a holy war authorized by the pope, who proclaimed it in the name of God or Christ...a defensive
reaction to injury or aggression or as an attempt to recover Christian territories lost to the infidels, it
answered the needs of the whole church or all of Christendom...rather than those of a particular
nation. (1)
Crusades scholar Dr. Elizabeth Siberry accepts Dr. Riley-Smith's definition as a sort of working definition within which she frames her scholarly work on the criticism of the crusades, but she also points out that such a definition has its flaws. She notes that while the definition covers the crusades launched,
by the papacy against heretics , schismatics, and Christian lay powers in the West as well as
the campaigns against the Muslims in the Near East", that it does not cover "outbursts of popular
fervour such as the so-called Children's Crusade of 1212 and the Sheperd's Crusade of 1251." (2)
The widely respected historian Giles Constable also addressed the problem of defining the crusade when he wrote,
The so called traditionalists hold that a true crusade must be directed toward the east, either
to assist the Christians there or to liberate Jerusalem and the Holy Sepulcher, whereas for the
so-called pluralists the defining feature of a crusade, whatever its objective, is papal authorization.
The traditionalists ask where a crusade was going and therefore hold that the crusades basically
ended with the fall of the crusader states in the east. The pluralists, on the other hand, ask how
a crusade was initiated and organized and thus extend the history of the crusades not only
geographically but also chronologically, down to recent times.
Both approaches present problems.The traditionalists reject, and even regard as a corruption
of legitimate crusading, any crusade not directed toward the east, including those in Spain and
northern Europe, and those against heretics, schismatics, and other enemies of the church, even
when they were called by the papacy and rewarded by spiritual privileges. These present no difficulty
for the pluralists, who find it hard to fit into their definition the “popular” crusades, which were neither
authorized nor supported by the papacy but which for some scholars embody the essence of
crusading.Both groups are uncertain what to do with the so-called pre- or proto-crusades, which
were neither directed toward the east nor summoned by the pope. I have myself been counted
among the pluralists owing to my article showing that contemporaries regarded the expeditions against
the Wends and Muslims on the Iberian peninsula as part of the Second Crusade, but I am reluctant to
exclude the “popular” crusades or to deny that at least a spiritual orientation toward Jerusalem was
an essential aspect of crusading." (3)
Medieval writers obviously had a much different understanding of a crusade. The early twelfth-century Syrian chronicler Ibn Tahir al-Sulami defined the First Crusade as an invasion by western nations which began in Sicily and Spain.The Arab chronicler believed that once Christian armies had discovered the weakness of Muslims in Europe they were emboldened to attack Muslims in the East with the conquest of Jerusalem as their goal.(4)
It may be that the most useful and simple definition of crusade is simply, "Holy War." There is little doubt that a crusade was generally understood by those who participated in them, in various times and places, to involve some aspect of holiness, whether in their cause or efforts. Such expeditions were believed to have had the approval of the divine, so long as those who participated in them remained pleasing to God.
Jonathan Riley-Smith- Crusades-Encyclopedia
Elizabeth Siberry- Crusades-Encyclopedia
Ibn Tahir al Sulami- Crusades-Encyclopedia
First Crusade- Crusades-Encyclopedia
1. Jonathan Riley-Smith. What Were the Crusades? (London: MacMillan,1977), 12.
2. Elizabeth Siberry. Criticsim of Crusading: 1095-1274. (Oxford: Clarendon, 1985), preface.
3. Giles Constable. "The Historiography of the Crusades." [PDF] In The Crusades From the Perspective of Byzantium and the Muslim World, Ed. Angeliki Laiou & Roy Parviz Mottahedeh, Dumberton Oak, 12-13.
4. Hadia Dajani-Shakeel. Some Medieval Accounts of Salah-al-Din's Recovery of Jerusalem (Al Quds) [Online] Internet History Sourcebooks [cited 08/23/2005] www.fordham.edu/halsall/med/salahdin.html
(c) Andrew Holt, August 2005- Permission is granted for electronic copying and distribution in print for educational and personal use. No permission is granted for commercial use.