Tag Archives: Thomas Madden

Guest Essay: A Colony by Any Other Name: The Latin States of Syria-Palestine

Above Image: Historian Alfred J. Andrea walking along the famous markets at Portobello Road in London.

The following essay is the text, slightly revised, of a brief talk given by historian Alfred J. Andrea at the International Medieval Congress at Leeds, U.K., on July 3rd, 2019. Dr. Andrea, Professor Emeritus of the University of Vermont and former President of the World History Association, gave these introductory comments as part of a panel considering crusade myths that also included historians Natasha R. Hodgson, Alan V. Murray, and Aphrodite Papayianni. Here Dr. Andrea provides a nuanced reassessment of the issues of colonialism and crusading. In keeping with current scholarly views of the crusades, Dr. Andrea agrees that comparisons of the crusader states with modern 19th and 20th century western colonial models are wrong. Yet, as a world historian, Dr. Andrea also points out that historically there have been many forms of colonialization worldwide.

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A Colony by Any Other Name: The Latin States of Syria-Palestine

Guest Essay by Alfred J. Andrea

Joshua Prawer famously argued in his 1972 study of the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem that the economies, societies, and institutions of the states of the Latin East, and predominantly those of the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem, are understandable only if one realizes that they were colonies of Western Europe and especially so of Franco-Europe.[1] He further maintained that it was only with the crusades that colonialism became a major factor in world history, and in that sense  “the Crusader kingdom” was the first European colonial society.

Leaving aside for the moment Prawer’s argument that the states of the Latin East were Western Europe’s initial venture into global colonialism, the fact is that the states of the Latin East are viewed in the popular imagination as examples of early Western colonialism. In the words of Karen Armstrong, whose best-selling books have misguided many who seek to understand the crusades, “These soldiers of Christ established European colonies in the Middle East and began to dream of world domination.”[2]

In reaction to similar popular, often overstated and erroneously envisioned notions of crusader colonialism—a colonialism misrepresented in numerous media, including such films as The Kingdom of Heaven (2005)[3]—a significant number of eminent scholars have derided the very idea of a colonial Latin East as unadulterated myth.[4]  Thomas Madden, for example, referring to the four states that comprised the Latin East, argues that: Continue reading →

Kingdom of Heaven

*This following post is adapted from an older 2005 blog post on my now defunct crusades-encyclopedia website and needs, eventually, further updating.

Few films have caused as much of a stir among crusades historians and students as Kingdom of Heaven. The film was directed by Ridley Scott and although it was not released until 2005, various commentaries and criticisms by those who had been given access to the film’s script began appearing in the press several months in advance.

The film focused on the crusading movement in the Levant in the years shortly before the calling of the Third Crusade [c. 1187]. The highlight of the film is Saladin’s siege of Jerusalem and the events leading up to the capture of the city from the crusaders. Viewers are guided through both historical and fictional events from the perspective of the film’s main character, the historical Balian of Ibelin.

While some Muslim groups ultimately expressed praise for the film, many crusades historians did not. The traditional battle between scholarly and popular views of the crusades flared as a result, with some prominent scholars denouncing the director’s claim to historical reliability. Consequently, judging by the nature of most news stories released during and after the production of the movie, the debate over the film’s depiction of historical events became, perhaps, a bigger story than the release of the film. Continue reading →

Writing the Crusades: An Interview with Dr. Laurence W. Marvin

I first read Prof. Laurence W. Marvin’s The Occitan War: A Military and Political History of the Albigenian Crusade, 1209-1218 soon after it came out in 2008. I was still in graduate school at the University of Florida at the time and remember how formative it was on my understanding of the Albigensian Crusade, a topic I have otherwise not really studied in great depth as most of my research has since revolved around the First Crusade. I recall enjoying the book quite a bit, as did many reviewers at the time. Prof. David S. Bachrach, for example, referred to The Occitan War as a “benchmark for the writing of military and political history…” and noted that “all future discussions of the Albigensian Crusade will have to begin with this study.”

