Were the Crusades Justified? Holy War, Conquest, or Response to Conquest

The Crusades (1095–1291) were armed pilgrimages called by popes to recover Jerusalem and to help Eastern Christians, after more than four centuries of Muslim conquest of formerly Christian lands, from Syria and Egypt in the 630s–640s to Spain in 711 and Anatolia after Manzikert on 26 August 1071. They also produced the Rhineland massacres of Jews in 1096, the slaughter of Muslims and Jews at Jerusalem in 1099, the killing of prisoners at Acre in 1191, and the sack of Christian Constantinople in 1204.

Key Points

• Arab armies took Byzantine Syria, Palestine, and Egypt in the 630s–640s, and most of Iberia from 711. The Seljuks defeated and captured Emperor Romanus IV at Manzikert on 26 August 1071, and took Antioch in 1085. The Islamic Conquests (632–1071) is that earlier history. Britannica on the First Crusade presents the crusades as a response to centuries of Muslim wars of expansion.
• Alexius I’s envoys asked Urban II for help at Piacenza in 1095. Urban preached at Clermont on 18 November 1095. Five later versions of the sermon disagree, and Britannica says his exact words will never be known.
• The Clermont canon, in Dana C. Munro’s 1895 English, grants the indulgence only to one who went “through devotion alone, and not for the sake of honor or gain.”
• Emicho’s bands killed Jews at Speyer, Worms, Mainz (27 May 1096), and Cologne. Albert of Aix wrote that the Lord “orders no one unwillingly, or under compulsion, to come under the yoke of the Catholic faith.”
• At Jerusalem on 15 July 1099 the Gesta says the men “waded in blood up to their ankles.” Britannica says hundreds of men, women, and children, Muslim and Jewish, were killed despite Tancred’s banner. Ibn al-Athir’s 70,000 is a later figure. Konrad Hirschler’s 2014 study says early sources make a total massacre unlikely.
• At Acre on 20 August 1191, after the ransom deadline, Richard I ordered about 2,700 hostages beheaded. In April 1204 a crusade sacked Constantinople. Innocent III wrote that swords meant for pagans were dripping with Christian blood. The Fourth Crusade and the Sack of Constantinople (1204)
• Matthew 26:52CloseThen said Jesus unto him, Put up again thy sword into his place: for all they that take the sword shall perish with the sword.Matthew 26:52 · King James VersionOpen source records Jesus telling Peter to put the sword back. A war of recovery is not the same act as the conquest that took the land, and it does not excuse the killings Christians then committed.

What Came Before 1095

The Islamic Conquests (632–1071) sets out the campaigns from Muhammad’s death in 632 through Manzikert. Britannica on the Reconquista dates Tariq ibn Ziyad’s landing in 711, the traditional start of Christian recovery in Iberia at Covadonga about 718, and the end of that recovery at Granada in 1492. It says the Reconquista began as political expansion, not as a religious crusade.

In the east, Britannica dates Manzikert to 26 August 1071 and records the capture of Romanus IV. Britannica on the First Crusade dates the Seljuk taking of Antioch to 1085.

Pilgrimage was already dangerous. The Annales Altahenses, in James Brundage’s 1962 English, record that Arab raiders attacked the great German pilgrimage of 1064–1065 and that the Fatimid governor of Ramla rescued it. Both the attack and the rescue are in that account.

The destruction of the Holy Sepulchre belongs to this background, not to the summons of 1095. Rodulfus Glaber, in C. G. Coulton’s English, says:

the church at Jerusalem which contained the sepulchre of our Lord and Saviour was utterly overthrown at the command of the prince of Babylon

“Prince of Babylon” here is the Fatimid caliph al-Hakim. The year in the Western report is 1009, eighty-six years before Clermont. Britannica says al-Hakim persecuted Christians, Jews, and Sunnis. Pruitt’s 2013 article in Muqarnas 30 places the demolition in that broader policy. Glaber also says Jews in the West were blamed for the news. What Is the Jizya? is the tax and the restrictions that sat on Christians and Jews under Muslim rule.

