SOURCE: “Independent Criticism” in Criticism of the Crusade: A Study of Public Opinion and Crusade Propaganda, N.V. Swets & Zeitlinger, 1940, pp. 26–68.

In the following essay, Throop examines the songs and poetry written and performed in opposition to the Crusades and papal policy.

The political difficulties encountered by Gregory X in launching his crusade can hardly be realized unless one knows that there had grown up during the thirteenth century a profound distrust of papal motives. The hostility and cynical indifference revealed in the memoirs submitted to Gregory X were nothing new in 1274. Long before this the papacy had received violent criticisms of its crusade policy, and, unlike Gregory's memoirs, such criticism had been entirely unsolicited. From the beginning of the thirteenth century to the time of Gregory X one may find the severest indictments of the Church for promoting war among Christians, wars dignified by the names of...