The Crusades with Andrew Latham

Summary

The Medieval Podcast: The Crusades with Andrew Latham

Release Date: January 23, 2019
Host: Danielle Cybulski
Guest: Dr. Andrew Latham, Associate Professor of Political Science at Macalester College

---

Introduction

In Episode Four of The Medieval Podcast, host Danielle Cybulski welcomes Dr. Andrew Latham to delve deep into the complexities of the Crusades. Dr. Latham, known for his works The Holy Lands and Theorizing Medieval War and World Order in the Age of the Crusades, brings a nuanced perspective to the enduring fascination with the Crusades, exploring the intricate interplay between religion, warfare, and politics in medieval Europe.

---

1. The Medieval Church as a Military Power

Dr. Latham begins by examining the emergence of the Church as a formidable military power around the year 1000. He explains, “The Church...is developing the same kind of infrastructure, judicial, financial and military” as emerging Western European states ([02:48]). Unlike secular states, the Church initially exerted military influence indirectly, utilizing spiritual incentives to mobilize temporal leaders for armed campaigns. This dynamic evolved with the establishment of religious military orders like the Templars and Hospitallers, granting the Church direct control over disciplined and well-funded military forces dedicated to the Holy Land, the Baltic, and the Reconquista in Spain.

2. The Reconciliation of Warrior and Christian Identity

A central theme of the discussion is the inherent tension medieval warriors faced in reconciling their martial roles with Christian piety. Dr. Latham notes, “...lay piety is on the rise... armed nobility... had to find a way of squaring the circle” ([05:44]). The Church's solution emerged with the concept of the Crusade, offering warriors a path to spiritual redemption through armed pilgrimage, thereby allowing them to maintain their status as both Christians and warriors.

3. The Conceptual Framework of the Crusades

Dr. Latham outlines the intellectual underpinnings of the Crusades, referring to Michel Villy’s “Great Synthesis,” which combines the notions of holy war, just war theory, and penitential violence ([08:08]). He explains, “holy war...just cause...penitential violence” created a framework where warfare could be sanctified and aligned with Christian morality, laying the groundwork for the formal Crusades that began in 1095.

4. Overview of the Crusades in the Holy Land

Providing a historical overview, Dr. Latham recounts the nine numbered Crusades from 1095 to 1291, highlighting key events such as the capture and loss of Jerusalem ([10:46]). The First Crusade resulted in the establishment of Crusader states, primarily aimed at liberating Jerusalem. Subsequent Crusades, particularly after Saladin’s capture of Jerusalem in 1187, became largely defensive efforts to reclaim the Holy City and maintain Christian presence in the region.

5. The Third Crusade and Richard the Lionheart

Focusing on the Third Crusade, Dr. Latham explores the objectives and strategies of key figures like Richard the Lionheart of England and Philip of France ([13:24]). He challenges traditional narratives by suggesting that Richard's primary goal was not the outright capture of Jerusalem but rather securing strategic positions like Ascalon to leverage negotiations with Saladin ([18:32]). According to Dr. Latham, Richard aimed for a sustainable and negotiated settlement rather than a mere military conquest, demonstrating a more strategic and pragmatic approach.

6. Saladin's Political Power and Strategy

Dr. Latham offers a critical analysis of Saladin’s role, asserting that Saladin’s political power was more fragile than often portrayed ([20:22]). He argues that Saladin’s reputation for being unbeatable was crucial in maintaining the cohesion of his empire, but this reputation also masked underlying vulnerabilities. Dr. Latham states, “His real source of strength is his reputation...if you take the unbeatable away, he’s just got the ruthlessness left” ([22:26]).

7. Negotiations and Cross-Civilizational Relations

The conversation highlights the complexities of medieval geopolitics, where religious differences did not preclude negotiation and alliance-making. Dr. Latham emphasizes that both Christians and Muslims engaged in pragmatic negotiations and alliances despite overarching religious conflicts ([27:29]). He explains, “There were a lot of cross civilizational alliances... it's a much more complicated picture than I think most people realize” ([29:17]).

8. Lessons for Contemporary Geopolitics

Drawing parallels to modern times, Dr. Latham underscores the importance of understanding religious motivations in historical and contemporary conflicts. He challenges contemporary perceptions that dismiss religious motivations as primitive or simplistic, arguing that religious conviction remains a potent force in shaping geopolitical landscapes today ([30:00]). This insight encourages a more nuanced understanding of current Middle Eastern dynamics by learning from medieval precedents.

9. The Complexity of Motivations

Dr. Latham concludes by reiterating the multifaceted motivations behind the Crusades, which encompassed religious zeal, economic interests, and the pursuit of power ([33:15]). He stresses that recognizing the blend of these factors provides a more comprehensive understanding of the Crusades and their enduring legacy.

