Political Points: Modern Lessons From Middle Ages

NY Times ^ | June 6, 2004 | John Tierney

[Pharmboy]

When he met at the Vatican with Pope John Paul II, a firm opponent of the war in Iraq, President Bush might have wished for a return to really Old Europe. In the medieval era he could have found a sympathetic ear in Rome. The medieval popes shared his desire to fight in the Middle East, as well as his frustration at getting European leaders to take up the cause.

The reluctance then, as now, involved domestic politics. European rulers were initially enthusiastic about papal calls for crusades and saw their cause not as imperialistic but as defensive, a war to win back Christian lands that had been conquered by the expanding Muslim empire. After initial successes in battle, though, they found that occupation was much tougher than conquest and that the years spent fighting to hold on to foreign lands left them vulnerable to rivals back home.

France's Louis VII returned from the Holy Land in 1149 to a truly serious domestic problem: his wife, Eleanor of Aquitaine, left him for England's Henry II and transferred her duchy, which covered nearly a third of France. Then Eleanor's son and heir, Richard the Lion-Hearted, lost the lands while he was off on his own crusade.

In the 13th century, France's Louis IX had to contend with a foretaste of today's Gallic antiwar movement when his advisers implored him to stop crusading and concentrate on his responsibilities at home. He ignored their advice, and lost his life when the plague swept through the crusaders' camp.

Venice's commercially minded rulers often managed to make crusading profitable by transporting pilgrims to the Holy Land, but other leaders found the wars a costly burden and political danger.

"Monarchs would often respond to the popes' calls by saying they were going on a crusade because that's what a good and chivalric Christian king should do," said Thomas F. Madden, a professor at St. Louis University who has written histories of the crusades. "There were numerous leagues - coalitions, we might call them today - gloriously proclaimed to fight the growing Turkish threat to Europe's east. But when it came down to actually crusading, frequently only the Venetians would show up, which meant that they faced the wrath of the Turks all alone. By the 15th century, none of the European monarchs trusted one another enough to leave their kingdoms to crusade."

Is there a lesson in this for modern-day warriors in the Middle East? "Fighting enemies abroad may be the right thing to do," Professor Madden said, "but beware of those at home who will punish you for it all the same."

[Pharmboy]

Tierney is one of the ONLY right-of-center writers on the Times' staff; it doesn't quite make him a Freeper, but he usually has some interesting things to say.