. 19 Geisler. The Crusades: Were they Justified? 20 Madden. “The Real Crusades.” 15 3 gushed forth the victim falls prostrate on the ground… What shall I say about the abominable rape of women? To speak of it is worse than to be silent. On whom therefore is the labor of avenging these wrongs and recovering this territory incumbent, if not upon you?21 The First Crusade was not sanctioned by the papacy within the historic pretense of a peaceful political milieu of four-hundred years between the Islamic and Christian empires. Rather, Christendom was bombarded with a maelstrom of external pressures of being subsumed by Islam for centuries; it was not Christendom that was engaged in imperialistic brutalities of forceful colonization; quite the contrary was true. As philosopher and theologian, Norman Geisler writes, “By the end of the 9th century Muslim pirates had established havens all along the Mediterranean coast, threatening commerce, communication, and pilgrim traffic for the next century. They controlled some two-thirds of Christendom. As a result, many Christians and Jews were enduring persecution at Muslim hands.”22 One similarly cannot devoid the context of myriad internal pressures, which historians have wrangled incessantly to discern the various motivations therein (e.g., the preexisting enmity and schisms between the many Eastern and Western Catholic traditions and Orthodoxies, the conflicts of interest of the Western Papacy, the networks of enlistment and financial concerns for the conquests, etc.23) and to fittingly justify how much explanatory weight to give to geopolitical and proto-imperialistic issues (external) against intra-Ecclesiastical and less evident ones.24 21 Urban II, Speech at Council of Clermont, 1095. Available from http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/source/urban2-5vers.html. Accessed 11-25-17. 22 Geisler. The Crusades: Were they Justified? 23 I am aware that these listings only caricature the numerous internal struggles Christendom faced at the time of the Crusades. Space does not permit my further elaboration of this topic here, however. For detailed treatments, I commend Stark’s God’s Battalions, Riley-Smith’s The Crusades: A Short History, and Madden’s A Concise (or New Concise) History of the Crusades. 24 Ross Douthat, "The Case Against the Case Against the Crusades." The New York Times. February 10, 2015. Accessed November 25, 2017. https://douthat.blogs.nytimes.com/2015/02/10/the-case-against-the-caseagainst-the-crusades/. 4 Subsequent conquests, including the Muslim conquest of Edessa in 1144 and the Third Crusade, were similarly called in response to the unceasing Muslim invasions of Jerusalem and most other Christian lands in the Levant in 1187; as medieval Historian Paul F. Crawford writes, “Three of Christianity's five primary episcopal sees (Jerusalem, Antioch, and Alexandria) had been captured in the seventh century; both of the others (Rome and Constantinople) had been attacked in the centuries before the crusades.”25 Together, these reprisals jointly delineate “the first [set of] Christian counterattack[s] against Muslim attacks which had taken place continually from the inception of Islam until the eleventh century, and which continued on thereafter, mostly unabated.”26 These conquests were not prompted with the purpose of forceful proselytization or to squelch a belief system theologically antagonistic to Christian thought, but were defensive measures considered acts of piety, self-sacrifice, and penance carried out for the adoration of God and to restore Christian lands over Islamic abuses.27 As Stark muses, “… the Crusades were precipitated by Islamic provocations: by centuries of bloody attempts to colonize the West and by sudden new attacks on Christian pilgrims and holy places. Although the Crusades were initiated by a plea from the pope, this had nothing to do with hopes of converting Islam.”28 Equating the Crusades as a preemptive and meticulous geopolitical machination is, therefore, historically indefensible; likewise, the reactive and irenic nature of Christendom’s attempt to 25 Paul F. Crawford, "Four Myths about the Crusades." Intercollegiate Studies Institute: Educating for Liberty. March 23, 2016. Accessed November 25, 2017. https://home.isi.org/four-myths-about-crusades. 26 Ibid. 27 Madden also appends: “For Medieval men and women, the crusade was an act of piety, charity, and love, but it was also a means of defending their world, their culture, and their way of life… The other goal of the crusades was the defense of the Christian East, and many believe they failed most dramatically at this.” (A Concise History, 235). 