SOURCE: “The Reckoning” in The Crusades, translated by Anne Carter, Pantheon Books, 1965, pp. 551–78.

In the essay that follows, Oldenbourg provides an overview of the history of the early Crusades, examining, in particular, the social effects of the warfare.

Legends and Disasters

The Crusades have been glorified, discussed, decried, and judged by historians in many different ways, but they remain a great episode in the history of Western Christendom. A close examination reveals them as an extremely complex phenomenon, and yet, unlike most great historical movements, they grew out of an idea which was simple enough in itself. In spite of everything, the Crusades are still the symbol of a glorious, disinterested—and even chimerical—undertaking. Since the eighteenth century there has been no shortage of detractors to insist that in these holy wars there was little enough altruism and on the contrary a great many atrocities, to say...