i'm starting to conceive of an idea of the crusades as being a papal scheme to rid themselves of these bothersome vikings. that's not inconsistent with the defense hypothesis as it initially applied (pushing the defense hypothesis doesn't negate the fact that viking raids eventually evolved into a highly profitable business (a type of proto-colonialism, really) or the fact that viking settlements were eventually co-opted by the church). it does, however, align the strategy with centuries worth of imperial policy that played tribe off against each other as diversion tactics. the roman empire could not have survived until 1453 without the use of these tactics, which the pope would have been well aware of.
there's some early hints of this. there was a norman invasion of italy around 1000 that resulted in over a century of just random, pointless fighting on the peninsula. of course, italy wasn't united as a nation until the nineteenth century. the south of italy was, for many centuries, a part of the eastern empire. in this period, sicily was occupied by arabs. so, this was the imperial policy: pay the annoying normans to attack the usurping arabs. that would have the dual purpose of getting them out of southern italy and "liberating" sicily from arab occupation. the next part of the process would be to "civilize" the normans. the end goal is the re-establishment of imperial authority over both sicily and southern italy. this particular policy was a failure, but there are far more successful examples of this kind of "barbarian management", especially in the areas around the black sea.
the italian normans revolted against the emperor and found themselves fiefs of the pope, instead (maintaining independence of both empires in this period was not a realistic goal; it was possible to play them off against each other, or to switch sides outright, but true independence couldn't actually happen). they ended up launching attacks directly on the emperor, and were eventually one of the dominant forces in the early crusades. but, from the papal perspective, these were all ultimately campaigns that were engineered by the papal emperor to extend the control of roman influence.
nor did the viking raids on europe ever really end. vikings resettled in the south and slowly "civilized", but there continued to be viking descendants that would "revert" to paganism and go back to plundering, for the simple reason that it was profitable. you could civilize some of them but not all of them. there needed to be a way to get rid of those that wouldn't assimilate.
if i'm pulling something worthwhile between the lines, it's really a rather brilliant tactic. it might not apply to the later crusades, or some of the more targeted ones (like the albigensian crusade). nor do i think i'm really colouring that far out of the lines. i'm sure i'm not the first person who has pulled the idea out.
but it does cast a slightly different twist on the history. reading through modern histories, i've been really disappointed. the narrative about religious piety is still there. it's only mildly rationalized. i get the impression that nobody really wants to jettison it completely, that historians sort of like the simplicity of it - or are perhaps even racist enough to continue to pick sides.
realizing the nature of the imperial policy is a step in properly secularizing the history. and it's just through simple analogy to the well understood manipulations carried out by fifteen hundred years of imperial policy.
i'll have more specific arguments on my page.
of course, it's also the same strategy of "divide and conquer" that the americans are using in the middle east.
i'll admit a peeve of mine has been, for many years, the way the crusades are presented in colonialist narratives. it's like history began with islam. the reality is that northern africa and the levant were colonized by arabs that don't have a history in the region before the year 700, and that the turkish invasions (and this isn't to discount a more substantial narrative of turkish colonialism over arabs and greeks alike) are even more recent. there's a thousand years of greek and roman history in the region, which contributed to a very real ethnogenesis of greco-syrians and others. the crusades were always thought of as a process of liberating the region from muslim rule, which was alien to the region; that is to say that it was the arabs that were thought of as invaders. further, suggesting that phoenicians and assyrians were arabs is disingenuous to say the least. the struggle over the region was between iran and europe. arabs were outside of this conflict, except in the sense that they were used as mercenary forces. and their geographical extent did not extend out of the arabian peninsula.
to an extent, that's a quibble. it's a peeve, but a quibble.
more substantial in context is the idea of the pope playing off what he would have seen as two distinct groups of enemies (vikings, or maybe germans more generally, and arabs) to reconstruct a historical empire. you have to collapse the narrative about the crusaders stealing muslim lands to get to that point - because the crusaders would not have acknowledged that the areas were muslim lands. and, unfortunately, they're right, because arabs are not indigenous to the area.
when there were revolts in the area during the roman period, they mostly had to do with heretical versions of christianity. egypt and the levant revolted repeatedly over something called "monophysitism" that i suppose is something roughly approaching unitarianism.
it's interesting to even note that a substantial number of roman writers just thought the muslims were heretical christians.
but it's not like there were arab revolts in the region under roman rule. arabs didn't live in these areas.
to be clear: what i'm reacting against is ethno-centric historical revisionism, i don't want it to seem like i'm replacing it with more of the same. so, consider two areas that were recovered by european forces: spain and sicily. people that know their history know that both of these ares were under muslim rule for a few centuries. but that's just considered a blip in time, a temporary result of the muslim armies over-extending themselves. spain is an integral part of any narrative of christian, western europe.
the reality is that, had the crusaders been successful (and the crusaders were not nice people concerned about liberating the area and enforcing human rights, as mentioned they were mostly viking mercenaries that were interested in plundering and setting up hierarchies that reported back to the emperor in rome, and they were resisted not just by the muslim population but also by the christians that they were there to liberate) the levant would be viewed largely the same way as spain - an area with a deeply embedded roman history that was temporarily occupied by arab muslim invaders.
nor is it like the syrian greek population just vanished. it's still there. lebanese dna is overwhelmingly "phoenician". and a lot of palestinians are ethnically "samaritan", which has an ethnic history closer to hebrew than arab. even the indigenous coptic egyptians are still out there, but they've been heavily colonized.
it's just a question of correcting the narrative. i'm not standing up for the crusaders. but the "poor muslims invaded unprovoked by rampaging europeans" narrative is just wrong.
it's more like "the pope playing off barbarian against barbarian in a failed attempt to reassert historical imperial boundaries".