Crusading as an Act of Vengeance, 1095-1216 * Crusades: Medieval Worlds in Conflict

Abstract

Susanna Throop’s monograph offers a careful consideration of the idea of spiritual vengeance in the long thirteenth century, taking Pope Innocent III’s death in 1216 as her closing point. It is a book full of interesting insights and thought-provoking evidence. Although I found the central thesis a little over-stated and a number of important points undeveloped, I nevertheless greatly enjoyed reading this lucid book which makes a valuable contribution to crusading studies. Throop claims that ‘as a result of this study, it is clear that, although the idea of crusading as vengeance did draw upon what we call secular values, it was also firmly rooted in religious ideas of divine justice and vengeance as moral punishment’. There is much merit in this claim, but arguably less in the one stating ‘Crusading was interpreted as an act of vengeance not so much because of its singularity in the minds of contemporaries, but because of the way it fitted into the overall worldview of western European culture at that time’.