Historians offer a rereading on the ninth centenary
Coinciding with the ninth centenary of the first expedition to the Holy Land (15 July 1099), led by Godfrey of Bouillon and Raymond of Toulouse, which ended with the victorious Christian conquest of Jerusalem, the cultural pages of the newspapers have been filled with articles, and exhibitions and scholarly congresses have been held to commemorate this event.
As is well known, the matter of the Crusades is controversial, and a certain kind of publicity has always used the Crusades to criticize the Catholic Church harshly. This stance has become common and has never taken into account the results of historical research.
Although the media are pressing Catholics, before the Jubilee, to shoulder all the blame, new historical discoveries show that the matter of the Crusades was far more complex than is commonly believed. The Jesuit Carmelo Capizzi, professor of Medieval History at the Pontifical Gregorian University, has written an article in the latest issue of «Civiltà Cattolica» in which he maintains that: «Far from having been useless or harmful, the Crusades helped to create positive historical situations, which led to international processes still open and of vital importance».
The article criticizes «too superficial assessments of the historical event» and invites scholars to approach it free from ideological conditioning. Father Capizzi invites readers to «rescue» the Crusades from what he considers a secularist and therefore strongly conditioned historiography. There were errors, Father Capizzi admits, but these do not justify the condemnation of the Crusades, which, in his opinion, should be considered a factor of social and cultural progress. «Those are mistaken –he concludes– who attribute to the Crusade aims it never set for itself, such as, for example, the propagation of the faith by force of arms».
The article in «Civiltà Cattolica» is endorsed by the Catholic writer Vittorio Messori, who told the «Corriere della Sera» that «it is forgotten that in Jerusalem, when the Muslims arrived, they destroyed all the churches of Christendom, just as they did in North Africa, in Turkey, and in the part of Spain they occupied for eight hundred years».
For the historian Franco Cardini, the misunderstandings about this problem arise from a reductive view of history: «The military fact (the Crusade) is separated from a profoundly rich and positive context». To assess the situation better, Cardini adds, «it would be necessary to reinsert it into its historical context, in which case many controversies would have no reason to exist». «Moreover –the medievalist historian explains– the word Crusade is a modern expression that has been used systematically only since the eighteenth century. Until then there were terms that defined the “crusader”, but the abstract word did not exist. This means that, in speaking of the Crusades from the 1700s to the present, a whole series of misleading generalizations has been made».
Monsignor Rino Fisichella, auxiliary bishop of Rome and vice-president of the Jubilee’s theological-historical Commission, explained to Vatican Radio that «the theme of the Crusades is complex. I do not agree with those who interpret the Crusades only in religious terms or as a holy war. Let us not forget that this is a phenomenon that spans about 200 years of history, and everything cannot be reduced to a single religious reading. The judgment on the Crusades must be complex and global; otherwise there is the risk of transposing the concepts and achievements that thought has attained today and carrying them back into the past. Before the Jubilee, it is right that we try to evaluate which, in the events of our history, have been the positive aspects that brought progress, that helped the conscience and behavior of some Christians to mature, and which have been limiting, not allowing a full and profound vision of the holiness of the Church to be given».
«The Crusades –Monsignor Fisichella states– have been presented in the past as a confrontation between East and West, in order to say who was right and who was wrong, who was stronger and who was weaker. But today, in the light of history, of other achievements of humanity, and of the greater awareness the Church has of her history, I believe it is better to speak of complementarity. It is no longer a confrontation between East and West, but the awareness that the two worlds, the two cultures, the two realities must come to know one another and integrate with one another».
