The research of German historian Hans Eberhard Mayer contributed significantly to the shift in modern scholarly understandings of the crusades in the later half of the twentieth-century. In Mayer's most influential work, The Crusades, first published in English in 1972, he argues against the so called "Erdmann Thesis," which held that the crusades were ultimately the result of the Peace-Truce of God movements (see Carl Erdmann. The Origins of the Idea of the Crusade, trans. M. W. Baldwin and Walter Goffart, Princeton, NJ, 1977- initially published in German in 1935). In this scenario, clerical leaders in the West concocted the crusades as a means of exporting violence to the East, thereby restoring peace at home. Several historians have attacked or substantially modified the Erdmann thesis, and Mayer has argued that concern over the fate of Jerusalem under Turkish control was more of a motivator for the papacy and the the church at large than solely concerns about quelling violence in the West.
Erdmann made other important arguments...
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Dr. Mayer is currently Professor of Medieval and Modern History at the University of Kiel.
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Carl Erdmann- Crusades-Encyclopedia
Erdmann Thesis- Crusades-Encyclopedia
Peace and Truce of God Movements- Crusades-Encyclopedia
Steven Runciman- Crusades-Encyclopedia
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