§ 48. CHARACTER AND CAUSES OF THE CRUSADES. 217
Crusaders inarching to Jerusalem that the journey should be counted as a substitute for penance.1 Eugenius, 1146, went farther, in distinctly promising the reward of eternal life. The virtue of the reward was extended to the parents of those taking part in Crusades. Innocent III. included in the plenary indulgence those who built ships and con tributed in any way, and promised to them "increase of eternal life." God, said the abbot Guibert, chronicler of the First Crusade, invented the Crusades as a new way for the laity to atone for their sins, and to merit salvation.2
The rewards were not confined to spiritual privileges. Eugenius III., in his exhortations to the Second Crusade, placed the Crusaders in the same category with clerics before the courts in the case of most offences.3 The kings of France, from 1188 to 1270 joined with the Holy See in granting to them temporal advantages, exemption from debt, freedom from taxation and, the payment of interest. Com plaint was frequently made by the kings of France that the Crusaders committed the most offensive crimes under cover of ecclesiastical protection. These complaints called forth from Innocent IV., 1246, and Alexander IV., 1260, instruc tions to the bishops not to protect such offenders. William of Tyre, in his account of the First Crusade, and probably reading into it some of the experiences of a later date, says (Bk. 1. 16), "Many took the cross to elude their creditors."4
If it is hard for us to unite the idea of war and bloodshed with the achievement of a purely religious purpose, it must
1 Quicumque pro sola devotione . . . ad liberandam ecclesiam Dei Je rusalem profectus fuerit, iter illud pro omni panitentia reputetur, Gottlob, 72 sqq. ; Mirbt. Quellen, 114.
2 Gesta, I. 1; Bee., IV. 124.
8 Lea, Hist, of Inquis., I. 44, says, " Crusaders were released from earthly as well as heavenly justice by being classed with clerks and subjected only to spiritual justice."
4 See Origin of the Temporal Privileges of Crusaders, by Edith C. Bramhall, " Am Jour, of Theol." 1901, pp. 279-292, and Gottlob, Kreuzablass, pp. 140 sqq.
218 THE MIDDLE AGES. A.D. 1049-1294.
be remembered that no such feeling prevailed in the Middle Ages. The wars of the period of Joshua and the Judges still formed a stimulating example. Chrysostom, Augustine, and other Church Fathers of the fifth century lifted up their voices against the violent destruction of heathen temples which went on in Egypt and Gaul ; but whatever compunction might have been felt for the wanton slaying of Saracens by Christian armies in an attitude of aggression, the compunction was not felt when the Saracens placed themselves in the position of holding the sacred sites of Palestine.
Bernard of Clairvaux said, pagans must not be slain if they may by other means be prevented from oppressing the faith ful. However, it is better they should be put to death than that the rod of the wicked should rest on the lot of the righteous. The righteous fear no sin in killing the enemy of Christ. Christ's soldier can securely kill and more safely die. When he dies, it profits him ; when he slays, it profits Christ. The Christian exults in the death of the pagan be cause Christ is glorified thereby. But when he himself is killed, he has reached his goal.1 The conquest of Palestine by the destruction of the Saracens was considered a legal act justified by the claim which the pope had by reason of the preaching of the Apostles in that country and its conquest by the Roman empire.2
In answer to the question whether clerics might go to war, Thomas Aquinas replied in the affirmative when the prize was not worldly gain, but the defence of the Church or the poor and oppressed.3
1 De militants templi, II., III., Migne, 182, 923 sq.
2 This is what Fulcher meant, Rec., III. 323, when he put into Urban's mouth the words mine jure contra barbaros pugnent qni olim fnttres dimicabant. Two hundred years later Alvarus Pelagius made the same argument: quamvis Saraceni Palestinam possident, juste tamen exinde depelluntur, etc. See Schwab, Joh. Gerson, 2(3.
3 Summa, II. (2), 188, 3 ; Migne, III., 1366 sq. : militare propter aUquid mundanum est omni reliyioni contrarium, non autem militare propter obsequium Dei, etc. He adds that clerics going to war must act under the com mand of orinces or of the Church, and not at their own suggestion.