28 Stark, God’s Battalions, 15; Stark writes further: “Nor were the Crusades organized and led by surplus sons, but by the heads of great families who were fully aware that the costs of crusading would far exceed the very modest material rewards that could be expected; most went at immense personal cost, some of them knowingly bankrupt themselves to go.” 5 overturn centuries of Islamic hostility, destruction, and usurpation, resist explanations of their being a priori unwarranted. Similarly misunderstood is Pope Urban II’s plea, which was neither one of ethnic odium towards Muslims nor for conquest for spectacular opulence and booty.29 Pope Urban II’s call was not precipitated by Christendom’s avaricious and self-righteous disposition, but rather for faithful Christians to resist the forces of Islam. As Geisler writes: The Crusades were, in essence, a defensive action against the spread of Islam by the sword. They were undertaken largely out of concern for fellow Christians in the East. In fact, many great saints supported the Crusades, including Bernard of Clairvaux, Thomas Aquinas, and peace-loving Francis of Assisi. Troops prayed and fasted before battles and praised God after them. Even many Muslim respected the ideals of the Crusaders.30 Notwithstanding the many stains and sins that transpired as a result of the numerous warpilgrimages,31 it is erroneous to affirm that Christendom’s spirited retaliation to a multi-century, warmongering foe, therefore, makes the Crusaders equally culpable and malicious, or that contemporary Christians ought to disavow any semblance of hawkish justification; this is not to be held as politically incorrect, but is to deny the truth of the Crusades within their proper historical and contextual framework. As Madden summarizes for us: The crusades were in every way a defensive war. They were the West’s belated response to the Muslim conquest of fully two-thirds of the Christian world. While the Arabs were busy in the seventh through the tenth centuries winning an opulent and sophisticated 29 Stark indicates: “It should be noted that there was never a call to eradicate all Muslims, but rather to halt their advance and to reclaim territory that had been conquered by Islamic forces;” Rodney, Stark, Bearing False Witness: Debunking centuries of Anti-Catholic History. (London: Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, 2017), 113. 30 Geisler. The Crusades: Were they Justified? 31 Riley-Smith explains: “No crusade was actually proclaimed against the Jews, although crusade preaching unleashed feelings that the Church could not control. As far as crusading itself is concerned, most Muslims do not view the crusades, in which they anyway believe they were victorious, in isolation. Islam has been spasmodically in conflict with Christianity since the Muslim conquests of the seventh century, long before the First Crusade, and the crusading movement was a succession of episodes in a continuum of hostility between the two religions. Muslims do not seem to have considered until relatively recently that the crusades stood out in this history; by 1500, indeed, they would have been justified in believing that that particular sequence of wars was ending in their favor.” From Riley-Smith, “Rethinking the Crusades.” Accessible at https://www.firstthings.com/article/2000/03/rethinking-thecrusades). 6 empire, Europe was defending itself against outside invaders and then digging out from the mess they left behind. Only in the eleventh century were Europeans able to take much notice of the East. The event that led to the crusades was the Turkish conquest of most of Christian Asia Minor (modern Turkey). The Christian emperor in Constantinople, faced with the loss of half of his empire, appealed for help to the rude but energetic Europeans.32 Justification & Jus ad Bellum St. Augustine, in the fifth century, delineated the necessary conditions—both theologically and philosophically—for a Christian leader to wage war, but rapidly appended the prohibition for Christians to participate in coercive conversions or to squelch heresies in fervent ardor.33 Augustine wrote, “iusta bella ulciscuntur inirias,” which transliterates to “just wars avenge injuries,”34 spelling out the function of punishment—displayed as acts of love and penance—utilized properly