What Urban II Said at Clermont

Alexius I’s envoys asked for Western help at the Council of Piacenza in 1095. Urban preached at Clermont on 18 November 1095. The People’s Crusade was destroyed at Civetot in 1096. In August 1098 the Fatimids took Jerusalem from the Seljuk side, so the city the crusaders attacked in 1099 was in Fatimid hands.

Five accounts of the sermon were written later, and they do not match. Fulcher of Chartres, Robert the Monk, the Gesta, Baldric of Dol, and Guibert of Nogent are the five. Britannica says the exact words will never be known. The council’s own canon, in Dana C. Munro’s 1895 English, is the rule the council published:

If any one through devotion alone, and not for the sake of honor or gain, goes to Jerusalem to free the church of God, the journey itself shall take the place of all penance.

Fulcher’s version, in Oliver J. Thatcher and Edgar Holmes McNeal’s 1905 English, says “the Turks and Arabs have attacked them and have conquered the territory of Romania [the Greek empire] as far west as the shore of the Mediterranean and the Hellespont,” promises that “All who die by the way, whether by land or by sea, or in battle against the pagans, shall have immediate remission of sins,” and says, “Let those who for a long time, have been robbers, now become knights.”

Robert the Monk, in Munro’s 1895 English, written about twenty-five years later, speaks of “this land which you inhabit” and tells the hearers to “wrest that land from the wicked race, and subject it to yourselves.” Baldric of Dol, in August C. Krey’s 1921 English, says, “The possessions of the enemy, too, will be yours.” Guibert of Nogent, also in Krey, alleges that pilgrims were “forced to make payments and tributes almost every mile.”

The defensive sentence, the indulgence, the offer of land and plunder, and the complaint about the road are all in these later reports. They are not one speech. The canon ties the spiritual reward to devotion, not to honor or gain. What Is a Caliphate?

The Rhineland Massacres of 1096

On the way east, bands that included Emicho’s killed Jews at Speyer, Worms, Mainz, and Cologne. Mainz’s killings were on 27 May 1096. This was not a battle for Jerusalem. It was the murder of neighbors.

Albert of Aix, in Krey’s 1921 English, says Bishop Rothard of Mainz “placed the Jews in the very spacious hall of his own house.” Albert’s judgment on the killers is the sentence that matters:

The Lord is a just judge and orders no one unwillingly, or under compulsion, to come under the yoke of the Catholic faith.

Solomon bar Samson, in the short English of Jacob Marcus (1938), says that “even the bishop himself fled from his church for it was thought to kill him also because he had spoken good things of the Jews.” Some bishops sheltered Jews. The shelter failed. Forced baptism and killing were the work of these bands, and a Christian chronicler condemned them at the time.

The Taking of Jerusalem in 1099

The city fell on 15 July 1099. The Gesta Francorum, in Krey’s English, describes the killing inside the city:

where the slaughter was so great that our men waded in blood up to their ankles

The same account says, “No one ever saw or heard of such slaughter of pagan people, for funeral pyres were formed from them like pyramids, and no one knows their number except God alone.” Raymond of Aguilers, also in Krey, writes of men riding “in blood up to their knees and bridle reins” in the Temple and porch of Solomon, and calls it “a just and splendid judgment of God.” That image echoes Revelation 14:20CloseAnd the winepress was trodden without the city, and blood came out of the winepress, even unto the horse bridles, by the space of a thousand and six hundred furlongs.Revelation 14:20 · King James VersionOpen source. Historians read it as rhetoric, not as a measured depth of blood. Fulcher of Chartres, in the 1912 English of Frederick Duncan and August C. Krey, says, “None of them were left alive; neither women nor children were spared.” Fulcher’s presence in the city that week is disputed, so his line is one report among others, not an eyewitness certainty.

Britannica says hundreds of men, women, and children, both Muslim and Jewish, perished, despite Tancred’s banner of protection over al-Aqsa. Benjamin Z. Kedar’s 2004 article surveys how Western historians have told that day. It is a bibliographic pointer, not a casualty count. Konrad Hirschler’s 2014 study of the Arabic historiography says Ibn al-Athir’s 70,000 belongs to a later narrative, that Ibn al-Arabi gives 3,000, and that early sources make a total massacre unlikely. Hundreds killed, including people under a banner of protection, is already a massacre. A later round number does not have to be true for the crime to be plain.