---

Notable Quotes

• On the Church's military role: “The Church...is developing the same kind of infrastructure, judicial, financial and military” ([02:48]).

• On reconciling warrior and Christian identities: “They had to find a way of squaring the circle” ([05:44]).

• On Saladin's strategy: “His real source of strength is his reputation...if you take the unbeatable away, he’s just got the ruthlessness left” ([22:26]).

• On modern parallels: “There's a real religious dimension to this and it can't be ignored, and it's not a smokescreen” ([34:10]).

---

Conclusion

Dr. Andrew Latham’s insightful analysis dispels simplistic notions of the Crusades as purely religious wars, revealing a complex tapestry of strategic, economic, and spiritual motivations. By exploring the intricate dynamics between the medieval Church, secular powers, and key historical figures, this episode offers listeners a deeper appreciation of the Crusades' profound impact on medieval and modern geopolitics.

---

Further Information

To explore more of Andrew Latham's work on medieval geopolitics, follow him on Twitter @Latham. His books The Holy Lands and Theorizing Medieval Geopolitics are available on Amazon, with a forthcoming title from Arkansas Humanities Press.

For additional content updates, visit medievalist.net and follow their social media platforms.

Transcript

[Danielle Cybulski]

Hi everyone, and welcome to Episode four of the Medieval Podcast. I'm Danielle Cybulski, also known as the Five Minute Medievalist. If you look at the history section of any major bookstore, chances are most of the medieval books you'll find there are dedicated to the Crusades. There seems to be an endless interest in this clash of religion and culture, so Today I've invited Dr. Andrew Latham to talk to us a little bit about the Crusades. Andrew Latham is an associate professor of Political Science at Macalester College and the author of the Holy Lands, a novel based on the Third Crusade and Theorizing Medieval War and World Order in the Age of the Crusades. Here are Andrew's thoughts on the Crusades, including how medieval Europeans reconciled being both warriors and Christians, and his theory about what Richard the Lionheart's real objective was in the Holy Land.

[Instacart Advertisement]

Why get all your holiday decorations delivered through Instacart? Because maybe you only bought two wreaths, but you have 12 windows. Or maybe your toddler got very eager with the Advent calendar. Or maybe the inflatable snowman didn't make it through the snowstorm. Or maybe the twinkle lights aren't twinkling. Whatever the reason, this Instacart's here for hosts and their whole holiday haul. Get decorations from the Home Depot, CVS and more through Instacart and enjoy free delivery on your first three orders, service fees and term supply.

The holidays are all about sharing with family meals, couches, stories, Grandma's secret pecan pie recipe, and now you can also share a cart. With Instacart's family carts, everyone can add what they want to one group cart from wherever they are so you don't have to go from room to room to find out who wants cranberry sauce or who should get mini marshmallows for the yams or collecting votes for sugar cookies versus shortbread. Just share a cart and then share the meals and the moments. Download the Instacart app and get delivery in as fast as 30 minutes. Plus enjoy free delivery on your first three orders. Service fees and terms apply with an.

[American Psychiatric Association Advertisement]

Active ingredient new to the cereals market, Tolvera Herbicide easily manages hard to control broadleaves and foxtails now if it can only manage the traffic. For more flexible weed control, visit Corteva Us Flex.

[Danielle Cybulski]

Thanks Andrew for being on the podcast. I'm so excited to be talking about Crusades with you today.

[Dr. Andrew Latham]

Yes, I'm excited too.

[Danielle Cybulski]

So I brought you on because I read your series about medieval geopolitics on medievalist.net. and I thought you had some really interesting things to say. So I wanted to start with your ideas about the medieval Church being a military power. So can you tell me a little bit about that?

[Dr. Andrew Latham]

Sure. So around the turn of the century, the year 1000, states were beginning to emerge in what we now call Western Europe. And those states had an administrative infrastructure, but they were also building capacities to mobilize troops. Not just feudal lords and vassals, but proper armies. And the Church, which is a different kind of institution than the state, is developing the same kind of infrastructure, judicial, financial and military. The difference is, for the Church, the control of armed forces, mostly initially, quite indirectly, they could use their spiritual rewards and punishments to get temporal leaders to use armed force on behalf of the Church. Now, later, after the Crusades are invented, the religious military orders are also invented, the Templars and the Hospitallers and institutions like that. And this gives the Church for the first time, direct control over really well disciplined, well trained and well financed military forces, primarily in the Holy Land in defense of the Holy Land, but also in the Baltic and also in Spain as the Reconquista is taking place. And so in that respect, the Church is very different than emerging states. Emerging states did not have anything like the religious military orders.