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Fast forward roughly nine years later and I found myself composing a blog post on medieval historians and their military service. A mutual friend mentioned that Prof. Marvin had an interesting career in the military and that I should consider reaching out to him, which I did by email. Fortunately, Larry, as he now lets me call him, was interested enough to allow me to include his fascinating account of his four years of service as an enlisted man in the U.S. Navy working on a fast attack submarine! The account of his service, and that of other great medieval historians included in the piece, is well worth reading. Pushing my luck, I then bothered Larry once again about contributing to a blog post in which 34 medieval historians provided annotated lists of the “Most Important Books on the Crusades,” which Larry once again kindly contributed to. Lest Larry think he could then escape, Prof. John D. Hosler invited both of us to participate on a panel together at the annual meeting for the Society of Military History in Louisville Kentucky on April 6, 2018. This took place at a time when I served as an external member of a M.A. thesis committee at the University of North Florida for a student considering the Albigensian Crusade. Guess whose book on The Occitan War was an important element of that thesis?  Continue reading →

The First Crusade as a Defensive War? Four Historians Respond

Above Image: From left to right, John D. Hosler, Daniel Franke, Janet G. Valentine, Andrew Holt, and Laurence Marvin.

On Friday, April 6, I participated in a panel discussion at the annual meeting (held in Louisville, Ky.) of the Society for Military history that considered the question, “Was the First Crusade an Offensive or Defensive War?” The panel had been organized by John D. Hosler, Associate Professor of Military History at the Army General Command and Staff College, who also participated in the discussion. Other historians who participated include Daniel Franke, Assistant Professor of History at Richard Bland College of William and Mary, and Laurence Marvin, Professor of History at Berry College. Janet G. Valentine, Assistant Professor of Military History at the Army General Command and Staff College, served as Chair and Moderator. John put together the panel in response to some controversy emerging over the issue of whether the First Crusade can be considered a defensive war back in the summer of 2017. One can read more about that controversy here, here, and here.

Many, who were unable to attend, have expressed an interest in finding out more about the panel and how the discussion went. After a lengthy and engaging discussion, both between the panelists and the many historians in the audience, a number of complex issues were discussed and debated as they relate to the question, including even the validity of the question itself. When pressed by the moderator at the end of the discussion for our positions on the question, asking if we saw it as an offensive or defensive war, the panel was three to one in favor of viewing it as a defensive war. Yet as academic historians we naturally have many qualifications and reasons for our positions. Consequently, and in light of the interest expressed by our colleagues, I asked the panelists if they might submit a brief summary of how each of them thought it went. All of them agreed and I provide their responses below, then followed by my own brief reflections. Continue reading →

The Most Influential Crusade Historians

(Originally Published on 7/27/2017- Most recent update on 10/21/2017)

In a recent blog post, I requested the lists of several medieval historians ranking the ten “most important” books on the crusades. Currently, 33 historians have submitted their lists. Based on a count of the lists submitted so far, and not including books mentioned in the annotated commentary provided by each historian, I have pulled together the following ranking based solely on whose books have received the most mentions. Continue reading →

The First Crusade as a “Defensive War”: A Response to Prof. Gabriele.

Today, I read a curious essay in the Washington Post by Professor Matthew Gabriele, a fellow historian of the crusades, titled Islamophobes want to recreate the Crusades. But they don’t understand them at all. I’ve never met Professor Gabriele, but I am familiar with his scholarship. In his essay, he made some strong claims about what crusade historians believe, as well as the nature of the Islamic threat facing eastern Christians in the era of the First Crusade and how that threat was understood by western Christians at the time. I want to consider some points related to his comments on those issues here.

Professor Gabriele is most concerned with how modern people are comparing the situation in the era of the First Crusade with the troubling occurrences of modern Islamic terrorism in the West. He also objects to any notion that the crusades were, at least initially, a defensive response to Muslim aggression. He cites various modern westerners who are not specialists on the medieval crusading movement who have made statements romanticizing the crusades and arguing for their return.

I agree with Professor Gabriele that the past does not repeat itself and the situation of the eleventh century is certainly far different than the one we find ourselves in today in the twenty-first century. Crusading, in any form resembling the expeditions of the eleventh and twelfth century, is not the solution to the, as of yet, unsolvable problem of modern Islamic terrorism, which according to the Global Terrorism Index claims the lives of over 30,000 people worldwide per year, with most of them Muslims.

