T He Prophet Called Out of Need: the Vision of Jesus in the Crusader Imagination

Abstract

This study focuses on the perceptual changes in the Western world during the Crusades regarding the position of Jesus Christ in the campaigns. The process of Jesus involvement in the crusades to mobilise the Crusaders is a factuality that should be evaluated in the axis of the history of the prophets as the calling of a prophet to history. The anachronistic situation of Jesus did not cause any negativity in the functioning of the expeditions, and this conception developed through Jesus also has a nature that reveals the Christian ummah's view of its prophet. One of the most complex processes of medieval history is the Crusades and their importance on the East -West axis. The unifying aspect of Christianity, which served as a glue to unite continental Europe, laid the intellectual foundations of the Crusades. The Crusades, which took place intermittently between 1096 and 1291, took their basic dynamic from religious motivation, but also included an idea that desired worldly benefits and the riches of the East. The transformation of Western Europe after the fall of Rome and the destruction left by feudalism initiated a process of increasing the power of the church. In this process, Western Christianity's conception of history moved towards a certain end and concentrated on the idea that the power of God would be established on earth. This idea made the church the historical motor force and positioned Western Christians in a position of service to the state of God. Behind this idea, the desire to reach the riches of the East and the instinct to create material resources that continental Europe lacked prepared the ground for the realisation of the Crusades. The aim of the crusades launched by the papacy with the general Crusader sermon given at the Clermont council in 1095 was to take back Jerusalem from the Muslims, who were considered heathen, and to follow the way of Jesus Christ. The fact that Jerusalem was very important for Jesus Christ and the identification of Christian holy places with Jerusalem occupied a very important place in the liberation of Jerusalem. In particular, the emphasis on Jesus during the expeditions appointed a prophet to guide the Christian ummah during the expeditions. In this respect, Jesus Christ was called back into history to meet the needs of Western Christians. In the Crusader imagination, Jesus Christ's guiding, encouraging and, when necessary, rebuking aspect from the beginning of the campaigns turned into a positive contribution to the course of the campaigns. Here, the aspect of Jesus Christ that dynamised the expeditions is the fact that he guided the Crusaders on their way to the East. Jesus Christ, who held a very important place in the success of the Crusades and in the centring of religious motivation, claimed in the Crusades the ideas that he did not claim in his own age. This article analyses the place of Jesus in the Crusader imagination and the changes and transformations it underwent during the campaigns. The fact that Jesus, who was summoned in response to the needs of Western Europe, was able to dynamise the crusades and declare that the crusades were based on God, was also a source of legitimacy for the Crusaders. In the article, the source analysis and comparison method were used in coordination. In this way, the comparison of Crusader sources was made in a more reliable way. As a result, it was concluded that according to the Crusader imagination, Jesus Christ (the called Jesus) mobilised the Crusaders to save Christianity and its holy ones from the Muslim domination and attack in the East. Here, the fact that Jesus Christ was the guiding centre of power makes it obvious that the Crusaders indexed their legitimacy to God through Jesus and to Jerusalem as a settlement. From this point of view, it may be said that the Crusaders achieved a significant success in the Crusades with the fiction they developed through Jesus Christ.