The results of the Crusades

The entire structure of European society changed during the 12th and 13th centuries, and there was a time when this change was attributed largely to the Crusades. Historians now, however, tend to view the Crusades as only one, albeit significant, factor in Europe’s development. It is likely that the disappearance of old families and the appearance of new ones can be traced in part to the Crusades, but generalizations must be made with caution. It should, moreover, be remembered that, while some Crusaders sold or mortgaged their property, usually to ecclesiastical foundations, others bequeathed it to relatives. The loss of life was without doubt considerable; many Crusaders, however, did return to their homes.

The sectors acquired by burgeoning Italian cities in the Crusader states enabled them to extend their trade with the Muslim world and led to the establishment of trade depots beyond the Crusade frontiers, some of which lasted long after 1291. The transportation they provided was significant in the development of shipbuilding techniques. Italian banking facilities became indispensable to popes and kings. Catalans and Provençals also profited, and, indirectly, so did all of Europe. Moreover, returning Crusaders brought new tastes and increased the demand for spices, Oriental textiles, and other exotic fare. But such demands can also be attributed to changing lifestyles and commercial growth in Europe itself.

The establishment of the Franciscan and Dominican friars in the East during the 13th century made possible the promotion of missions within the Crusade area and beyond. Papal bulls granted special facilities to missionary friars, and popes sent letters to Asian rulers soliciting permission for the friars to carry on their work. Often the friars accompanied or followed Italian merchants, and, since the Mongols were generally tolerant of religious propaganda, missions were established in Iran, the Asian interior, and even China. But, since Islamic law rigidly prohibited propaganda and punished apostasy with death, conversions from Islam were few. The Dominican William of Tripoli had some success, presumably within the Crusaders’ area; he and his colleague Riccoldo di Monte Croce both wrote perceptive treatises on Islamic faith and law. Other missionaries usually failed, and many suffered martyrdom. In the 14th century the Franciscans were finally permitted to reside in Palestine as caretakers for the holy places but not as missionaries.

The Crusades, especially the Fourth, so embittered the Greeks that any real reunion of the Eastern and Western churches was, as a result, out of the question. Nonetheless, certain groups of Eastern Christians came to recognize the authority of the pope, and they were usually permitted to retain the use of their own liturgies. Although the majority of the missions that grew out of the Crusades collapsed with the advance of the Ottoman Turks in the Middle East in the mid-14th century, some of the contacts that the Western church had made with its Eastern brethren remained.

Unlike Sicily and Spain, the Latin East did not, it seems, provide an avenue for the transmission of Arabic science and philosophy to the West. But the Crusades did have a marked impact on the development of Western historical literature. From the beginning there was a proliferation of chronicles, eyewitness accounts, and later more ambitious histories, in verse and in prose, in the vernacular as well as in Latin.

There can be little doubt that the Crusades slowed the advance of Islamic power, although how much is an open question. At the very least, they bought Europe some much-needed time. Without centuries of Crusading effort, it is difficult to see how western Europe could have escaped conquest by Muslim armies, which had already captured the rest of the Mediterranean world.