Where I disagree with Professor Gabriele, surprisingly, is in his understanding of crusading history and what crusade historians over the last thirty or forty years have written about the origins of the crusading movement. Continue reading →

The Modern Muslim Memory of the Crusades

Above Image: Cover of issue 4 of the Islamic State’s glossy English language propaganda magazine. Many of its issues contain references to the crusades or explicit crusading rhetoric.

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In 2015 I had the pleasure of co-editing (w/Alfred J. Andrea) the book Seven Myths of the Crusades (Hackett, 2015). It includes seven essays by prominent crusade historians dealing with various popular modern “myths” related to the medieval crusading movement. While recently preparing for an upcoming talk at Georgia Southern University, titled “The Modern Politics of Medieval Crusading,” I was carefully rereading the various chapters of Seven Myths, and thought it worthwhile to briefly highlight one of them here.

One of the historians who agreed to contribute to our project was the distinguished American medievalist Edward Peters, the former Henry Charles Lea Professor of History at the University of Pennsylvania (now Professor Emeritus). Over the course of his career, his work on medieval inquisitions has been highly influential and his translations of crusade texts have been used in college or university classrooms for nearly two decades. Consequently, when Ed agreed to contribute a chapter to Seven Myths, co-authored with his talented former doctoral student Mona Hammad (Associate Professor of Medieval History at the University of Jordan), Al and I were elated. The combination of the two authors was ideal in light of the topic they considered in their essay, titled “Islam and the Crusades: A Nine Hundred-Year-Long Grievance?”

The subject of their essay is a potentially controversial one, particularly as it argues that much of the Islamic world’s modern memory of the medieval crusades, a memory which frames the crusades as a largely unprovoked Christian attack on the Muslim world, serving as a constant source of division and mistrust today, was only developed in the 19th and 20th centuries during an age of western imperialism that influenced its construction.  Moreover, Ed and Mona’s essay emphasizes that it was essentially the modern imperialist west that taught the modern Muslim world to hate the crusades, as there had been relatively little concern about them expressed in texts by Muslim authors in the centuries prior.

Having a well known and highly respected medievalist like Ed, as well as Mona, who is fluent in Arabic and lives and works in Jordan, seemed like (and proved to be) an ideal pairing for the chapter. Anyone seriously interested in the topic should, of course, consult their work, but here I want to highlight only a few key parts of their otherwise much lengthier and more engaging essay. Continue reading →

Professor Thomas Madden on the First Crusade, Jerusalem, and the “Rivers of Blood”

In his entertaining 2012 essay for Revista Chilena de Estudios Medievales, St. Louis University Professor Thomas Madden, perhaps the leading U.S. historian of the crusades, considers the widely repeated claim that the crusaders waded in blood up to their ankles or knees during their violent conquest of Jerusalem in 1099.

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Madden first considers how widespread this claim is, even citing its use in a speech by former U.S. President Bill Clinton, before subjecting it to careful analysis. He describes his reasons for pursuing the issue carefully, noting, to his his surprise, that even other crusade historians have embraced the claim. He writes:

“”In November 2008, Jay Rubenstein of the University of Tennessee gave a lecture for the Crusades Studies Forum at Saint Louis University. The title of the lecture was “The First Crusade and the End of the World”. In the questions that followed Rubenstein spoke of the crusaders in 1099 wading through the blood… of their victims. I quickly pointed out that those reports were, of course, not meant to be taken literally. To my surprise, Rubenstein responded that he believed that they should be. He related his own experience witnessing a murder victim on a street in New York City and expressed his astonishment at the amount of blood that just one human body really contains. Since I have not witnessed a murder victim, I yielded the point. But the exchange has led me to take up the question of the massacre of 1099 and look more closely at common assumptions both in the general public and among crusade specialists…“

Then Madden made an interesting point.

“Surprisingly, with all of this discussion of rivers, streams, or pools of blood, no one has ever attempted to discern whether such things are within the realm of physical possibility. Although we are dealing with an episode of bloody horror, we are also dealing with basic measurements that can be evaluated…” Continue reading →