[Danielle Cybulski]

That's true. It's funny, you think about states having armies, but you don't really think about the Church having armies, unless you're thinking kind of specifically about the Crusades. But this is something that kind of developed gradually, is that right?

[Dr. Andrew Latham]

That's right. I mean, the Church before the turn of the century, for the year 1000, let's say, was very, I won't say disorganized, but the power was distributed. Right. It wasn't very centralized. I guess that's what I'm trying to say. We get the reformed popes, Leo, Alexander, and of course Gregory vii, and they're really trying to consolidate power in Rome or Avignon from time to time. And so they're building this huge political infrastructure, and along with that comes a capacity to use armed force. They also had, because the Papal States were a state, they also had kind of feudal forces as well. But I want to draw a distinction between these emerging states. England, France, Scotland, the Empire and the Church. There's some similarities, but the Church is a distinct military actor.

[Danielle Cybulski]

That's a good thing to point out, I think, because it does act independently and it starts to influence things independently, which I think is worth pointing out. Now, in this series, you're also talking about there being kind of a fundamental tension between the hierarchy of medieval society and their identities as Christians. So you have people who are knights, they're warriors, and they're also Christians. And it's kind of hard for them to reconcile these two things. So how did they do that?

[Dr. Andrew Latham]

Well, it is hard. Around the turn of the century, this is an important period in Christian and European history. A lot of changes are taking place. There are political developments, but there's also some spiritual developments which are really quite interesting. Lay piety is on the rise. People are taking their Christianity for the first time in centuries really, really seriously. Now, if you are a member of a monastic order or a priest or something like that, there's no problem here. But if you are an armed, a member of the armed nobility and your core values as a warrior are killing, gift giving, accumulating wealth, all of these things, what's your intention with the Christian script of piety and humility and things like that? You have to find a way of squaring the circle. And it's really hard because they hadn't quite sorted out confession and absolution and penance and all of that. So these warriors could never be sure that they were going to go to heaven. Right. And if they did go through the process of confession and absolution, they were typically told, lay down your sword, you cannot be a warrior anymore. And so that's a whole different kettle of fish for them right now. It's really. That's a tough place to be around the year 1000. A little bit before, a little bit after, somebody gets the bright idea it was a Pope. Why don't we give these guys a way out? Why don't we say, look, use your sword on our behalf, sacred violets, and we will give you remission of your sins. So there's a period of experimentation, the so called pre Crusades. Not quite sure how to do this, but by the time 1095 rolls around, they've got it figured out. If you go on an armed pilgrimage to Jerusalem initially, we will forgive all of your sins. Right. And you don't have to stop being a warrior. In fact, we want you to be a warrior. Hey, presto, the problem goes away. I can be a good Christian and a great warrior and it's all reconciled.

[Danielle Cybulski]

Yeah. Which is really nice and neat when you're trying to figure out your identity. And I like that you mentioned that the Crusades were invented, that this idea of holy war was kind of thought through and thought out and the rules around it were thought out because I think that we might think that it was just kind of something people accepted, but it was something that people really struggled with and created rules for.

[Dr. Andrew Latham]

That's right. And it emerged over centuries. And as I pointed out in the series, and indeed my book as well, we get three different institutions which come together in what Michel Villy called the Great Synthesis. We get the idea of holy war, right, which is a scholar by the name of Erdman had spoken about in the 1930s. Any war which has a religious dimension, right, you're doing God's work, but you're using violence to accomplish it. And that comes together with this notion of just war since St. Augustine's time, this notion that if a war was fought for a just cause with legitimate authority and right intention, it wasn't sinful, it was, okay, those come together. And then the final piece, which is the glue that holds it all together, I think, is this notion of penitential violence, right? So you can fight a holy war for just cause and get remission of your sins. And hey, again, it comes together in a really nice way around, well, in around the year 1000. Again, a lot of things happened around the year 1000.

[Danielle Cybulski]

It was a big time. You mentioned in your series as well that people were thinking of going and fighting these religious wars as a way of moving forward with missionary efforts. So not just relieving Jerusalem at first, but as part of a missionary program, is that right?

[Dr. Andrew Latham]

Yes. There's two schools of thought about the Crusades. There's the traditionalists which say that the only real Crusades were the ones to the Holy Land. Then there are the pluralists who say, well, no, there were similar kinds of campaigns in the Baltic and in Spain and indeed against heretics, heterodox Christians I guess we have to call them now. The ones in the Baltic are really, really very interesting. The so called Northern Crusades. They're very much about defeating the pagan political authorities, replacing them with Christian political authorities, and then creating a context for Christian missionary work. So despite what people believe, I think today there is no tradition of forced conversion in Christianity. There isn't one in Islam either. But indirect missionary violence, I guess you could call it, you create a political context within which it makes sense to become a Christian because that's the only way up the social ladder. And also you can protect your missionaries. So not so much in the Holy Land, but very much in the Baltic, the Northern Crusades, this notion of indirect missionary warfare really drove those Crusades for a few centuries.

