Missionaries and Crusaders, 1095–1274: Opponents or Allies?

MISSIONARIES AND CRUSADERS, 1095-1274: OPPONENTS OR ALLIES? by E L I Z A B E T H SIBERRY The Christian missions to the Muslims in the Near East during the Central Middle Ages have already attracted much attention from historians,1 but as yet no real attempt has been made to analyse the relationship between those who advocated peaceful conversion by means of preaching and teaching, in other words a programme of missionary work, and the crusaders, who sought to defeat the enemies of the faith in battle. In the past, historians have tended to portray advocates of missions as opponents of the crusades and it has been suggested that by the late thirteenth century, as a result of a series of Christian defeats in the Near East, the missionary ideal had won a great deal of support and that this was one of the factors which contributed towards the decline of the crusading movement.2 The aim of this paper is to challenge this thesis. The first step towards this reappraisal will be to examine the attitude of certain prominent supporters of a policy of peaceful conversion towards the crusades. The exact details of Peter the Venerable's journey to Spain in 1142-3 are still a matter for debate,3 but it is clear that this experience prompted him to commission translations of the 'Qur'an and several other Islamic treatises and to write his own summary and refutation of Muslim doctrine. 4 In the first book of the 'Liber contra sectam sive haeresim Saracenorum\ Peter contrasted his own 1 Examples of the extensive literature on this subject are E. R. Daniel, The Franciscan concept of mission (Kentucky 1975) and jj.] Richard, [La papat'te et les missions d'Orient au moyen age XUf-XV* siecles (Rome 1977)]. 2 [P. A.] Throop, [Criticism of the crusade. A study of public opinion and crusade propaganda (Amsterdam 1940)] p 288; S. Runciman, 'The decline of the crusading idea', Relazioni del X congresso intemazionale di scienze storiche. Storia dei medievo, vol 3. Bibliotheca storica sansoni, nuova serie vol 24 pp 650, 652; [).] Prawer, [Histoire du royaume Latin deJerusalem, 2 vols (Paris 1970) l]pp 389-90: [E.] Stickel, [Der Fall von Akkon (Frankfurt 1975)] pp 224-40. 3 See C. J. Bishko, 'Peter the Venerable's journey to Spain' Studia Anselmiana 40 (1956) pp 163-75. 4 J. Kirtzeck, Peter the Venerable and Islam (Princeton 1964) pp 14, 27-30. 103 ELIZABETH SIBERRY attitude towards the Muslims with that adopted by many of his fellow Christians: 'I do not attack you as our people often do by arms, but by words; not by force but by reason; not in hatred but in love.' 5 This oft quoted statement has prompted some historians to suggest that the Abbot of Cluny was at least dissatisfied with the goals of the crusading movement and lukewarm in his support for the Second Crusade.6 In fact, as Virginia Berry has shown, this was far from the truth. 7 Peter the Venerable's main aim in commissioning the translations was to strengthen the faithful against Muslim propaganda and to provide Christians with a weapon for future ideological conflicts. He did not reject the use of force as a means of maintaining and defending the Holy Land. On the contrary, he praised those who had taken part in earlier expeditions to the East8 and he exhorted men to join Louis VII 's army. 9 Indeed Peter played an important part in the preparations for the Second Crusade and, although he was disillusioned by the reversal of Christian fortunes at the siege of Damascus in 1148, he was closely involved in Abbot Suger's attempts to launch another crusade in the early 1150s.10 Peter's only reservation was that monks should not take the cross. Like Bernard of Clairvaux, Peter stressed the importance of the monastic vow of stability and he exhorted the religious to remain in the cloister and to pray for the success of the expedition.11 Far from their being an obstacle to conversion, contemporaries seem to have regarded the crusades as a means to that end: they believed that military conquest of the Near East would create the right political conditions for the Muslims to enter the Christian fold of their own volition. Hence in the early thirteenth century James of Vitry, Bishop of Acre and Oliver, later Bishop of Paderborn, discussed the likelihood of the peaceful conversion of the Muslims and pointed out the similarities between Islam and > Ibid p 231. « See ibid pp'20-3, 161; J. Leclercq, Pierre le Venerable (Abbaye Saint Wandrille 1946) pp 248-9. 