 The Crusades
The concept of crusading, which from 1095 onwards was seized upon by extraordinary numbers of Western European Christians of all social classes, at first appears to occupy the ‘conflict’ end of the ‘conflict and cohabitation’ spectrum. Certainly, there was a great deal of bitter warfare engendered by the crusaders’ desire to wage Holy War against Muslims. Yet at the same time, the establishment of a Christian crusader kingdom based at Jerusalem and the mass movement of tens of thousands of Christians from northern and western climes to the Middle East inevitably led to cohabitation and, to the benefit of European society, a diffusion of Near Eastern culture into the west. Politically, the impact of the crusades on the Near East is hard to underestimate. From fragmented and divided principalities emerged a coherent and united Islamic authority and the careers of those Muslim rulers most associated with this, N?r al–D?n and Saladin, show a skillful and conscious use of anti-crusading propaganda to achieve a measure of hegemony throughout the region. Although the crusades in their formal sense, as military expeditions directed by the Pope, petered out in the Early Modern period, their enduring legacy is very evident in modern political affairs. (Professor Ian Robinson, Dr Conor Kostick).
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