[Danielle Cybulski]

So if we come back to the Holy Land for a minute, can you Just give us a brief overview of the Crusades in the Holy Land and then we'll get to the third crusade.

[Dr. Andrew Latham]

Sure. Well, conventionally, in historiography, there are nine numbered crusades. The first one obviously starts in 1095, and Jerusalem is either captured or liberated, depending on your perspective. 1099. The Second Crusade is after the fall of the county of Edessa in 1144, right through to the Ninth Crusade in the 13th century. There were Crusades that took place afterwards, by the way, but those are the ones. 1291 marks the end of the Christian political presence in what we call the Middle east now, the Holy Land Outremer, as they call it. The First Crusade was about, I'll use their language, liberating Jerusalem. And they got lucky because the Muslim world, a lot of internecine violence and a lot of discord and division, and they came through the middle and miraculously, in their eyes, captured not just Jerusalem, the city, but they created four principalities in the region. And after that, the Crusades were mostly defensive. Jerusalem fell to the Muslims in 1187. Right. This is Saladin. And so the Crusades after that were about trying to recover Jerusalem. Emperor Frederick II negotiates the return of Jerusalem to Christian hands in 1229, but it falls again in 1244. So the Crusades are all about either l liberating or capturing Jerusalem or defending it through a series of buffer states really, around the Holy City itself.

[Danielle Cybulski]

Right. And so when you talk about the end of the Crusades, this is kind of the moment when everyone gets pushed out of Utremura and that's the end of the Templars, all of those hopes that the Christians had to keep Jerusalem, is that right?

[Dr. Andrew Latham]

That's right. The hope never really went away. In fact, in 1917, the hope was realized. Right. The British army marched into Jerusalem in the context of the First World War. But the kind of expeditions, campaigns that we call the Crusades, conventionally, they didn't really happen after 1291.

[Danielle Cybulski]

Yeah, yeah. I mean, the 14th century was a busy time. Everyone was dealing with other things.

[Dr. Andrew Latham]

And that's right, state building is going on. Right. And it's competitive state building. So England and France and Scotland three way kind of fight there, each trying to build their own state. And they were very preoccupied with matters close to home.

[Danielle Cybulski]

Yeah, absolutely. So let's come back to talking about the Third Crusade. If it's possible for people to have a traditional idea of Crusade, it's the Third Crusade. So can you tell us a little bit about which one the third crusade was.

[Dr. Andrew Latham]

So the third crusade begins in 1191 and ends in 1192. There are both Richard the Lionheart of England and Philip of France and a few other very senior members of the nobility in both of those countries and elsewhere as well, including the Holy Roman empire, show up 1187. The backstory begins with the Battle of Hattin in 1187. Saladin decisively defeats, in detail, the Christian forces at that battle and basically captures Jerusalem and almost all of the Christian holy land, except for a small. A few cities on the coast, basically. And so the idea is we've lost Jerusalem, we have to recover Jerusalem. And that's a pretty big thing in the collective imagination of Western European Christians at the time. And that's why they got these kings to go along. It's a big deal. They land. Philip and Richard and their forces land in Outremer. They capture the city of Acre, which was an important port, despite Saladin's very spirited attempt to break the siege. They capture that. Philip goes home. For a variety of reasons, Richard does not. So he assumes uncontested leadership of the Third Crusade. He marches down the coast to a place called Arsuf, where he is attacked by Saladin and defeats Saladin almost in detail. Saladin's army gets away, but they are very resoundingly defeated. He's moving south along the coast through Arsaf to the town of Jaffa, which is the closest port to the city of Jerusalem. So if he can take that port, which he does, he's in a position then to do one of two things. Either march inland to take Jerusalem, or march south to Ascalon and divide the two parts of Saladin's empire. The really rich part, which is Egypt, and the really kind of politically important part, which is Damascus or Syria. If you can take the town of Ascalon, you can split Saladin's forces empire in half. And so basically, we can talk about this in a little more depth. Richard leads a few feints in the direction of Jerusalem. I don't think he was ever serious about it. I think he wanted the bargaining chip of Ascalon, and he was going to trade that in a negotiation. That was his leverage to get a negotiated settlement which would turn Jerusalem to Christian hands.

[Danielle Cybulski]

Yeah, I just wanted to mention that Saladin was really, really successful in the Holy Land because he managed to consolidate a whole lot of Muslim power there at the time. Is that right?

