Religious Wars

raah! · 25-07-2010 5:51pm #1

Ok, so everyone has heard the arguments "religion causes wars". When you ask people which wars they usually cite things like "the troubles" or "the crusades".

What small knowledge I have of these two particular cases suggests that religion was not the immediate cause of them. With regard to the crusades, if they are seen as separate to the muslim invasions preceeding them, then they would be more appropriately described as a reaction to the muslim invasions, which seem to have originated religiously. I'm sure there are some people who would argue against these being caused by muslims, and I'd love to hear those arguments. But again, I appeal to the superior knowledge of history possesed by the posters of this forum

So does anyone know of any wars actually caused by things like religious disagreements, and which are your favourites etc.?

For the record, I do not think that people shouting about god before they charge into battle constitutes a religious war.

Denerick · 25-07-2010 8:30pm

The first crusade was not a religious war. At least its origins were not over religion.

Pope Urban II received a plea for help from the Byzantine Emperor Alexius Comnenus who was in danger of being over-run by the Turks. The battle of Manzikert in 1071 destroyed the military-civilian complex that had been such an established force in Near Asia for centuries. Byzantine manpower had suffered dramatically in the region and the war was the final nail in the coffin. The Byzantines thus retreated to major fortresses and port cities, abandoning the interior in effect to the marauders.

Urban seized an opportunity to put an end to centuries of internecine warfare in Europe. It is unclear what his real motivation was but originally he had been asked to organise a small organised expedition from some Christian Prince, to aid the troubled Byzantines. What they got was in effect a human migration of epic proportions. Urbans motivation was not to conquer the Turks but instead it was a grand adventure for the papacy - the ultimate objective being above all to assert the primacy of Rome, reunite the church with the east, and to marshal the Princes of Europe under the banner of the church.

I may be cynical, but the religious element was primarily aimed at the uneducated peasant. Thousands upon thousands joined up and most of the poorest travelled with Peter the Hermit on a doomed trek east, where they met their calamitous fate on the outskirts of Nicea.

Calling the Crusades a religious war is only valid if you consider that the war was over one group hoping to achieve religious supremacy - not the political supremacy that was so obviously the primary objective of all of the Princes and of the Pope.

raah! · 25-07-2010 9:12pm

Yes I agree with that, the reason I included it with the troubles is that I consider neither to be religiously motivated. But we've all heard "religion causes all wars etc", and my goal in starting this thread was to learn about such wars.

Edit: Also I might be completely wrong about the turkish invasions of byzantium being religiously motivated, it seems that they are not now. But there was a big muslim expansion at one point in history... it's been at least 5 years for me since I've studied any of this though.

Denerick · 25-07-2010 9:38pm

raah! wrote: »

Yes I agree with that, the reason I included it with the troubles is that I consider neither to be religiously motivated. But we've all heard "religion causes all wars etc", and my goal in starting this thread was to learn about such wars.

I know. That knee jerk explanation gets my goat too.

My personal rule of thumb is that while religion may be a motivating factor in perpetuating conflict, and in maintaining public support, it is rarely if ever the actual root cause of war.

Edit: Also I might be completely wrong about the turkish invasions of byzantium being religiously motivated, it seems that they are not now. But there was a big muslim expansion at one point in history... it's been at least 5 years for me since I've studied any of this though.

The Turks migrated from central Asia and over-ran the eastern frontier of the Byzantine Empire. It is merely one migration of many, that go back even further than the most famous in the ancient era (The Huns) to the most famous in the medieval era (The Mongols)

The ethnic Greeks survived in large numbers on the Anatolian peninsula for centuries until the tragedies of the 1920s (The ill fated population exchanges)

Denerick · 25-07-2010 9:39pm

Probably one of the more concrete examples of an overtly religious war would be the French wars of religion.

A rather confusing example would be the thirty years war, as it is difficult to discern where politics and religion differentiate.

raah! · 25-07-2010 10:10pm

Ah right, Those have something to do with joan of ark do they not? I'll look it up anyway, thanks for the replies.

I think when Islam started there was something in koran which told them all to run off on a big campaign.

For me it seems unlikely that people would contradict their own precepts in order to defend them.

Something I always found funny aswell from middle ages war fare is preists and monks overcoming things in the bible about "spilling blood" by using bludgeonin weapons rather than swords or spears

mathepac · 25-07-2010 11:01pm

raah! wrote: »

Ah right, Those have something to do with joan of ark do they not?...

No. Joan was the tail-end of the 100 years war where the French wanted the English out of France and in the pre-Reformation times they were all nominally at least, Catholic / Pauline.

In Joan's case there is sometimes confusion as she was tried in an ecclesiastical court and burned as a heretic due to constantly harping on about visions and voices and her claims of a channel to God bypassed the established route to God via churchmen.

Thirty years or so after the teenager's death at the hands of her own countrymen, Charles VII, who owed his French throne to her, ordered a review by the Pope and she was officially recognised as a martyr. She was canonised in the early 20th century.

Denerick · 26-07-2010 12:43am

I think its now pretty safe to assume that Joan was likely a paranoid schizophrenic. I don't know how the French will take that though

fontanalis · 26-07-2010 3:33am

The religion is the cause of war meme is a bit overdone, religion is usually used as the justification or can be a dividing factor. People say the Northern Ireland troubles were over religion but they weren't fighting over the transubstantiation.

