64 THE WEALTH AND POVERTY OF NATIONSThere are other, finer sentiments: the altruistic impulse, ideals of soli
darity, the golden rule. But such noble ideals, even when sanctioned
and propagated by organized religion, have been honored as much in
the breach as in the observance. Indeed, the loftiest principles, includ
ing religion, have all too often been invoked in the cause of aggression.
Only a deliberate decision by political authority, not merely to abstain
from such behavior but to prevent members of the group from en
gaging in it, can thwart this impulse.
No central authority existed in medieval Europe to take such a de
cision. On the contrary, competing sovereignties gave ample opportu
nity for private initiatives in war, and personal ties—feudal obligations
and loyalties—helped warriors mobilize for depredation. And so it was
that Europe, after centuries of compression and victimization at the
hands of invaders, passed to the attack from the eleventh century on.
The Crusades (First Crusade, 1096) were a manifestation of this out
ward push. They were promoted in part as a way of sublimating in
ternecine violence and turning it abroad. This was a bellicose society.
And what well-chosen adversaries! The Crusades renewed the
centuries-old war of Christendom against Islam, of faith against faith,
carried into the heart of the enemy camp. In theory, no cause was
more holy; but in the event and as always, the idealistic goal was cover
for arrant thuggery and cupidity. Three good days of rapine and mur
der in Greek Constantinople, with assorted massacres of Jews and
Christians along the way (but were Eastern Christians really Christ
ian?), were worth all the loot of Jerusalem and the precarious comforts
of petty kingdoms in Anatolia and Muslim Palestine.*
The crusader invasion did not take. The Muslims expelled the in
truders and have cherished that success ever since as a sign of divine
judgment. But the war against the Muslim was going on in other places
too, most notably in Spain, where over the course of the following cen
turies (final victory, Granada 1492) Christian kingdoms had increasing
success against a multitude of jealous successor sheikhdoms. These
were the debris of el-Andalus: "every qa'id and man of influence who
could command a score of followers or possessed a castle to retire to
in case of need, styled himself sultan and assumed the insignia of roy
alty."^8
In this intermittent combat, the Muslims were handicapped by their
dependence on Berber soldiers brought over from North Africa—mer-
* When the crusaders took Jerusalem in 1099, they sacked, raped, and massacred;
whereas when Saladin recaptured the city for the Muslims in 1187, he spared it.