[Dr. Andrew Latham]

That's right. And the ideological glue that holds his vast empire together is this notion that he is unbeatable. He is the victor of Hattin, he restored Jerusalem and the Muslim holy sites to Islam. And that plus he's ruthless. I mean, he's ruthless with his Muslim rivals and opponents, but he does manage to cobble together this huge empire. Most importantly, I think he brings Egypt and Syria back into one political unit.

[Danielle Cybulski]

Yeah. So I just wanted to kind of bring that to the forefront because when. When we think about the Third Crusade being kind of a huge deal, it's because Salah Ad Din has. Has brought together all these. All these people and made a real serious stand in the Holy Land. Which is why Richard and Philip have come over.

[Dr. Andrew Latham]

That's right. And they can see. They can see the writing on the wall. If that empire remains intact, there is no hope for the Christians to recover the Holy Land.

[Danielle Cybulski]

Yeah. And the Holy Land is important to the European Christians not just for religious reasons, but also for economic reasons as well. Is that right?

[Dr. Andrew Latham]

That's right. I mean, it's possible to overstate that, but the Italian city states, merchant states, are making a lot of money off of trade with the east through the Holy Land. I wouldn't want to minimize the importance of the religious motivation. I think when I'm teaching my students about this, they can't believe anybody would do anything on the basis of religion. That it's really about material interest, money and power and maybe even honor, but not religion. And I think that's not the way they thought back then. Economic motives, to be sure. Although on the First Crusade and subsequent Crusades, many, many European nobles mortgaged themselves to the hilt to get to the Holy Land. They didn't make a shilling, a dime, a nickel or whatever, but there were mercantile interests that were very invested in keeping open the trade routes to the East.

[Danielle Cybulski]

Yeah. I just wanted to highlight the complicated nature of this. We think of it in religious terms. It is more complicated than that. But I think you're right in that the religious aspect is fundamental to this. So when I was reading your series, I was kind of surprised because everything I'd read about the Crusade so far had position that Richard was headed for Jerusalem. That was his goal, because that was the jewel in the crown of the Holy Land. But you don't think that was what he was headed for. So tell us a little bit more about why you think that.

[Dr. Andrew Latham]

That's right. The conventional wisdom is that you show up in the Holy Land, you go straight for Jerusalem, you defeat the Ayyubids, Saladin's army, and you do what you did in the First Crusade. Right. You simply through the application of military force, defeat the enemy and recover the lost territory. I think Richard was way too shrewd for that. I think he had, and we have evidence of this, he was constantly negotiating with Saladin's brother, brother in law, Al Adil. He wanted a sustainable, enduring, negotiated settlement. He didn't want to just defeat Saladin and have Saladin come back the next year and start the whole thing over again. Now, if you want to negotiate a return of Jerusalem, what kind of leverage is available to you? Well, I think on the basis of what I have read, is that he thought if he could hold Egypt hostage, he could trade Egypt for Jerusalem. For Saladin, Egypt was way more important than Jerusalem. For Richard, Jerusalem is way more important than Egypt. It seems like if you can take then Ascalon, which is the key, it's on the key route to Egypt, you can then invade Egypt or just threaten to invade Egypt, and that will bring Saladin to the negotiating table in earnest. And then Richard gets what he wants and Saladin gets what he wants, and we'll see how long that lasts. But I think that was his strategy. He was never serious. He fainted in the direction of Jerusalem on two occasions, but they were never serious attempts.

[Danielle Cybulski]

So people think that he wasn't able to take Jerusalem for practical reasons because it was getting into winter. But you mentioned also that it would be possible that he could have taken Jerusalem. So why did you say he probably could have taken it if he tried?

[Dr. Andrew Latham]

Well, we have records from Muslim chroniclers in Jerusalem at the time speaking about rampant defeatism and fear. Now, remember the city of Acre, which had been taken by the Christians in the previous year. It was a long siege. Some of the best troops in Saladin's army were there. The Christians finally prevailed, and they slaughtered every one of the prisoners that they took. And they did that to terrorize. Right. The Muslims. And so I think if Richard had been earnest about taking Jerusalem, the Jerusalem garrison would have fled. Most of Saladin's army. It's winter. Most of Saladin's army has gone back to their home provinces. Right. He's got a rump force in Jerusalem. He's got a small field army outside Jerusalem which threatens the Christian supply lines. Richard, supply lines. The defenses aren't. They've been reinforced, but they're not all that good. And in any case, it's likely that after the first arrow was fired, the garrison would have surrendered. And then the question becomes, okay, you can take Jerusalem, but can you hold Jerusalem? Because all of those allies will come back in the spring and Saladin will simply surround the city and lay siege to the city and take the city. And here's my argument. The ideological glue, as I said earlier, that holds Saladin's empire together is his reputation as being unbeatable. Now, he's already lost at Acre and he's seen all those prisoners slaughtered and he couldn't do a thing about it. He lost the battle of Arsuf, and he lost it quite badly. If he had been the guy to lose Jerusalem, I think his empire would have fallen apart.