Tabnabs · 26-07-2010 1:35pm

There's a school of thought that Charlemagne's campaigns against the Saxons was religiously motivated. He certainly used force to convert the vanquished to christianity and subsequently executed any who were found not to follow christianity.

Manach · 27-07-2010 11:55am

There might be some justicifation for Dyflin's post - however (afaik) Charlemagne & the Church did work together to blunt Islamic invasions along the Spanish border.

Tabnabs · 29-07-2010 10:51am

Actually, I have a another couple of fairly good example of religious wars;

The Teutonic Knights;

In 1226, Konrad I, Duke of Masovia in north-eastern Poland, appealed to the Knights to defend his borders and subdue the pagan Baltic Prussians, allowing the Teutonic Knights use of Chełmno Land (Culmerland) as a base for their campaign. This being a time of widespread crusading fervor throughout Western Europe, Hermann von Salza considered Prussia a good training ground for his knights for the wars against the Muslims in Outremer.

In fact the poor old pagan Prussian's got a very hard time from the christian neighbours and were subjected to many attacks and conversion attempts.

Conquest of Prussia

Then there was Olaf Trygvason: aka Olaf the Holy, aka Olaf the Traitor, he "unified" Norway for personal and political gain after having a dream the "god had a special mission for him".

Olaf I made it his priority to convert the country to Christianity using all means at his disposal. By destroying temples and torturing and killing pagan resisters he succeeded in making every part of Norway at least nominally Christian. Expanding his efforts to the Norse settlements in the west the kings' sagas credit him with Christianizing the Faroes, Orkney, Shetland, Iceland and Greenland.

InTheTrees · 29-07-2010 9:08pm

it would be interesting to compare the west to the far east.

How many of their wars were motivated by religion?

Was there ever a Taoist war? The Shaolin monks were legendary warriors so they werent afraid of violence.

Perhaps the Boxer rebellion could be considered a religious war?

Manach · 30-07-2010 11:51pm

I'd have though the Boxer Rebellion was more a protest against Western encrochment and protected treaty cities. However, I think the murder of German clergymen was a catalyst for stages of it.

InTheTrees · 31-07-2010 12:08am

Manach wrote: »

I'd have though the Boxer Rebellion was more a protest against Western encrochment and protected treaty cities. However, I think the murder of German clergymen was a catalyst for stages of it.

And the Boxers themselves had some strong beliefs about immunity from bullets through prayer.

loveissucide · 10-08-2010 2:30pm

The Thirty Year's War is an example. Whilst not caused entirely be religion, the idea of "His Domain,His Faith" in which a ruler could deny religous freedom at a whim would have been a key factor in the rebellion of Protestant states in Bohemia and Germany, and a reason that Sweden entered the war.

Eliot Rosewater · 29-08-2010 11:35pm

When considering the Thirty Years War in this context, would it be fair to say that it was motivated not by religion per se but rather by the princes taking a nationalistic attitude towards their religion? That is, thinking "We're all Protestants so we must band together" and "They're all Catholics, they are different to us". Hence forming the distinct groups necessary for any kind of nationalistic conflict.

And one of the causes of the war, the militant determination for one group to enforce their religion on another, isn't so much religious as it is plainly authoritarian.

I find this "religion caused this war" sloganeering by anti-theists to be far too simplistic and far too opportunistic.

To raah!, Denrick and other readers of non-historical stuff, George Orwell's essay Notes On Nationalism is a very good discussion of nationalistic tendency applied to things like ones church or ones hometown. I'll quote some, sure.

By 'nationalism' I mean first of all the habit of assuming that human beings can be classified like insects and that whole blocks of millions or tens of millions of people can be confidently labelled 'good' or 'bad'. But secondly--and this is much more important--I mean the habit of identifying oneself with a single nation or other unit, placing it beyond good and evil and recognising no other duty than that of advancing its interests.

In the case of this discussion the "units" are different religious beliefs.

Einhard · 30-08-2010 7:12am

Dyflin wrote: »

There's a school of thought that Charlemagne's campaigns against the Saxons was religiously motivated. He certainly used force to convert the vanquished to christianity and subsequently executed any who were found not to follow christianity.

The evidence doesn't really support that thesis though. There was certainly a religious component to the war, but the forced conversions and draconian penalties prescribed for offences against the new faith, had more to do with achieving the political subjugation of the Saxons, than any religious zealotry in its in right.

Denerick · 30-08-2010 9:16am

Eliot Rosewater wrote: »

When considering the Thirty Years War in this context, would it be fair to say that it was motivated not by religion per se but rather by the princes taking a nationalistic attitude towards their religion? That is, thinking "We're all Protestants so we must band together" and "They're all Catholics, they are different to us". Hence forming the distinct groups necessary for any kind of nationalistic conflict.

Cuius regio, eius religio

Probably the most important sentance of early modern European history. It means, 'whose region, his religion'. It was the compromise reached at the Peace of Augsburg half a century before the 30 years war, that allowed individual princes to decide whether to become Lutheran or Catholic. Should they convert to the other side, they were to forfeit their lands. Very little tolerance to either other side was permitted. It ensured that Lutheranism became a political agent, independent of Rome, and laid the way for the development of Protestant Leagues and all the other internal fratricide that led to the 30 year's war.

When you begin to dig into history at all, its very difficult to find any war uniquely motivated by religion. Though all are motivated by power.

Religious Wars

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