7 [ V . G.] Berry, ['Peter the Venerable and the crusades' Studia Anselmiana 40 (1956) pp 141-62. 8 Peter the Venerable, Letters, [ed G. Constable 2 vols (Cambridge, Massachusetts 1967)] I p 141. 9 Peter the Venerable, 'Sermones tres' ed G. Constable, Revue Benedictine 44 (1954) pp 232-54. 10 Berry pp 147-50, 154-62. 11 Peter the Venerable, Letters I p 220. See also Constable, 'Opposition to pilgrimage in the M i d d l e A g e s ' , Studies in religious life and thought—eleventh pp 136-7. 104 and twelfth centuries ( L o n d o n 1979) Missionaries and crusaders Christianity. But they also preached the cross and played a prominent part in the Fifth Crusade.12 Oliver's attitude was summed up in a letter which he wrote to Sultan al-Kamil in 1221. In this he used the threat of another crusade as a means of persuading the Egyptian leader to allow Christian missionaries to preach publicly.13 At the time of Louis IX's Egyptian crusade, an anonymous trouvere predicted that the king would conquer and convert the Sultan14 and one of the main purposes of Louis' North African campaign seems to have been to persuade the Sultan of Tunis to accept Christianity.15 The Provencal troubadour Daspols lamented that, if the king had lived, he would have defeated the Muslims and brought them into the Christian fold.15 In this period much of the missionary work in the Near East was carried out by the new orders of friars, the Franciscans and Dominicans, and it has been suggested that they formed a large body of opinion which was hostile to the use of force against the Muslims.17 Proponents of this thesis cite the example of Saint Francis' behaviour during the Fifth Crusade. They point out that during his stay in the camp he visited Sultan al-K5mil and sought to convert him to Christianity. Moreover Francis predicted the disastrous defeat of the Christian army in August 121918 and after the capture of Damietta he denounced the immorality and licentiousness of the crusading host.19 But there is no indication that he objected to the actual use of the crusade against the Muslims.20 On the contrary Francis supported the crusaders' 12 See Richard pp 34-7; R. C. Schwinges, Kreuzzugsideologie und Toleranz (Stuttgart 1977) p 273. Oliver of Paderborn, Die Schriften ed H. Hoogeweg (Tubingen 1894) p 299. 14 'Un serventois, plait de deduit de joie' Chansons de croisade, edd J. Bedier and P. Aubry (Paris 1909) pp 252-3. 15 See J. Longnon, 'Les vues de Charles d'Anjou pour la deuxieme croisade de Saint Louis: Tunis ou Constantinople' Septieme centenaire de la mort de Saint Louis (Paris 1976) pp 191-2, 195. 16 'Fortz tristors es e salvaj'a retraire', 'Les derniers troubadours de la Provence' ed P. Meyer, Biblbtheque de l'ecole de chartes 30 (1869) p 286. 17 See Stickel p 233; Prawer p 389. 18 S Bonaventure, 'Vita Sancti Francisci' Golubovich, series 1, Annali vol 1 pp 33-5; Thomas of Celano, 'Vita Sancti Francisci' ibid p 17. " 'L'estoire de Eracles' RHC Occ II, pp 348-9. 20 For this thesis see L. Brehier, 'Les missions franciscaines au moyen age' Saint Francois d'Assise: son oeuvre-son influence 1226-1926, edd H. Lemaitre and A. Masseron (Paris 1927) pp 288-9; H. Daniel-Rops, Cathedral and crusade: studies of the Medieval church, W50-l}50 trans. J. Warrington (London 1957) p 501; G. Basetti-Sani, 'Francis of Assisi', Concilium 1 (1968) pp 9-10. 