as violence “through [an] Old Testament sense of divine justice.”35 Warfare, as Stark notes, for better or for worse, was considered a necessary evil sometimes forced upon the church or papacy.36 The categories of Just War or Jus ad bellum, was, as a result, rigorously examined, temporally assimilated, and staunchly dispersed throughout Christendom. A just war would be waged if: it were to have a just cause, be a last resort to a nation, be declared by a proper authority, possessing right intention(s), have a reasonable chance of success, and if the envisioned end is proportional to the means utilized.37 In 1095, the response to Pope Urban II’s call to arms at the Council of Clermont was incendiary.38 This was due in part to the cardinal demands or objectives laid out by Urban II, Madden, “Crusade Propaganda.” Madden, Concise History of the Crusades, pp. 12-13. 34 Joachim Von Elbe, “The Evolution of the Concept of the Just War in International Law,” The American Journal of International Law 33:4 (1939), 668. 35 Christopher L. Izant, “The Crusades and Jihad: Theological Justifications for Warfare in the Western and Islamic Just War Traditions”, BA, Boston College, 2010. http://hdl.handle.net/2345/1560, 14. 36 Stark, God’s Battalions, pp. 12-13. 37 Alexander Mosely. Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Accessed November 25, 2017. http://www.iep.utm.edu/justwar/. 38 Madden. “The Real History of the Crusades.” 32 33 7 both of which, as Madden recounts “would remain central to the eastern Crusades for centuries.”39 The first was to rescue the Christians of the East and second, to liberate Jerusalem from Muslim rule. As his successor, Pope Innocent III, later wrote: How does a man love according to divine precept his neighbor as himself when, knowing that his Christian brothers in faith and in name are held by the perfidious Muslims in strict confinement and weighed down by the yoke of heaviest servitude, he does not devote himself to the task of freeing them? …Is it by chance that you do not know that many thousands of Christians are bound in slavery and imprisoned by the Muslims, tortured with innumerable torments?40 Equally significant was the imprimatur of the remission of sins—which both Madden and Stark postulate was the more significant stipulation—that was conferred via one’s service as an act of penance.41 Crusading was seen as acts extending directly from one’s love of God to the love of one’s neighbor, as Innocent II told the Knights Templars, “You carry out in deeds the words of the gospel, ‘Greater love has no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.”42 The combatants, which comprised primarily of able-bodied laymen and women, thus affirmed the sacrosanctity of war (construed by them as a holy war) and their providential roles; to them, God’s justice was being reified via the instrumentation of the papacy’s authority onto their individual vows of pilgrimage. “Pilgrimage,” as Stark similarly defines, “can be defined as ‘a journey undertaken from religious motives to a sacred placed.’ Among Christians, especially in the West, the ‘religious motives’ increasingly had to do with atonement—with obtaining 39 Ibid. Original source unavailable. Cited in Madden, “The Real History of the Crusades.” 41 Madden, History of the Crusades, pp. 18-24 & Stark, God’s Battalion, pp. 115-119. 42 Original source unavailable. Cited in Riley-Smith, “Rethinking the Crusades.” 40 8 forgiveness for one’s sins.”43 In despondency and unreserved hope in the exoneration of sins mediated through church authorities, participation was met wholeheartedly by many. 44 The Crusades, in this sense, “[were the] outgrowth of the very theological errors that sparked the Protestant Reformation.”45 Urban II’s demand was fueled by the seemingly meritorious acts of piety and penance, often shrouded in the enigmatic and (retrospectively) theologically erroneous invention of papal miracles, spiritual healings, and other deific fulfillments, which all fundamentally assured the forgiveness of sins and the gifting of indulgences.46 Generally speaking, the opportunity to express the Christ-like love for one’s neighbor (via justified punishment and violence) and self-sanctification (via the protection of Christian brethren and lands) were the principal theological motivations behind the Crusaders. With these considerations in mind, Madden concludes, “All the Crusades met the criteria of just wars.”47 Conclusion It becomes quite evident that the medieval