[Danielle Cybulski]

That's a really interesting statement because I haven't heard anyone else suggest that Saladin's power was fragile at that time. I mean, you can't. I don't think you can overstate the importance of feeling as if you could be unbeatable, because as soon as you feel defeatist in a siege situation, things go wrong. But I haven't heard anyone else say that, you know, Saladin's political power was fragile. So it's interesting that you're saying this.

[Dr. Andrew Latham]

Yeah. You know, in the literature there are two takes on Saladin, one of which is he's this 19th century European gentleman, chivalrous and all of those things. And that's the idea that is concocted by 19th century European gentlemen. They were looking at Saladin and projecting onto him all kinds of worthy and wonderful things. But if you look at his contemporaries, the writings of his contemporaries, there are two schools of thought, one of which he's like. Is that he's like that. He's a great leader. Right. He invents jihad almost, not quite, but he reintroduces it. He's a very pious man, according to this account. And then there's another take on Saladin, which is a ruthless political operator. He's interested only in building his dynasty. He doesn't care at all about religion or any of those things. He is just another geopolitical actor, and a terrible one at that. But his real source of strength is his reputation. His reputation for ruthlessness, but also that he's unbeatable. You take the unbeatable away and he's just got the ruthlessness left. And I don't think that's enough.

[Danielle Cybulski]

Well, I'm glad that you brought that up because I think people will have a lot to think about and talk about in that vein. So what actually did happen? What happened with Richard?

[Dr. Andrew Latham]

So they faint a couple of times in the direction of Jerusalem. Then he proceeds down the coast and takes Ascalon, which Saladin has already destroyed the fortifications. And basically he Needs to get home. Right. His brother John of Robin Hood fame is scheming. Philip is scheming in France against Richard's lands there. He knows he needs to get home. So basically, at the end of it all, Jerusalem has not returned to Christendom. He puts the remaining territories on a more fundamentally sound strategic foundation. So there's some accomplishments there, but the main accomplishment, the main goal, is not accomplished. He is therefore considered in Europe to be a failure. He heads home, he's kidnapped in the Holy Roman Empire and is in captivity for a while. And there, for our purposes, ends the story. So some successes in terms of putting the remaining Christian lands in the Holy Land on a sounder strategic footing, but failure in the eyes of the pope, failure in the eyes of many Europeans. He simply didn't accomplish the goal, which is liberating Jerusalem.

[Danielle Cybulski]

Yeah. And we were talking just before we started recording about how Richard's reputation is really golden. And it was when he went to the Holy Land. But when he left the Holy Land and didn't take Jerusalem and then got himself kidnapped, it was really tarnished for a while. So it's interesting that, you know, since then, his reputation as kind of being this golden king has been restored.

[Dr. Andrew Latham]

I think that's right. You know, it's like Saladin in that respect. There are the contemporaneous accounts of him, and some of those are very positive and some are negative, especially after he fails to liberate Jerusalem. They're very negative. But much later, centuries later, we have reinvented Richard the Lionheart. Right? He was a terrible king. He spent almost no time in England. He's often referred to by his disparagers as Richard Gare de Leon, after the French train station, rather than Coeur de Lion the Lionheart. He was not a very good strategist, shall we say. I mean, he had. I think he had a sound strategic idea about how to liberate Jerusalem, but he was never quite able to carry it out. He, too, relied on his reputation. And the other element of his personality which I think endears him to us is he was personally very brave and a very accomplished warrior. Contemporaries were terrified because every time he saw the enemy, he just charged at them, leading this. He shouldn't have been doing that, putting himself in harm's way like that. So his reputation as a dashing warrior, I think, and as I think that's what's come down to us today, it's certainly not his reputation as the liberator of Jerusalem, as the great crusader, even as the great King of England, because, as I said, the historiography is pretty clear on this. He was not a great king of England.

[Danielle Cybulski]

Yeah. I mean, he left the door wide open for John to make trouble while he was gone. There's something I want to come back to, and that is you're suggesting that Richard wanted to negotiate with Saladin. And I think it's important for us to talk for a minute about how even though the Crusades were fundamentally about religious differences, and that feels like a bridge that can't be crossed, but during the Middle Ages, people were trying to negotiate with these enemies across borders of faith, and it wasn't necessarily black and white. So can you tell us a little bit about how you could be someone who is as religious as we expect a crusader to be and still negotiate with somebody considered to be faithless?