13 105 ELIZABETH SIBERRY endeavours against the Egyptians and he won much respect for his ministrations to the army.21 In the following decades the Franciscans and Dominicans launched a series of missions to the East,22 but at the same time they became the papacy's main agents for preaching the cross:23 receiving financial contributions, issuing indulgences and redeeming the vows of those unfit to go to the Holy Land.24 And chroniclers throughout Europe praised the friars' skill as preachers and recorded the number who took the cross.25 When Henry III of England announced his intention of going on crusade in 1250, the English Franciscan Adam Marsh praised his devotion and, far from questioning the value of the king's proposed expedition, as one historian has suggested,26 he prayed for its success and exhorted clerks to take this opportunity to emulate the apostles and spread the Christian faith.27 Significantly, at the time of the Second Council of Lyons in 1274, two of the main apologists of the crusade were friars: Gilbert of Tournai belonged to the Franciscan Order and Humbert of Romans was a Dominican. At Pope Gregory X's request they composed memoirs in which they offered suggestions about possible means of recovering the Holy Land and they also gave some information about the attitude of the faithful towards the crusading movement as a whole.28 Humbert's enthusiastic support for the crusades is particularly interesting because as Minister-General of the Dominican Order from 1254 to 1263 he had been responsible for sending friars to the Near East and North Eastern Europe and he had received reports about the success of their missions.29 He was optimistic about the peaceful 21 See James of Vitry, Lettres ed R. B. C. Huygens (Leiden 1960) pp 132-3. Richard pp 41-7. 23 See 'Bulle d'Innocent IV pour la croisade' ed P. F. Delorme, Archivum Franciscanum Historicum 6(1913) pp 386-9; Urban IV, Registres ed J. Guiraud (Paris 1901) I no 326. a Matthew Paris accused the friars of greed and complained that they gave the cross indiscriminately to the poor, the old and the sick; Chronica maiora ed H. R. Luard (London 1872-80) IV pp 9, 133-4, 635; V pp 188-9, 400-1, 405. 25 Paulinus of Venice, 'Chronologia magna' ed Golubovich (Florence 1913) II p 87; Vincent of Beauvais, 'Memoriale omnium temporum' MGH SS XXIV p 161; Salimbene, ['Cronica', MGH SS XXXII] p 218. 26 Moorman, History p 301. 27 Adam Marsh, 'Epistolae' ed J. S. Brewer, Monumenta Franciscana 2 vols (London 1955) I pp 416, 431,434-7. a See Throop pp 11-23, 69-104, 115-213. 25 See R. P. Mortier, Histoire des maitres generaux de Vordre desfibresprecheurs 2 vols (Paris 1903) I pp 521-3, 527-32. 22 106 Missionaries and crusaders conversion of the Prussians, but he stressed that only force would succeed against the Muslims.30 In this period missionaries and crusaders could work in partnership because, although in certain circumstances the crusade might act as a stimulus to conversion, there was never any suggestion that actual force should be used to compel the Muslims to abjure their faith. In the twelfth century the theologian Peter Lombard maintained that men should be converted of their own free will31 and the canonist Gratian stessed that God was not pleased with forced service.32 The Church's position was reaffirmed by other writers 33 and it was stated clearly by Thomas Aquinas. In his Summa Theologica he argued that the Christians were justified in waging war upon the Muslims in order to prevent them from hindering the faith of Christ by their blasphemies. But at the same time he emphasised that the heathen 'are by no means to be compelled to the faith in order that they may believe, because to believe depends on the will.'34 Notwithstanding this, from the 1260s there is some evidence of opposition to the crusades on the grounds that they hindered the conversion of the Muslims and it is important to assess its significance. In his treatise Opus mains, dated d266, the English Franciscan Roger Bacon exhorted Christians to follow the example of the early church which had converted the Gentiles by preaching alone. Writing in the aftermath of Louis IX's defeat at Mansurah, Roger questioned the value of further crusades: if the Christians are victorious, no one stays behind to defend the occupied lands. Nor are unbelievers converted in this way, but killed and sent to hell. Those who survive the wars together with their children are more and more embittered against the Christian faith because of this violence and are 30 31 32 33 34 Humbert of Romans, 'Opus tripartitum' [ed E. Brown, Fasciculus rerum expetandarum el fugiendarum 2 vols (London 1690) II] p 195. Peter Lombard, 'Sententia' PL 192, col 711. See also J. S. C. and L. Riley-Smith, The Crusades: Idea and reality 1095-1274 (London 1981) pp 9, 29, 54. Gratian, 'Decretum' Corpus iuris canonici ed A. Friedberg 2 vols (Leipzig 1879-81) Causa 23 quaestio 6 canon 4: 1. See also Summa 'Elegantius in iure divino' seu Coloniensis, edd G. Fransen and S. Kuttner (New York 1969) p 74. See Walter Map, De nugis curialium ed M. R. James (Oxford 1914) p 47; Ralph Niger, De re militari et triplici peregrinationis lerosolimitane ed L Schmugge (Berlin 1977) pp 65-6, 168, 1%. