Holy Warriors (36 page)

Carved ivory cover ornamented with turquoises, rubies, and emeralds and showing a king carrying out the six acts of mercy specified in the Book of Matthew. Taken from the Psalter of Queen Melisende, probably presented to her by her husband, King Fulk of Jerusalem. The bird is a falcon, a pun on Fulk’s name.
(The British Library)

Saladin’s mausoleum in Damascus. Next to the original medieval tomb (left) stands a marble structure presented by Kaiser Wilhelm II after his visit of 1898.
(dbimages/Alamy)

Seal of Richard the Lionheart.
(Reproduced with the permission of Dr. Emmett Sullivan)

Seal of Emperor Frederick II, ruler of Germany, Sicily, and Jerusalem.
(Interfoto/Alamy)

Aerial view of the Hospitaller castle of Krak des Chevaliers, southern Syria. This 1920s photograph shows locals’ houses still within the fortifications, prior to their removal by the French.
(Institut Français d’Archéologie, Beirut)

The burning at the stake of the Grand Master of the Templars, James of Molay, and Geoffrey of Charney on March 18, 1314, on a small island in the River Seine.
(The British Library)

Portrait of Sultan Mehmet II, conqueror of Constantinople, 1453.
(The London Art Archive/Alamy)

State visit to Jerusalem of Kaiser Wilhelm II of Germany in October 1898.
(Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division)

Contemporary cartoon from
Punch
, drawing a parallel between Richard the Lionheart’s failure to take Jerusalem during the Third Crusade and General Allenby’s entry into the city in 1917.
(Reproduced with the permission of Punch Limited,
www.punch.co.uk
)

Poster for
Pershing’s Crusaders
, the first official film report of the U.S. Army in Europe, 1918.
(Peter Newark Pictures/The Bridgeman Art Gallery)

The Jarrow Crusade, 1938.
(Getty Images)

A U.S. Army sergeant, identified as Kelly, thirty-eight, from Chipley, Florida, steps on a carpet depicting Saddam Hussein and Saladin, at the Office of Reconstruction and Humanitarian Assistance (ORHA) base in Baghdad, May 11, 2003.
(Reuters/Corbis)

Without hesitation Innocent called for a crusade: “In the name of Christ and in my name . . . drive the heretics out from the virtuous.”
¹⁰
Thus the weapon that had been used so frequently against God’s enemies overseas and at the edges of Christendom was deployed in the heartlands of western Europe against a people that were, of a sort, Christians (they approved of the New Testament) and who certainly lived among, and were supported by, Catholics. This marked another extension in crusading theory, although the familiar justification of a defensive war was fulfilled by the threat Catharism posed to the Church: “Attack the followers of heresy more fearlessly even than the Saracens—since they are more evil—with a strong hand and an outstretched arm. Forward then soldiers of Christ! Forward brave recruits to the Christian army! Let the universal cry of grief of the Holy Church
arouse you, let pious zeal inspire you to avenge this monstrous crime against your God!”
¹¹
The Cathars were rebels against God, dangerous adversaries sent by the Devil to ensnare the faithful and lead them to hell: the contagion of heresy had to be torn out from society and proper order restored.