ABSTRACT
Crusading expeditions and the concept of crusading have always been controversial. But why should the crusades have a negative image in the West as well as in those lands targeted by the crusaders? Many crusades ended in failure or enjoyed limited success, and after what was perceived as the God-given success of the First Crusade contemporaries could only assume that God had then withheld support. The loss of Jerusalem and, in the late thirteenth century, the expulsion of the crusaders from Syria and Palestine gave further pause for thought. Later centuries could see the crusades as the instrument of a corrupt papacy, an expression of superstition and barbarism or an opportunity for colonial exploitation. The crusades continue to hold political resonances in today’s world, and so what are we to make of the futility and atrocities or the heroism and piety that attended the crusading movement?