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica ed P. Caramello (Rome 1962) II ii quaestio 10 art 8. 107 ELIZABETH SIBERRY indefinitely alienated from Christ and inflamed to do all the harm possible to Christians.35 But if one examines Roger's other works, it is not always clear that he advocated preaching and teaching rather than the use of force. For example, in the 'Opus tertiurn' and 'Compendium studii phihsophiae', while he looked forward to the adoption of the Christian faith by the Tartars and the union of the world in one sheepfold, he expected the Muslims to be destroyed.36 In what seems to have been a direct reply to Roger Bacon's argument, Humbert of Romans recorded that some people: are asking what is the purpose of this attack upon the Saracens? For by this they are not aroused to conversion, but rather are provoked against the Christian faith. When we are victorious and have killed them moreover we send them to hell, which seems to be against the law of charity. Also when we gain their lands we do not occupy them as colonists . . . because our countrymen do not want to stay in those regions and so there seem to be no spiritual, corporeal or temporal benefits from this sort of attack.37 It should be remembered, however, that the purpose of Humbert's treatise was to warn Pope Gregory X of any possible source of opposition to his proposed crusade and he gave no indication that these critics reflected a large body of opinion. At the same time, in the penultimate sentence of his memoir submitted to the Second Council of Lyons, the Dominican William of Tripoli dismissed the need to use force against the Muslims: solely by the word of God, without philosophical argument, without military weapons, they will seek like simple sheep the baptism of Christ and will enter into the flock of God.38 William also quoted prophecies which showed that the time was right for the conversion of the Muslims and his statements have prompted some historians to suggest that he represented an everincreasing body of opinion which condemned the use of the crusade in the Near East.39 But there is no evidence to support this » Roger Bacon, Opus mams ed J. H. Bridges 3 vols (London 1897-1900) III pp 120-2. * Idem, 'Opus tertiurn' and 'Compendium studii philosophiae' ed J. S. Brewer, Opera quaedam hactenus inedita (London 1859) pp 86, 402-3. 17 Humbert of Romans, 'Opus tripartitum' p 196. 38 William of Tripoli, 'De statu Saracenorum' ed H. Prutz, Kullurgeschkhte der Kreuzzuge (Berlin 1883) pp 517-18. » See Throop pp 120, 122; Prawer pp 389-90. 108 Missionaries and crusaders conclusion. The main purpose of William's work was to point out the similarities between Islam and Christianity. The only other criticism of the use of force against the Muslims came from the Joachites, the followers of the twelfth-century Abbot Joachim of Fiore.40 Joachim saw history as a series of complex patterns and his grand design was the doctrine of the three status: the ages of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. He drew parallels between the Old and New Testaments and predicted the glories of the forthcoming third age.41 According to Joachim's plan of history, the third status would begin between 1200 and 1260 and he prophesied that a race of viri spirituales would emerge and convert the Jews and Gentiles to Christianity. Joachim never attacked the actual concept of the crusade, but towards the end of his life he had come to believe that further expeditions would achieve nothing and that the Christians would triumph over the Muslims by preaching not fighting.42 After his death in 1202, his ideas were taken up and developed by