Question
Why the hostility towards the Muslim world became more pronounced in the 11th century? Discuss the event that followed.
Solution
Normans, Hungarians and some slaves had been converted to Christianity, and the Muslims alone remained as the main enemy. There was also a change in the social and economic orgainsation of western Europe in the eleventh century which contributed to the hostility between Christendom and the Islamic world.
The clergy and the warrior class (the first two orders-see Themes 6) were making efforts to ensure political stability as well as economic growth based on agriculture and trade. The possibilities of military confrontation between competing feudal principalities and a return to economic organisation based on plunder were contained by the Peace of God movement.
All military violence was forbidden inside certain areas, near places of worship, during certain periods considered sacred in the Church’s calendar, and against certain vulnerable social groups, such as churchmen and the common people.
The Peace of God deflected the aggressive tendencies of feudal society away from the Christian world and towards the ‘enemies’ of God. It built a climate in which fighting against the infidels (non-believers) became not only permissible but also commendable.
