Crusades and Violence

Megan Cassidy-Welch is Professor of Medieval and Early Modern Studies and Director of the Medieval and Early Modern Studies Research Program at the Australian Catholic University.

Cassidy-Welch [...] concentrates on the 12th and 13th centuries and employs in her introduction and three chapters a cultural and social framework through the prisms of physical space, the body, emotions, and memory. Topics include the channeling of violence through the Peace and Truce of God movements, piety and spiritual benefits as distinctive elements of crusading, the protection of missionaries and other Christians as justifications for violence, the feminization of sacred spaces, supposedly promised lands as the locations of violence, the othering of enemies, the corporality of both inflictors and victims of violence, retributive violence, Christ-centered self-mortification and martyrdom, and the interplay of violence and religious apocalypticism. Crusade violence had various psychological, celebratory, communicative, and performative dimensions. Cassidy-Welch even attempts to link her inquiries with a brief consideration of the echoes of crusade violence in medievalism since the 19th century. Her aim is to avoid overarching, summative conclusions while prompting further inquiry and discussion.

• Chapter 1: Spaces of ViolenceChapter 2: Bodies and ViolenceChapter 3: Memories, Emotions, and Aftermaths of ViolenceFurther Reading