Crusade apologists justified the war as divinely authorized collective punishment

Evidence

The chronicler Raymond d’Aguiliers describes a similar scene, also set in Jerusalem, but at the time of the First Crusade: “[I]n the Temple and porch of Solomon, men rode in blood up to their knees and bridle reins. Indeed, it was a just and splendid judgment of God that this place should be filled with the blood of the unbelievers, since it had suffered so long from their blasphemies. The city was filled with corpses and blood.” Fulcher of Chartres puts it more baldly: “If you had been there, your feet would have been stained up to the ankles with the blood of the slain.” In the Caxton Siege, the blood of the vanquished enemy flows freely, as though it were water: “[T]here was so moche blood shedde that the canellys and ruissheauls [little rivers] ronne alle of blood / and alle the stretes of the toun were couerd with dede men” (273.36–274.1). — Ivan Davidson Kalmar, Derek Penslar, Orientalism and the Jews, 246 (#corroborates, via linked claim)

Fidentius emphasizes the importance of the Holy Land in Judeo- Christian history, stressing the parallels between God’s erstwhile chosen people, the Jews, and his new chosen people, the Christians. God promises a land of milk and honey to the Jews in exile and grants it to the followers of Abraham and Moses; yet time and again he takes it away from the Jews on account of their sins, using pagans to chastize them: Assyrians, Babylonians, Romans. Just so, God grants the promised land to his Christian faithful, but they, like the Jews of old, lose it on account of their sins. The Liber recuperationis is liberally spiced with passages from the Hebrew Prophets, predicting (for Fidentius) the Christian’s loss of Jerusalem through their sins and their eventual (and inevitable) reconquest of it. — John V. Tolan, Saracens, 1077 (#corroborates, via linked claim)

It is an agreeable irony to read the Christian justification of the First Crusade; Robert the Monk speaks of the destruction and murder of Christians and concludes the passage, ‘quid dicam de nefanda mulierum constupratione, de qua loqui deterius est quam silere?’ — Norman Daniel, Islam and the West, 2116 (#expands, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Crusade propagandists framed Muslim conquests as divine punishment for Christian sins — John V. Tolan, Saracens, 1077; Medieval theologians reframed Scripture to justify killing infidels in war; Crusade chroniclers framed mass slaughter of enemies as divine judgment — Ivan Davidson Kalmar, Derek Penslar, Orientalism and the Jews, 246 (+3 more)

Related

• Crusade propagandists framed Muslim conquests as divine punishment for Christian sins (similarity 0.88)
• Crusade chroniclers framed mass slaughter of enemies as divine judgment (similarity 0.86)
• Medieval theologians reframed Scripture to justify killing infidels in war (similarity 0.83)
• Christian writers justified crusader atrocities through rhetoric. (similarity 0.81)
• Crusaders justified holy war by calling Muslims pagan idolaters (similarity 0.79)
• Medieval Christian theology could glorify enemy deaths as service to Christ (similarity 0.78)
• Crusaders justified conquest by recasting Muslims as pagan Roman idolaters (similarity 0.78)
• Crusader violence against civilians exceeded Saladin’s conduct in Jerusalem (similarity 0.78)

Broader Connections

• Crusade chroniclers framed mass slaughter of enemies as divine judgment #corroborates (0.88) — Ivan Davidson Kalmar, Derek Penslar, Orientalism and the Jews, 246
• Crusade propagandists framed Muslim conquests as divine punishment for Christian sins #corroborates (0.85) — John V. Tolan, Saracens, 1077
• Christian writers justified crusader atrocities through rhetoric. #expands (0.80) — Norman Daniel, Islam and the West, 2116
• Medieval theologians reframed Scripture to justify killing infidels in war #expands (0.78)
• Both sides read the Muslim conquest as God’s punishment of the other’s heresy #corroborates (0.78)
• Medieval crusade ideology asserted enemy culpability as self-evident rather than argued #expands (0.72)