Crusades collectively evoke a belated and warranted response to jihad and the climate of proto-imperialism inaugurated by Muslim forces centuries prior to the call at Clermont. The prevalent opinion seems to resemble foremost a meticulous parsing out of the unavoidable horrors of war and the subsequent extraction of a foolproof monocausal thesis amidst centuries of transnational, political intrigue, strife, and destruction. The Crusades, contrary to revisionist and politically correct tendencies, 43 Marcus, Bull, Knightly Piety and the Lay Response to the First Crusade: The Limousin and Gascony, c. 970-c. 1130. (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1993), as cited in Stark, God’s Battalion, 97. 44 Jonathan Riley-Smith, The Crusades: A History, Third Edition (Bloomsbury, 2014) Kindle edition, Chap. 2. & Luke Wayne, "Christian Apologetics & Research Ministry. What Are the Crusades?" Luke Wayne. August 03, 2017. Accessed November 25, 2017. https://carm.org/what-are-the-crusades#footnote18_i9fyxt7. 45 Wayne, “What Are the Crusades?” 46 Riley-Smith, The Crusades: A History. Chap. 5. 47 Thomas F. Madden, "Inventing the Crusades | Thomas F. Madden." First Things. June 01, 2009. Accessed November 25, 2017. https://www.firstthings.com/article/2009/06/inventing-the-crusades. 9 were not carried out with malicious and materialistic intent, which wane much of the parochial and anti-Christian prejudice that sully public and even academic understandings. To Christians, the Crusades involved deep political concerns of national security and survival as well as the eternal motivations to relieve their brethren beset by centuries of inhumane brutalities.48 As a result, the Christian outburst of violence was not an anomaly but was formed in retaliation to the complex and pervasive geopolitical and religious turmoil both external and internal to Christendom. As Madden writes: “The Colossus of the medieval world was Islam, not Christendom. The Crusades are interesting largely because they were an attempt to counter that trend… by the 15th century, the Crusades were no longer errands of mercy for a distant people but desperate attempts of one of the last remnants of Christendom to survive.”49 All in all, three gleanings can be considered about the Crusades: they were reactions that were aptly justified and not those of simple fanaticism or barbarism;50 their resultant horrors mustn’t be muddled with the underlying motivations that were political, national, moral, and theological, nor should they be viewed in isolation; and similarly, these evils mustn’t be amalgamated and likened to an ethical system illustrative of those who identify as members of the body of Christ.51 Wayne, “What Are the Crusades?” Madden, “The Real History of the Crusades.” 50 Stark tackles the popular contention: “Many critics of the Crusaders would seem to suppose that after the Muslims had overrun a major portion of Christendom, they should have been ignored or forgiven; suggestions have been made about turning the other cheek. This outlook is certainly unrealistic and probably insincere. Not only had the Byzantines lost most of their empire; the enemy was at their gates. And the loss of Spain, Sicily and southern Italy, as well as a host of Mediterranean islands, was bitterly resented in Europe.” (God’s Battalion, 39). 51 Logically, one cannot deduce this claim unless he proves that the horrors of the holy wars were the direct offshoots of the teachings of Christ (where the core Christian doctrines stem from and cohere). Philosopher and theologian William Lane Craig, erroneously, I think and contrary to Augustine, Aquinas, Assisi, Bernard of Clairvaux, and Urban II views the Crusades as indefensible acts conducted by those who falsely purported to being Christ’s followers. He nevertheless maintains: “You cannot invalidate a worldview based upon the failure of adherents of that worldview to live consistently with the teachings of that worldview… Jesus would not be implicated in these sorts of acts. He wouldn’t have led the crusades or the inquisition. He wouldn’t conduct jihad. The fact that religious zealots of all different stripes engage in these sorts of activities does absolutely nothing to 48 49 10 Works Cited Alexander Mosely. Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Accessed November 25, 2017. http://www.iep.utm.edu/justwar/. Bertrand Russell, History of Western Philosophy. (Routledge, 1994), 32. Biola Magazine Article. Accessed November 25, 2017. http://magazine.biola.edu/article/15spring/is-the-prevalence-of-religious-violence-an-argument/. Christopher L. Izant, “The Crusades and Jihad: Theological Justifications for Warfare in the Western and Islamic Just War Traditions”, BA, Boston College, 2010. http://hdl.handle.net/2345/1560, 14. David Hume, The History of England from the Invasion of Julius Caesar to the Revolution in 1688. (New York: Harper & Brothers, Franklin Square, 1879), 255. Jesus Creed. "Philip Jenkins, An Interview." Jesus Creed. January 23, 2016. Accessed November 25, 2017. http://www.patheos.com/blogs/jesuscreed/2016/01/23/philip-jenkins-aninterview/#disqus_thread, italics mine. Joachim Von Elbe, “The Evolution of the Concept of the Just War in International Law,” The American Journal of International Law 33:4 (1939), 668. Jonathan Riley-Smith. “Rethinking the Crusades” First Things 101 (7 January 2007): 20-23. Available at http://www.firstthings.com/article/2007/01/rethinking-the-crusades. Accessed 11-25-2017. __________________. The Crusades: A History, Third Edition (Bloomsbury, 2014) Kindle edition, Chap. 2, 5 Juliet Eilperin, "Critics Pounce as Obama Again Shows He Isn't Easy on America." The Washington Post. February 05, 2015. Accessed November 25, 2017. https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/obamas-speech-at-prayer-breakfast-calledoffensive-to-christians/2015/02/05/6a15a240-ad50-11e4-ad717b9eba0f87d6_story.html?utm_term=.25be657d0b8b. Luke Wayne, "Christian Apologetics & Research Ministry: What Are the Crusades?” Luke Wayne. August 03, 2017. Accessed November 25, 2017. https://carm.org/what-are-thecrusades#footnote18_i9fyxt7. impugn the truth of the teachings of Jesus of Nazareth. He himself could not be indicted for these sorts of things.” From "Is the Prevalence of Religious Violence an Argument for Atheism?" Biola Magazine Article. Accessed November 25, 2017. http://magazine.biola.edu/article/15-spring/is-the-prevalence-of-religious-violence-anargument/. 11 Marcus Bull, Knightly Piety and the Lay Response to the First Crusade: The Limousin and Gascony, c. 970-c. 1130. (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1993), as cited in Stark, God’s Battalion, 97. Norman Geisler, "The Crusades: Were they Justified? (2015)." Accessed November 25, 2017. http://normangeisler.com/the-crusades-were-they-justified/. Paul F. Crawford, "Four Myths about the Crusades." Intercollegiate Studies Institute: Educating for Liberty. March 23, 2016. Accessed November 25, 2017. https://home.isi.org/fourmyths-about-crusades. Philip Jenkins, The New Anti-Catholicism: The Last Acceptable Prejudice. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004), 183. Rodney Stark. Bearing False Witness: Debunking centuries of Anti-Catholic History. (London: Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, 2017), 113. ___________. God’s Battalions: The Case for the Crusades (New York: HarperCollins, 2009), 6, 12-13, 15, 19, 35, 39, 97, 115-119. Ross Douthat, "The Case Against the Case Against the Crusades." The New York Times. February 10, 2015. Accessed November 25, 2017. https://douthat.blogs.nytimes.com/2015/02/10/the-case-against-the-case-against-thecrusades/. Steven Runciman, A History of the Crusades, Vol. III: The Kingdom of Acre and the Later Crusades. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999), 480. Thomas F. Madden. “Crusade Myths.” Accessed November 25, 2017. http://www.ignatiusinsight.com/features2005/tmadden_crusademyths_feb05.asp. ________________. “Crusade Propaganda” National Review Online, available through http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/220747/crusade-propaganda/thomas-f-madden. Accessed November 25. ________________. "Inventing the Crusades | Thomas F. Madden." First Things. June 01, 2009. Accessed November 25, 2017. https://www.firstthings.com/article/2009/06/inventing-thecrusades. ________________. The Concise History of the Crusades. (Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield, 2014), pp. 12-13, 228, 235. ________________. “The Real History of the Crusades.” Accessed November 25, 2017. http://www.thearma.org/essays/Crusades.htm#.Whoq4nmQyUk. 12 Urban II, Speech at Council of Clermont, 1095. Available from http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/source/urban2-5vers.html. Accessed 11-25-17. Walter Brandmüller, Light and Shadows: Church History Amid Faith, Fact, and Legend. (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2009), 133, italics mine. 13