Catholics' use of violence and the others in the age of Crusaders (XI.-XIII. centuries)

This thesis focuses on the ideology of violence used by the Roman Church in its relation with the "others" in the era of crusaders. The main elements of the study are the Catholic world and the Roman Church, and suitably geographical and periodic limitation has been made. The geographical borders of this thesis are similar to those of the Catholic Europe. As the period, the era of crusaders which is the most religiously enthusiastic period in the whole history of Christianity has been chosen. What we call the "others" consists of four elements that in fact the Roman Church considered and marked as others in this geography and this time period. The Roman Church developed and used a religious-based ideology of violence in its struggle against those four elements. This ideology of violence includes not only physical but also psychological severity. Furthermore this ideology of violence is not a monolithic structure. Because, it is essential to make a binary classification, one internal and other external, between the "others" which we say consists of four elements. The internal others were Orthodox Christians and Cathars, and external others were Jews and Muslims. The Church used different variants of this ideology of violence when attacking or trying to "discipline" the aforementioned groups; as from its point of view every component of the others required a unique "treatment". The Church was not alone in this process. Most of the time the secular powers of the Catholic Europe and many secular clerics supported of the Roman Church voluntarily throughout this process. With the ideology of violence that the Church and its collaborators theorized and did not fear put into practice, Muslims were restrained, the borders of Jews and Judaism were clarified, Orthodox Christians were controlled for a while and stubborn opponents like Cathars were eliminated.