Anti-Islam polemic was not required to justify thirteenth-century crusading ideology.

Evidence

If Jaume shows that a polemical view of Islam and of Muhammad is not necessary to present oneself as a devout crusader bent on restoring churches to the Virgin and on protecting and restricting the social status of Muslim subjects, Alfonso will combine these elements with a polemical view of Islam to forge a coherent and powerful ideology. — John V. Tolan, Saracens, 932

Categorization

• DEEPTHINKING: A genuine counterintuitive finding: religious polemic could be entirely absent from a crusading monarch’s self-presentation; the crusade ideology could rest on Mary, church restoration, and social control of Muslims alone.
• XREF: Complicates the assumption that religious hatred always underwrote medieval conquest — parallels discussion of crusade vs. Gothic-revival ideologies.