> There is also a very interesting article by J. Riley-Smith entitled
> "Crusading as an act of love." (I do not remember where this appeared but
> it was published sometime in the mid-1970s). It shows how closely
> interlinked high expressions of spiritually were with violence, and
> demonstrates how for people in the middle ages there was not present our
> distinction between peace and love on one hand and violence and evil on
> the other.
cd you cite the reference please.
without having read the article, let me respond not to its argument, but
the summary proposed above.
i mentioned as an aside in another post that this struck me as false
anti-anachronism. it reminds me of Augustine's argument *coge intrare* all
those schismatics and heretics "for love's sake". i don't think any of
the objects of that "love" had any illusions about just what affections lay
behind
it, no matter how much those clerics who dominate our sources may have
convinced themselves that they were, indeed motivated by loving piety.
the diffference, then, between medieval and modern approaches to
"crusading love" is not that "medievals" did not make the kinds of
distinctions btw love and violence that we do (i personally don't think
we'd have either Judaism or Christianity if people back then were
incapable of distinguishing -- "love the stranger in your midst as
yourself for you know the heart of a stranger"), but that in the middle
ages there were important people, ones who had a powerful impact on what
was written and preserved, who were capable of convincing themselves that
there was no difference. to assume that everyone else, including the
objects of their affections, did not know is a conjectural step i am not
willing to take.
rlandes
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