[Dr. Andrew Latham]

Right, that's a great point and something which is often misunderstood. I've written a bit about this in the column as well, that I think in our imagination today, we see in that time and in that place, Muslims, Christians, and they never talked to each other. They were mutually hostile. It was always jihad versus Crusade. And this is simply not the case. As Saladin and his father and grandfather are building their empire, there are lots of Muslims who don't want to be part of that empire, and they're happy to ally themselves with the Templars or with the Kingdom of Jerusalem, whomever. There were a lot of, let's call it, cross civilizational alliances. Now, at times like the Third Crusade, that could be very polarizing. But between these numbered Crusades, there was a lot of cross civilizational alliances, and there were a lot of conflicts within each civilizational bloc. Saladin versus all of the people who didn't like him, his rivals. There were conflicts within the Christian kingdoms as well. The usual feudal stuff, right? People disagreeing about land and access to resources and things like that. So it's a much more complicated picture than I think most people realize, because we only see it through the lens, to the extent we see it at all, through the lens of these nine numbered Crusades. But there's a lot of accommodation. There's a lot of religious difference within the two blocks. Sunnis and Shiites, for example. I mean, that's in the news every day these days. But it was true back then as well. You look on the Christian side, there are Roman Catholics, there are Syriac Catholics, There are all kinds, there are Jews, there are all kinds. They span both civilizations. There are all kinds of religious and ethnic divisions within the Christian bloc and within the Muslim bloc. So it was geopolitics, as usual, except during these numbered crusades, that could be quite different.

[Danielle Cybulski]

Yeah. I just think it's important to think about how we look at it from such a distance that it does seem black and white. But at the time, you're trying to negotiate with just the information that you have and trying to make the best deal possible, even if that means sometimes you have to negotiate with people who you don't ideologically agree with.

[Dr. Andrew Latham]

That's right. That's right.

[Danielle Cybulski]

Yeah. So now that we're talking a little bit about sort of contemporary problems, you've talked a little bit about how understanding the Middle east in the Middle Ages could help us understand the Middle east today. So can you talk a little bit about how understanding the Middle Ages helps us today?

[Dr. Andrew Latham]

Yes. As I said earlier, when I talk to my students about these things, they really can't believe that people act on the basis of religious motives. They can't believe it in the Middle east back in the Crusader at times, and they can't believe it today. Right. Isis, al Qaeda, these can't be religiously motivated institutions, organizations. It has to be something else. It has to be power or wealth or something like that. And I tell them, well, there's elements of that, and that's the human condition. But no, if you go to Al Qaeda's website, they will tell you in English exactly what's motivating them, and it is religious conviction. Osama bin Laden was not Che Guevara. Che Guevara wasn't Che Guevara, but that's. He had $400 million in the bank. He wasn't interested in liberating people from economic oppression. He wasn't interested in that kind of quasi Marxist revolution. He was interested in using jihad to rebuild the caliphate and to attack the far enemy as a means of doing that. I don't know that I ever quite get through to my students, because this culture, it just reinforces their ideas about people act on the basis of power and pleasure and wealth and maybe glory, but they don't do anything on the basis of piety or religious conviction. So I think looking at the Crusades and understanding it through that lens and then applying that lens to contemporary geopolitics in the Middle east and elsewhere, we can really sharpen our under and refine our understanding of what's motivating some of these actors.

[Danielle Cybulski]

Yeah. And I think that an additional point to that is that if we think that people are acting for religious reasons, for example, having a holy war, that means that they don't have a sophisticated range of thought. And I really do want to emphasize that in the Middle Ages, people did have sophisticated thought, which is what made it possible for them to have negotiations or to make strategies, even if we don't agree with them. It's important to recognize that these are complex situations.

[Dr. Andrew Latham]

They are complex situations. People were every bit as smart as we are.

[Danielle Cybulski]

Absolutely.

[Dr. Andrew Latham]

They didn't have all the scientific knowledge. Perhaps they looked at it through different lenses, the world through different lenses, but they had the same hard wiring, the same DNA. I mean, they are, like us, capable of incredibly complex thoughts. If you look at some of the work, and this is a little aside, I suppose, but if you look at some of the writings of the Scholastics, for example, Thomas Aquinas is the best known man. He's smarter than me, and he's smarter than a lot of people today in terms of raw intelligence and complexity of thought and subtlety and nuance and all of. And holding two ideas in their heads at the same time, mutually exclusive. Sometimes they were. They were just not dumber than us.

