| When medieval historians speak of the crusade against Islam as a holy war they have in mind that it was authorized by the Church, that its essential aim was the elimination of the infidel, and that it brought salvation to its participants. In their discussions, however, they are troubled by what they perceive to be an inherent anomaly whereby the crusade was propagated as a war of intolerance on behalf of Christ, the Prince of Peace, and they are dismayed that this propaganda was accepted unhesitatingly by the Christian faithful who ascribed to the commandment: "Love thy neighbour as thyself".;This dissertation is a study of these sermons. It presents the texts of unedited crusade sermons discovered in manuscripts of sermon books and demonstrates from these how the crusade was perceived as a holy, sanctifying war. It argues that the idea of the crusade was much more biblically, doctrinally and morally oriented than has been supposed and demonstrates that changing fashions in preaching, in sermon composition and in theology combined to influence a crusade preacher's formulation for his audience of the religious terms of crusading. This discussion is set against the broad background of crusade narrative, papal crusade letters and careers of the preachers.;While allowing that Christian apologetics for the crusade may be in order, the fact, nonetheless, remains that to date our understanding of the medieval holy war is very imperfect. One of the reasons for this has been the poverty of evidence. Although some scholars have tried to surmount this by a too ready acceptance of the notion that holy war and just war are much the same, and that, therefore, they can be studied adequately by reference to extant collections of medieval canon law, the conclusions which they have reached are not always securely based or persuasive. For, the question which must be asked, one which the canonical sources do not address, is how the crusaders themselves viewed their task. The answer to this comes largely from the evidence of the sermons which were delivered throughout Europe concerning the crusade. |
