Few attempts had been made to defined the crusade before the first edition of this book was published in 1977 Since then a number of historians have built on Jonathan Riley Smith s original conclusions Now in its third edition this classic starting point for the study of the crusading movement has been thoroughly revised and up dated tin the light of recent research What Were the Crusades elucidates key ideas and institutions which have been negleced in the past demonstrates through the analysis of European campaigns that the movement was not confined to expeditions launched to recover the Holy Land or to defend the Christian presence there and shows that it continued in one form or another into the eighteenth century defines in detail the central concept of penitential war a form of Christian Holy War explores among other key aspects causes for crusading the legitimizing authority of the papacy recruitment and the nature of the crusade vow and its conseque