The stated aim was the city and the church, not a law that every Muslim must be baptized or die. The celebration in Raymond’s “just and splendid judgment” is still a Christian writer praising a slaughter. That praise does not become Christian teaching because a chronicler wrote it.

From Hattin to the Fall of Acre

Zengi took Edessa in 1144. William of Tyre, in Brundage’s short English, calls the city devoted to Christianity since the apostles and says it “passed into an undeserved servitude.” Eugenius III answered with Quantum praedecessores. Ernest F. Henderson’s 1910 English of that bull grants remission of sins to the one who begins the journey, finishes it, or dies on it. A Fordham header dates Edessa to 1146. William of Tyre’s book dates the fall to 1144. This page follows William.

On 4 July 1187 Saladin won at Hattin. The account in Brundage’s English says, “The Templars and Hospitallers were ransomed from the other Turks and were killed.” Reginald of Châtillon was killed. Jerusalem surrendered by agreement on 2 October 1187. De Expugnatione, in the same short English, sets the ransom at ten besants for each male of ten years and over, and five besants for females. Another report, Imad al-Din as given by Dajani-Shakeel on the Fordham page, uses ten, five, and two dinars over forty days. Balian paid 30,000 dinars for the poor, and many were released without payment. About 15,000 who could not pay were enslaved, according to Imad al-Din as given by Dajani-Shakeel. Saladin had first threatened to treat the city as the crusaders had treated it in 1099. The negotiated surrender and the ransom waivers are real. The execution of the military orders and the enslavement of the unransomed are also real.

At Acre, the ransom deadline passed. The Itinerarium Peregrinorum, in Brundage’s English (pp. 183–184), says:

he ordered that two thousand seven hundred of the vanquished Turkish hostages be led out of the city and decapitated

That is Richard I’s order, in a crusader narrative, not a Muslim accusation alone. Two thousand seven hundred prisoners killed after a surrender is a crime. It is not required by the appeal of 1095, and it is not excused by Hattin or by 1099.

Baybars took Antioch in May 1268. In 1291 the Mamluks took Acre. Ludolph of Suchem, in Aubrey Stewart’s 1895 English, describes that fall. The mainland crusader states ended there. On the question of who won, the Mamluks held the coast in 1291.

The Sack of Constantinople in 1204

The Fourth Crusade was diverted. It sacked Zara, and in April 1204 it sacked Constantinople, a Christian city. Innocent III’s letter of 1205, in Brundage’s English, says the swords “which they were supposed to use against the pagans, are now dripping with Christian blood,” and that the Greek church “detests the Latins more than dogs.” The full page is The Fourth Crusade and the Sack of Constantinople (1204). Eastern Orthodox and Catholic is the split this sack deepened. John Paul II, speaking to Archbishop Christodoulos in Athens on 4 May 2001, said the fact that the assailants were Latin Christians “fills Catholics with deep regret.” That regret is for 1204. It is not a general apology for every crusade.

Other Crusades and Later Sieges

The “Children’s Crusade” of 1212 was officially never a crusade. Britannica says more than 7,000 reached Genoa, that pueri may mean the poor rather than children only, and that the movement probably ended as a labor migration.

Las Navas de Tolosa, on 16 July 1212, was a papally declared crusade inside the Iberian wars. Britannica still describes the longer Reconquista as political expansion that later took a crusade’s form. Granada fell to Ferdinand and Isabella in 1492.

The Albigensian Crusade and the Baltic campaigns used crusade privileges against heretics and against pagan neighbors. That record is on Did Christianity Spread by the Sword?.

After the crusader states were gone, Ottoman armies took Constantinople on 29 May 1453 and made Hagia Sophia a mosque. The siege of Vienna failed in 1529. Britannica gives Ottoman losses as 16,000 of about 100,000. A second siege, from 17 July to 12 September 1683, was broken by John III Sobieski. Britannica gives the Ottoman strength as about 150,000. Those sieges are Ottoman campaigns against Christian cities, two centuries and more after Acre. They are not crusades. They are part of the same long record of conquest, set out in What Is the History of Islam?.

