Not Sharing the Holy Land: Attitudes towards Sacred Space in Papal Crusade Calls, 1095–1234

Abstract

ABSTRACT This article traces the attitudes expressed in papal crusade calls from 1095–1234 towards shared sacred space in the Holy Land which had a significant impact on thinking in the West and primed crusaders travelling to the East. The papacy’s conception of sacred space was one-dimensional, confrontational, and Eurocentric, promoting the idea of a binary conflict between Christians and Muslims and airbrushed diverse Eastern Christian communities to create a homogenous group. The themes of invasion and occupation of Christian holy sites by Muslims, and Islamic mockery and defilement of them, are staples of the genre, even when the holy places were in Frankish possession. However, through close comparison of the crusade calls, one can also trace subtler shifts in specific elements of the encyclical letters in response to the changing military and political context in the Levant and new devotional trends in the West.