[Danielle Cybulski]

Absolutely. I mean, that's my mission in life, is to point that out. We talked a little bit about that in our podcast on the Hundred Years War, about how just because someone says this is what we're going to do, it doesn't necessarily mean everybody agrees. And I like that we've talked a little bit about the complexity of that in terms of Crusades.

[Dr. Andrew Latham]

And just one last little point from a people's perspective, right. From the grassroots perspective, some of those peasants and others made their way to the Holy Land on the basis of religious conviction. Some went because their lords told them we're going. Right. So again, a mix of motives there. And I think the thing I would like to underscore most, I suppose at the end of that, I'm going to agree with you very much on this, is that collectively and individually, the motives for the Crusades could be incredibly complex. I have foregrounded the religious ones, but the economic ones are there. The desire for power and wealth is always there. We're a fallen people. I mean, that's going to be part of the human condition. But my mission is to make sure that people understand that there is this real religious dimension to this and it can't be ignored, and it's not a smokescreen.

[Danielle Cybulski]

Yeah, absolutely. And I'm glad that you've brought that up today. Thank you so much for talking to me about the Crusades, especially the Third Crusade. It's been a great time.

[Dr. Andrew Latham]

Thank you time for me too. Thank you.

[Danielle Cybulski]

To find out more about Andrew's thoughts on medieval geopolitics, you can follow him on Twitter Latham. That's a L a T H a M. You can find the Holy Lands and Theorizing Medieval Geopolitics on Amazon. And keep an eye out for his forthcoming book from Arkansas Humanities Press.

[Instacart Advertisement]

Why get all your holiday decorations delivered through Instacart? Because maybe you only bought two wreaths, but you have 12 windows. Or maybe your toddler got very eager with the Advent calendar. Or maybe the inflatable snowman didn't make it through the snowstorm. Or maybe the twinkle lights aren't twinkling. Whatever the reason, this season Instacart's here for hosts and their whole holiday haul. Get decorations from the Home Depot, CVS and more through Instacart and enjoy free delivery on your first three orders, service fees and term supply.

The holidays are all about sharing with family meals, couches, stories, Grandma's secret pecan pie recipe, and now you can also share a cart. With Instacart's family carts, everyone can add what they want to one group cart from wherever they are. So you don't have to go from room to room to find out who wants cranberry sauce or who should get mini marshmallows for the yams or collecting votes for sugar cookies versus shortbread. Just share a cart and then share the meals and the moments. Download the Instacart app and get delivery in as fast as 30 minutes. Plus enjoy free delivery on your first three orders. Service fees and terms apply.

[Sleep Number Advertisement]

Why choose a Sleep number Smart bed?

[Danielle Cybulski]

Can I make my side softer?

[Instacart Advertisement]

Can I make my side firmer?

[Dr. Andrew Latham]

Can we sleep cooler?

[Sleep Number Advertisement]

Sleep number does that cools up to eight times faster and lets you choose your ideal comfort on either side. Your Sleep number setting. And now, during our Black Friday sale, save 50% on the Sleep Number Limited Edition Smart Bed plus free home delivery when you add a base and Cyber Monday to find a store near you.

[Danielle Cybulski]

Visit sleepnumber.com before we go, as always.

We have Peter from medievalist.net telling us what's going on with the website this week. So what's new?

Peter hi Danielle.

[Peter]

We've got a couple of pieces that I want to mention. The first is by Chris Petit, who's doing his column on medieval Rome. This week. He's taking a look at charters and what they tell us about who was buying and selling property in the city. We also have this piece that looks at the death of the English King William II It's a fascinating account where William suffered this terrible nightmare that ignores the warning that comes with it and that leads to his ultimate demise. So we've got that this on medievalist.net this week.

[Danielle Cybulski]

Wow. Sounds good. Thanks, Peter. We'll talk to you next week.

If you've been enjoying the podcast so far, please do take a second before you go and rate us on whichever platform you're listening to. Your reviews will help other people know there's a place to find a friendly window into everyone's favorite time period. As always, you can follow medievalist.net on Facebook or Twitter edievalists and you can follow me, Danielle Cybulski across social media at 5min Medievalist or 5min Medievalist. You can grab a copy of my books the five Minute Medievalist and the five Minute Medievalist's Guide to Surviving the Zombie Apocalypse on Amazon. Our music is beyond the warriors by gifrog.

Thanks so much for listening and for giving us a review. Have yourself a great day.

[American Psychiatric Association Advertisement]

The sun shining, birds are singing, and all feels right in the world.

Until the season changes and then suddenly you lose your motivation to get out of bed. In fact, one in five people experience some form of depression no matter the season or time of year.

At the American Psychiatric association foundation, our vision is to build a mentally healthy nation for all because we want you to live your best life and be your best you all year round.

Please visit mentallyhealthynation.org to learn more.