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“The idea that the Crusades and the fight of Christendom against Islam is somehow an aggression on our part is absolutely anti-historical. And that is what the perception is by the American left who hates Christendom. They hate Christendom. They hate Western civilization at the core. That's the problem.”This statement, perhaps unsurprisingly, has been picked up by a few media outlets.
But I call bullshit.
I've commented on this modern attitude towards the Crusades before, and again, so I don't really feel compelled to rehash the arguments I've already made. Allow me to simply refer you to those 2 previous posts in particular and highlight that the kind of argument Santorum is making is (regretfully) not new, even while it's arrogant, simplistic, and expressly political. It's the kind of pap you get from Rodney Stark and Ross Douthat -- a bigoted anti-Islamism masquerading as scholarship. This is us vs. them, good vs. evil. If you question "Christendom", you question America, and if you question America, you're with her enemies -- Muslims.
None of that is unexpected. Santorum is using his "dog whistle" to mobilize his core constituency as he prepares for a 2012 presidential run. To do so, he's suggesting that Christians are persecuted by the secular left, most especially (in this case) composed of us egg-headed academics.
But perhaps Rick could learn something from us egg-heads (Stephen Colbert, Jon Stewart, call me...). For example, my book is fundamentally about nostalgia -- about a deeply-held longing for a Golden Age that's been lost. My subjects looked back to a period in which society made sense, when God looked down in favor on his new chosen people, and when those subjects held almost universal power. Then, a time came when those people thought they could reclaim that lost glory and remake the world as it once was. Anyone who stood in their way was an enemy. That path was paved in blood.
But what story am I telling here? Is this a story of the 11th-century Franks and the First Crusade? Or is this a story of a more contemporary American nostalgia, one that collapses political and religious goals into one, so that defending the medieval Crusades means
onward American soldiers... The point I was trying to make was that the national faith, the national ideal, is rooted in the Christian ideal — in the Judeo-Christian concept of the person.
And if you oppose that "Judeo-Christian" concept, you secularist, you Muslim, well...
13 comments:
Nice work. Glad you're writing this. - David Perry.
Wonderful as usual, Matt.
Wonderful and interesting response, thank you!
Santorum should spend some time in one of our classrooms. He has a lot to learn but a closed mind such as his is tough to reach.
I would love to see you pull this all apart on Jon Stewart's or Stephen Colbert's show!
Nice to see an actual medievalist weighing in on this issue. Thanks very much.
I hope the occasional non-medievalist will read this. Thanks.
An op-ed on this topic from a colleague and friend down at UNC-Chapel Hill -- http://www.newsobserver.com/2011/03/17/1058066/really-the-crusades-dont-fit-our.html
I’m only sort of a Medievalist myself, but I really love the field and read your blogs on regular basis... !!! thanks for sharing about an actual medievalist.
Whe I saw this blog referenced in a daily Beast article, I though it was going to be an academic rebuttal, but now I realize it is just a heavy ideological piece. Lets take a look of to the west - east relatios before the first crusade:
674-78: First Siege of Constantinople, repelled with the invention and deployment of “Greek Fire.”
711-18: Muslim Conquest of Spain, which would not be reconquered completely by the Christians until 1492.
717-18: Second Siege of Constantinople.
719: Muslim invasion of France begins, establishing Muslim control of the Septimania region of southwestern France.
732: Battle of Poitiers (Tours); Charles Martel halts Muslim northward march into central France.
736: Muslim Conquest of Georgia, where the Emirate of Tbilisi would hold sway until 1122.
820: Muslim Conquest of Crete, which would be held until 961.
827: Muslim Conquest of Syracuse in Sicily.
846: The Muslim Sack of Rome by troops landing at the port of Ostia, including the sack of St. Peter’s Basilica while Pope Sergius II and the helpless Roman garrison retreated behind the city walls.
74-78: First Siege of Constantinople, repelled with the invention and deployment of “Greek Fire.”
711-18: Muslim Conquest of Spain, which would not be reconquered completely by the Christians until 1492.
717-18: Second Siege of Constantinople.
719: Muslim invasion of France begins, establishing Muslim control of the Septimania region of southwestern France.
732: Battle of Poitiers (Tours); Charles Martel halts Muslim northward march into central France.
736: Muslim Conquest of Georgia, where the Emirate of Tbilisi would hold sway until 1122.
820: Muslim Conquest of Crete, which would be held until 961.
827: Muslim Conquest of Syracuse in Sicily.
846: The Muslim Sack of Rome by troops landing at the port of Ostia, including the sack of St. Peter’s Basilica while Pope Sergius II and the helpless Roman garrison retreated behind the city walls.
847: Muslim Conquest of Bari in southern Italy; the Muslim presence on the Italian peninsula proper lasted 25 years.
915, at the Battle of Garigliano, Pope John X personally led an army against Islamic forces in southern Ital
An error:
Santorum is planning a *2016* run for president.
The 2012 attempt didn't work out too well.
Janice: I would love to see you pull this all apart on Jon Stewart's or Stephen Colbert's show!
I'd like to see him do it HERE. All he does is explain that he can't be bothered to make his case because he's done it before, then go off on an ad hominem attack on Santorum's motivations.
I'd have to classify this blog entry as anti-intellectual in nature, and it's doubly embarrassing that foreveralone, a commenter, did more actual legwork than the supposed medieval expert. This stuff isn't good enough to get on The Daily Show.
I am not sure why you are assuming those wars are automatically religious in nature because one side was Muslim and one side was Christian. It also assumes that this means the Crusades were defensive in nature. It shows a huge myopia to assume that.
Wars of expansion weren't unique so some explanation is actually required as to why the motivation was primarily religious in nature like modern mainstream scholars consider the Crusades to be.
An example would be Spain, where jockying for power meant Muslims and Christians could ally with each other against some Muslim or Christian group depending on the circumstances. To show it was religious in nature requires evidence besides just SPanish Christian nations frequently fighting Spanish Muslim nations.
What led modern scholars to see at least the First Crusade as being primarily motivated by religious beliefs for the Western Christians was evidence beyond just that like how the common non-religious explanations failed to explain the evidence in terms of who fought in the crusades and what benefits were actually derived from the crusades for those involved.
With Sicily for example, they had recently conquered a nearby port which was a really good base in North Africa that would work for any attempted conquest of the fairly close by territory of Sicily. It made sense in practical terms in a way that the Crusades didn't.
Basically, at best, the argument is incomplete to an extreme degree. It utterly fails to refute anything. If anything, it is evidence for the religious and not mainly defensive nature given they didn't fight a much more practical war with Muslim nations much closer by or even something that was more strategic. If it was part of a defensive war against Muslim countries, why did they choose a place far away that really made sense mainly in terms of religion instead of all those areas that you are describing? It is like the USA deciding to fight Britain in the war of 1812 by invading British Guiana.
The real and imagined atrocities probably would have had similar tales from the other areas if they cared to look so saying it is justified because of that is kind of weird.
And if it is so common he pointed it out previously, no point in going through the arguments again when he can just point to previous explanations. Might as well do something new.
Dear "foreveralone" and "Graeme Cree". I think you might have missed this sentence:
"I've commented on this modern attitude towards the Crusades before, and again, so I don't really feel compelled to rehash the arguments I've already made."
You'll notice, if you scroll up to that sentence, that it contains two hyperlinks. Hope it's not too much legwork.
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