his followers. For our purposes their most important work was the commentary on Jeremiah, Super Hieremiam, composed between 1243 and 1248.43 There is some dispute as to whether its author was a member of a Joachite circle in Calabria or a Spiritual Franciscan,44 but it seems to have been a popular work and was quoted by a number of chroniclers, in particular the Italian writer Salimbene. According to his account, the author prophesied that Louis IX's Egyptian crusade would come to nothing45 and he condemned further attempts to launch a crusade. He pointed out that another crusade could actually be harmful to the church, for, by sending Christians to the barbarous nations 'under the appearance of salvation and the cross', the prelates altered the balance of power and consequently they weakened the barrier which protected Christendom from the * For further details, see M. W. Bloomfield, 'Joachim of Flora: a critical survey of his canon, teachings, sources, biography and influence' Tradilio 13 (1957) pp 249-313. 41 See M. Reeves, Joachim of Fiore and the prophetic future (London 1976) pp 2-22. 42 Joachim of Fiore, Expositio super Apocalypsim (Venice 1527) fol 133"-134v and Liber Figurarum edd L. Tondelli, M. Reeves and B. Hirsch-Reich, 2 vols (Turin 1953) II Pl.14. See also E. R. Daniel, 'Apocalyptic conversion: The Joachite alternative to the crusades' Traditio 25 (1969) pp 137-9; J. E. Siberry, 'Criticism of Crusading, 1095-1274' (unpub. Cambridge Ph.D. thesis, 1982) pp 240-3. 41 See M. Reeves, [The] influence of prophecy [in the later Middle Ages: A study in Joachimism (Oxford 1969)] p 518. 44 Idem 'Abbot Joachim's disciples in the Cistercian Order' Sophia 19 (1951) p 367. 45 Salimbene pp 236-7. 109 ELIZABETH SIBERRY heathen. The author of Super Hieremiam also clearly referred to a third age in which a race of viri spirituals would emerge and convert the gentes incredulas46 and the same argument was to be found in another Joachite treatise, Super Esaiam, and a collection of figures known as Praemissiones.*1 In addition Salimbene claimed to have been shown a verse prophecy which had been sent to various cardinals and to a Dominican provincial chapter before the election of Pope Gregory X in 1271, and he included one version of this, together with his own commentary, in his chronicle. According to Salimbene's interpretation Gregory's early death was the result of his repeated efforts to launch another expedition against the Muslims, and he also pointed out that the crusade was now against God's plan since the year 1260 had passed. Henceforward those outside the church would be converted by peaceful means.48 There is no evidence, however, that the Joachites represented a large body of opinion and the extent to which they had developed the concept of apocalyptic conversion by the mid thirteenth century has recently been challenged by the foremost scholar in this field.49 To sum up, in the period before 1274 there is little evidence to show that those who supported a programme of missionary work were opposed to the crusading movement. On the contrary, they seem to have regarded it as a stimulus to conversion and the new orders of friars became the foremost apologists of the crusades. Admittedly from the 1260s there is some evidence of criticism of the use of force against the Muslims, but its extent and significance have been exaggerated. There is no indication that Roger Bacon reflected a large body of opinion, and the importance of the Joachite idea of apocalyptic conversion has also been overstated. Such views were confined to a very small circle. At the time of the Second Council of Lyons the traditional idea of the crusade still enjoyed considerable support from the faithful. Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge. * Pseudo Joachim, Super Hieremiam Prophetam (Venice 1525) fols 2V, 50 , 57 -58 . For a similar prophecy see Reeves, Influence of Prophecy p 312. 47 Pseudo Joachim, Super Esaiam Prophetam fol 56 and Praemissiones (Venice 1517); Reeves, Influence of Prophecy p 521. « Salimbene pp 492-5. 49 See M. Reeves, 'History and Prophecy in medieval thought' Medievalia et Humanistica new series 5 (1974) pp 63-4. 110