Over at Commentary’s Contentions blog, Jonathan Tobin has attacked Senator Rick Santorum for the Senator’s recent comments regarding the Crusades.  Tobin typically does yeoman’s work in myth busting – especially when these myths pertain to Israel.  Thus it was disappointing to see Tobin become a myth purveyor rather than a myth buster once the topic changed. 

I’m not claiming that the Crusades were a proud chapter in the history of the West.  Neither was Senator Santorum.  The Crusaders committed atrocities and excesses which, while typical of warfare at that time, hardly fulfill Christianity’s highest ideals. 

The problem is that these events are so often lifted out of their historical context and twisted into a tool with which to attack Christianity today.  To those of us who assert that Christianity is essentially a religion of peace and love which has made enormous contributions to Western civilization, critics have at the ready a one-word rebuttal.  And that word is “Crusades.”  Yet, contrary to this conventional wisdom, the reality of the Crusades is surprisingly nuanced.  (For a more detailed discussion of this topic, see my latest book, In Defense of Faith: The Judeo-Christian Idea and the Struggle for Humanity.)

The first myth – the one Senator Santorum sought to rebut -- is that the Crusades were an unprovoked aggression against Islam.  Even a superficial review of the historical record proves Santorum’s point.  As Middle East expert Bernard Lewis has noted, the Crusades should be viewed as “a long-delayed, very limited, and finally ineffectual response to the jihad.”  

Indeed, the Crusades were hardly a break with otherwise peaceful relations between Christians and Muslims.  After the birth of Islam, Arab armies exploded out of the Arabian Peninsula and embarked upon a series of conquests.  In the course of the seventh century, Muslim armies conquered Syria, Palestine, Egypt and North Africa.  In the eighth century, they conquered Spain and Portugal and invaded France.  In the ninth century, they conquered Sicily and invaded the Italian mainland.  Every single one of these lands had been Christian prior to the Muslim conquests. 

When Muslim forces were on the verge of conquering Constantinople in 1071, Byzantine Emperor Alexius 1 sent an urgent appeal to Pope Urban II asking for help in defending this eastern capital of Christendom.  It was in response to this plea that Pope Urban called forth the First Crusade. 

The second big myth about the Crusaders is that they had a second mission beyond liberating Jerusalem: the murder of the innocent Jews they found along the way.  It is true that some of the men who joined the Crusaders on their march did break off and murder between three to four thousand Jews.  It is also true that this brutal murder of thousands of innocents merely because of their faith dealt a devastating blow to Europe’s small and struggling Jewish community.  But it is wrong to suggest – as Tobin does -- that these attacks were officially sanctioned or encouraged.  Far from leading the charge, the Church leadership actually tried to stop this anti-Semitic violence at every turn. 

The bloodiest assaults on Europe’s Jews took place during the First Crusade.  Most of these attacks were perpetrated by a militia under the control of one man: Count Emicho of Flonheim.  Emicho was a peripheral figure who decided to join the Crusader armies passing through his town on their way to Jerusalem.  Yet rather than march so far and fight so hard, he chose the much easier task of attacking defenseless Jews living closer to home. 

The archbishops and bishops of the cities and towns on Emicho’s route went to great lengths to protect their Jewish communities from this rogue band.  In some towns these efforts succeeded.  In Speyer, for instance, the local bishop successfully hid most of the Jewish community in the fortified towns he controlled nearby.  When Emicho and his henchmen came looking for Speyer’s Jews, few were left.    

In other towns, these efforts were less successful.  In Mainz, for example, the local archbishop ordered the city’s gates locked against Emicho and then invited the Jews to take shelter in his fortified compound.  Tragically, local merchants opened the gates to Emicho’s men who then overpowered the archbishop’s guards.  Almost one thousands innocent Jewish men, women and children were slaughtered. 

When the Second Crusade began in 1145, a French monk named Radulf began to reprise the role played by Emicho in targeting Jews.  This time, however, the Crusade’s spiritual leader, Bernard of Clairvaux, was still in Europe when the attacks began.  He traveled in person to confront Radulf.  Bernard told Radulf and his men that “Whoever touches a Jew to take his life is like one who harms Jesus himself.”  After Bernard’s intervention, these anti-Semitic attacks ceased.

Why was Senator Santorum dredging up this medieval past?  My guess is that he didn’t.  My guess is that it was dredged up for him, as it so often is, by those who seek to marginalize people like Senator Santorum who proudly link their Christian faith to their most cherished morals.  And, to his credit, Senator Santorum lacks neither the knowledge nor the courage to respond to such attacks.  Once such myths are busted, we can begin the real conversation about the role of faith in our culture where the good Senator has even more important things to say.