What Augustine and Aquinas Wrote

Augustine, in Contra Faustum XXII.74, names the evils that sit inside a war even when the war has a cause:

The real evils in war are love of violence, revengeful cruelty, fierce and implacable enmity, wild resistance, and the lust of power

Aquinas, in Summa Theologiae II-II, question 40, article 1, quotes Augustine that “we go to war that we may have peace,” and he requires legitimate authority, a just cause, and a right intention. In II-II, question 10, article 8, he says heathens and Jews “are by no means to be compelled to the faith, in order that they may believe, because to believe depends on the will.” The same article says Christians may war “not indeed for the purpose of forcing them to believe” but “in order to prevent them from hindering the faith of Christ,” and that heretics and apostates “should be submitted even to bodily compulsion.” The refusal to compel unbelievers and the permission to coerce heretics are both his. The second is the background of the Albigensian Crusade. Jonathan Riley-Smith’s “Crusading as an Act of Love” (History, 1980) is a bibliographic pointer into the argument about motive.

Timeline

A Ledger of Aims and Wrongs

The Christian Claim

Jesus tells Peter to put the sword back. Matthew 26:52CloseThen said Jesus unto him, Put up again thy sword into his place: for all they that take the sword shall perish with the sword.Matthew 26:52 · King James VersionOpen source (King James Version):

Then said Jesus unto him, Put up again thy sword into his place: for all they that take the sword shall perish with the sword.

Matthew 26:52 · King James Version

John 18:36CloseJesus answered, My kingdom is not of this world: if my kingdom were of this world, then would my servants fight, that I should not be delivered to the Jews: but now is my kingdom not from hence.John 18:36 · King James VersionOpen source says his kingdom is not of this world, and that if it were, his servants would fight. Romans 13:4CloseFor he is the minister of God to thee for good. But if thou do that which is evil, be afraid; for he beareth not the sword in vain: for he is the minister of God, a revenger to execute wrath upon him that doeth evil.Romans 13:4 · King James VersionOpen source gives the sword to the civil minister who punishes evil, not to a crowd that wants a neighbor’s baptism. Luke 3:14CloseAnd the soldiers likewise demanded of him, saying, And what shall we do? And he said unto them, Do violence to no man, neither accuse any falsely; and be content with your wages.Luke 3:14 · King James VersionOpen source tells soldiers to do violence to no one and to be content with their wages. The gospel calls people to the Son who was crucified and raised. It does not command the church to kill the person who walks away. Jesus is God. The Islamic Dilemma is the argument about what the Qur’an says of him and of the earlier books. Did Christianity Spread by the Sword? is the separate question of baptism by force.

Frequently Asked Questions

Did the Catholic Church Apologize for the Crusades?

John Paul II, in Athens on 4 May 2001, expressed deep regret for the Latin sack of Constantinople in 1204. That speech is about 1204 and about Orthodox Christians. It is not a general apology for the wars from Clermont to Acre.

Who Won the Crusades?

The Mamluks took Acre in 1291. That ended the crusader states on the mainland. Jerusalem had already returned to Saladin in 1187.

What Did Jewish Writers Record in 1096?

Solomon bar Samson’s chronicle of Mainz says the bishop was thought worth killing because he had spoken good things of the Jews. Albert of Aix records both the bishop’s shelter and a condemnation of forced baptism.

Were the Crusades a Reaction to Islam?

They were called after centuries of Muslim conquest of Christian lands, after Manzikert, after the loss of Antioch, and after an Eastern emperor’s envoys asked for help. That sequence is a response to conquest. It does not make the Rhineland, Jerusalem in 1099, Acre in 1191, or Constantinople in 1204 into defense.

What Did Jesus Say About the Sword?

Matthew 26:52CloseThen said Jesus unto him, Put up again thy sword into his place: for all they that take the sword shall perish with the sword.Matthew 26:52 · King James VersionOpen source says to put the sword back, and that those who take the sword perish by it. John 18:36CloseJesus answered, My kingdom is not of this world: if my kingdom were of this world, then would my servants fight, that I should not be delivered to the Jews: but now is my kingdom not from hence.John 18:36 · King James VersionOpen source says the kingdom is not of this world.