Dr. Thomas Madden describes the Enlightenment era view of the crusades when he notes that "...philosophes, like Voltaire, believed that medieval Christianity was a vile superstition. For them the crusades were a migration of barbarians led by fanaticism, greed, and lust." [Crusades Myths- Catholic Dossier]. The Catholic author G.K. Chesterton referred to the "Voltairian version of the Crusades" as a version in which the crusades were a "destructive movement of superstition."
Voltaire himself, in his 1751 work on the crusades which was incorporated into his Essai sur les Moeurs, referred to the crusaders as adventurers motivated only by "the thirst for brigandage." His opinion of Christianity was perhaps best summed up in his letter to Frederick the Great in which he wrote, "Christianity is the most ridicules, the most absurd and bloody religion that has ever infected the world."
For Voltaire, there was simply no excuse for the crusades. Even the Muslim military conquest of fully two-thirds of the known Christian world prior to the crusades did not seem to be a suitable reason for a Christian military response. Voltaire was a man of his times, in which it was not uncommon to assume religion was the cause of all ills. He often cited the crusades and Inquisition as examples of the negative effect of faith. The events of the twentieth-century have largely quieted such associations of religion with violence in that the greatest massacres in history were carried out by officially secular or atheist governments (Stalin-20,000,000, Pol-Pot- 1,700,000, Mao-30,000,000, etc...).
Voltaire On the Wars Against the Cathars of Languedoc The Languedoc
G.K. Chesterton- The Meaning of the Crusade
Dr. Thomas Madden- Crusades-Encyclopedia
(c) Andrew Holt, June 2005- Permission is granted for electronic copying and distribution in print for educational and personal use. No permission is granted for commercial use.