The Crusades as holy triumph is a myth masking internal massacres

Evidence

But as Esposito suggests, history perpetuates two great myths about the Crusades: the first that Jerusalem was liberated; the second that Christendom triumphed. As he goes on, if success equated the liberation of Jerusalem, then success was short lived as control of the city returned to Muslim rule in 1187 Ce. Likewise, the Crusades were not solely undertaken against the ensuing Muslim armies that Alexus I had called for. In the march towards Jerusalem, many on the Crusades co-operated in massacring not only vast numbers of Muslims but so too Jews as well as those Christians that the Vatican deemed heretical. The threat and encroachment of Muslim armies therefore provided a convenient scapegoat, a much-needed and necessary enemy against which the Vatican and its supporters could wage war. — Chris Allen, Islamophobia, 173

Categorization

• XREF: The ‘convenient scapegoat / necessary enemy’ framing parallels the reader’s inquiry into how enemy-construction stabilizes definitional politics — comparable to moral-panic dynamics. — connects to: The Crusades were less coherent religious triumph than convenient enemy-making; European travelogues about the Middle East resembled Crusade-era mythic returns — Chris Allen, Islamophobia, 182; Crusader violence exceeded that of their Muslim adversaries in scale and cruelty — Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of Empire, 196 (+5 more)

Related

• The Crusades were less coherent religious triumph than convenient enemy-making (similarity 0.92)
• The Crusades used religion to mask social and economic conflicts (similarity 0.86)
• The Crusades were framed as a militaristic pilgrimage against Islamic advance (similarity 0.83)
• Crusader violence exceeded that of their Muslim adversaries in scale and cruelty (similarity 0.82)
• Crusaders justified conquest by recasting Muslims as pagan Roman idolaters (similarity 0.81)
• The First Crusade’s Jerusalem conquest slaughtered nearly all local Jews and Muslims (similarity 0.80)
• Islam became the convenient enemy to mobilize Europe’s territorial ambitions (similarity 0.80)
• Theological explanations blamed Christian corruption and cast Muslims as God’s punishing instrument (similarity 0.79)
• New crusades are political and cultural wars, not religious conflicts (similarity 0.79)
• Crusader violence against civilians exceeded Saladin’s conduct in Jerusalem (similarity 0.79)
• The papacy manufactured Muslims as a holy-war enemy to unify Christian Europe (similarity 0.78)
• Historical memory of the Crusades drives Europeans’ anti-Muslim votes and stares (similarity 0.78)
• Missionary ‘defence of the faith’ rhetoric paralleled Crusade justifications (similarity 0.78)

Broader Connections

• The First Crusade’s Jerusalem conquest slaughtered nearly all local Jews and Muslims #exemplifies (0.92) — Green, Todd H, The Fear of Islam_ An Introduction to…, 110
• Crusader violence exceeded that of their Muslim adversaries in scale and cruelty #corroborates (0.85) — Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of Empire, 196
• Medieval depictions of Islam as heresy served to justify violence and resist conversion #expands (0.85) — Green, Todd H, The Fear of Islam_ An Introduction to…, 139
• The Crusades used religion to mask social and economic conflicts #expands (0.82) — Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of Empire, 61
• The Crusades were framed as a militaristic pilgrimage against Islamic advance #contradicts (0.80) — Chris Allen, Islamophobia, 172