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Church History: Chapter 9 - Crusades and the Inquisition
N & D:_______________________
I. The Crusades
A. The Crusades were Medieval military expeditions organized by the Church for the liberation of
the Holy Land and the defense of Christianity.
1. There were eight crusades during 1096-1270.
B. Reasons for the Crusades
1. In the West – to bring about Christian unity…to end the feudal wars.
2. In the East – The East needed help because Muslims were expanding into their territory.
a. The West saw this as an opportunity to help their Christian brothers and sisters in the
east and hopefully end the Great/Eastern Schism.
3. Both the West and the East wanted to stop Islamic expansion.
a. By 1071 two-thirds of the Christian world had been taken over by Islam and the
result was Christians were being persecuted by Muslims.
1). By 1095 Muslims occupied the Holy Land and was hostile towards
Christians…making it difficult or impossible to make a pilgrimage to the Holy
Land.
4. Personal Reasons to go on a crusade. Some reasons….
a. Penance for sins and reduction in paying taxes.
C. Key figures of the crusades.
1. Pope Blessed Urban II began the Crusades in 1095 by organizing a Christian Army made up
of western Europeans.
2. St. Francis of Assisi went on the 5th crusade (1218) in attempt to convert the Muslims.
a. The Franciscans became the official caretaker of the Holy Land.
D. The Result of the Crusades
1. The First Crusade – was a long shot. It had no leaders, no organization, etc.
a. …it was simply thousands of warriors marching deep into enemy territory,
committed to a common cause.
b. It was miraculously successful.
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c. Restored – Nicea, Antioch, and Jerusalem.
2. The Fourth Crusade 1204
a. Pope Innocent III directed the crusaders to the Holy Land.
1). They ran into financial difficulty.
2). The crusaders attacked Constantinople without Pope’s permission in order to
pay the debt they owed Venice.
3). In the midst of this chaos the crusaders sacked Constantinople, not even
sparing churches.
a). This outraged those living in the East and was the final straw in the
Great Schism.
3. Overall positive results of the crusades.
a. Held back Muslim expansion for 400 years.
b. Westerners brought back work of Aristotle.
E. Other Facts about the Crusades
1. Crusading was understood as an ‘act of love’ in this case, the love of one’s
neighbor, those in the East.
2. The intention of the Crusades was NOT to force the conversion of the Muslim world.
a. Muslims who lived in Crusader-won territories were generally allowed to retain
their property, livelihood, and religion.
I. The Inquisition
A. The Inquisition was a special court or tribunal appointed by the Catholic Church to discover
and suppress heresy and to punish heretics.
1. The Inquisition mainly took place within two countries, France and Spain.
a. Let us first look at the Inquisition in France.
B. The Inquisition in France (external threat)
1. Background…what was going on in France during early 13th century.
a. The Albigensian Heresy.
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1). Albigensians believed in living a strict austere life & saw the soul as good and
the body as bad. (They were a form of Gnosticism).
2). The Albigensians were hostile toward Christianity, and rejected the Mass, the
Sacraments, and the ecclesiastical hierarchy.
3). They also rejected feudal government and refused to obey by oaths and
allegiances.
a). The result…both civil and religious authorities in Europe saw this
heresy as more than a theological disagreement, but as a destructive
illness that would have devastating effects on both the Church and
‘Christian society’.
2. In 1208 Pope Innocent III called for a ‘crusade’ to suppress the Albigensians in France.
a. He justified his actions by saying, “If a crusade were holy which aimed at delivering
the Lord’s Sepulcher from the infidels, was it not as holy when it took up arms in
defense of the priesthood, Sacraments, the Commandments themselves, and the
social order?”
b. The result = extreme acts of purging took place, such as burning at the stake by the
state, e.g., French kings and emperors
3. Pope Gregory IX, in 1231, established the Inquisition as a means of detection and purgation
of heresy.
a. The Holy Father appointed a number of Papal Inquisitors, mostly Dominicans and
Franciscans to serve as independent judges free from any secular interest and
influence.
3. The Verdict
a. The severest punishment given by the Church was excommunication.
b. A more terrible fate awaited the heretic when judged by a secular court.
1). Civil authorities dealt much more severely with heretics than did the papal
inquisitors.
2). State punishment could be life-imprisonment or burning at the stake.
a). At the height of the Inquisition in Southern France in the 13th
century, three people were burned for heresy per year.
b). Although the Inquisition helped stem heresy some injustice did occur.
But we need to remember two things.
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#1. The Christians during the Inquisitions saw heresy as a threat
to one’s immortal soul…a threat they took very seriously.
#2. Every age must be evaluated in light of it’s own historical
circumstances.
C. The Inquisition in Spain (Internal threat).
1. Spain was newly established Christian kingdom, under King Ferdinand and Isabella.
a. They instituted the Spanish Inquisition in 1480 in order to investigate Jewish and
Muslim converts to Christianity suspected of secretly practicing their former
religions.
1). Pope Sixtus IV believed that this situation in Spain was a legitimate threat to
Catholicism and approved the Inquisition in 1478.
2. There were many Jews and Muslims who pretended to be Christian or non-threatening to
Christians while in reality worked to bring down Christianity.
a. Therefore, the Spanish Inquisition was to called to help discover and stop those forces
who were working against Christianity and Christian Society.
b. * The Inquisition had authority only over baptized Christians.
3. The process and punishments were similar to that which took place in France.
4. “No one knows how many people were executed during the Inquisition, but recent studies
off court records suggest that less than two percent of those accused of heresy were
condemned to death. This rate of execution was far less than that of the European civil
courts of that time.” Pg 349.
* One last note- Death for heresy existed during the Greeks, with the Jews, etc…this was not a new concept.
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