Good God! What's a Crusade?

At first, one can almost laugh at the impossibility of condensing the history of The Crusades into one provocative question. After much contemplating a reader would consider the most legitimate and necessary question to be asked about The Crusades is, well, “What were The Crusades?” This question seems to be a medieval historian’s biggest problem. To define The Crusades is to nearly define hundreds of years of history! Almost every crusade had a different meaning, because not all of The Crusades had the same intentions and goals. Some define The Crusades to be a war of papal consent or as a holy war. Some define The Crusades as a trek to show ones loyalty, or a way to renew ones salvation in their faith. So what were The Crusades?

This almost subjective question has become the center of debate in medieval history. Looking from the eyes of a secular scholar one can see not only the brutality of The Crusades’ events, but also it’s religious meaning. For one to crusade did not solely mean to devour the enemy of the church in the name of god, but it also meant for one to perform a penitential act.

The definition of “crusade” by modern standards is needless to say different from when it was invented. The common knowledge of The Crusades is basically that Western European Christians went to Jerusalem, because the church wanted them to. Another person might elaborate that they saw in a movie that it also had to do with a “holy grail”. To think that tens of thousands of people made a journey from Western Europe to the Middle East to die for a cup is ridiculous.

Finally it is important to stress that The Crusades is known for mainly describing a time period in Western European history. As generic as it sounds, it makes more sense that the word describes a period rather than an idea. When asked what The Crusades were, you can now answer that it was merely a time period in the middle ages. To go into any further detail will strike argument and criticism.

Works Cited:
Alfred J. Andrea. "Encyclopedia of the Crusades". Connecticut: Greenwood Press, 2003
Helen Nicholson. "The Crusades". Connecticut: Greenwood Publishing Group, 2004